As others speak, however, they talk about the reasons they, or other women, want to take part in woman-positive, women-only programs, groups or activities.

Throughout the research process, women continued to discuss positive experiences they have had or the impact woman-positive activities have had on their program.

Some women shared longer stories about their experience with what actually happens when a women-only activity or program is put into place. There are no easy answers!

One story-partial as are all the stories here-true as are all the stories here-is potentially very different from other versions that might be told-and it's still the truth

When women begin to participate in woman-positive activities within their own programs, they talk of having to face the tensions between theory and practice.

When women organize woman-positive activities, they are confronted with the question: What about the men? Some women suggest the men need to look for the answers.

Some women talked about what happens when they start to talk with other women about their lives. For many of us, this process of consciousness can be painful.

Women in one program talked around a table together about what they see happening in their community-with other women and with themselves-as change begins to happen.

Women literacy workers often talk about the tensions they feel in the fine lines between their roles as teacher, counsellor, facilitator. How can they work responsibly?

For many women, the issue of responsibility of the literacy worker-to herself and to the women she works with-centres on the process of disclosure, of what we tell each other.

It would seem that, in the end, one of the consequences for literacy programs of honouring women's stories is that definitions of literacy are radically challenged.