Women are clear that this lack of support is not only passive resistance. Many, many women face violence from men if they date to go to school.

• I am sitting here thinking of some of the people that have stopped coming. Very often it's husbands... Beat them up. Tell them that they can't go. Don't want them to be any more than what they are... The wife isn't waiting on them hand and foot because she isn't there for two to four hours in the day.

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• I think violence in the home causes so many things. I think it causes a lack of self-worth, a lack of self-esteem, a lack of confidence. If you're being told you're stupid or worthless for so many years than you start to believe it. I really believe that if somebody says something often enough they start to believe it. I think every time they're abused, it's "How can I go back to school. I'm stupid. How can I make that effort to get out there, that first step to get out there."

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• I'd like to see a women's group meeting- but I don't know how to get it going-about violence and sexual abuse against women. A support group...

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• Low education does help keep you where you are. That's why men become so threatened when you start to finish your program and you might look at some kind of training. You may not be so dependent.

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• Often when women start back to school that's when their husbands start to beat them, or begin again, or it gets worse, or whatever. And-from talking to women who work in transition houses-when women come to a transition house then they start getting their lives together. One of the things that they do is go back to school. And often they go back to school and they go back to their husband. [The two things] get really closely linked... And so it's an issue that needs to get dealt with...That's one of the things where having all-women classes would be better.

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• Personally, I would like someone who deals with women's problems like violence in the home. I mean, women come in here with no self-esteem. Now, we can pretty much work with that... But we don't know how to deal with violence in the home. I mean, they're not going to leave the home anyway. But to be able to tell them how they might deal with it if they are home...

  How to deal even with large families who are probably always bugging her because one or the other's always needing attention. The baby's always crying or she's having a hard time with the husband. Probably not violence on the part of beating, but nagging, or not there to help, or whatever. To be able to talk to and tell them, "This is maybe what you could do," or whatever.

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• This hasn't been brought up in the last three days and it's been on my mind because I have a lot of friends who have this problem. That there should be an assault counsellor because a lot of women have problems with that-sexual assault and other assault. There should be a counsellor like that. If you miss a day at school because of problems like that, problems at home like that, you can catch up because in some cases you can't.

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• This society has violated women on every level. Women are violated sexually, physically and economically and the violence that is associated with those three major areas for women, identify very special needs for women and there needs to be a society that will recognize that and allow things to fall in place. Never mind putting things in place. Let us put things in place, but don't block us from doing it.

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• When a woman becomes involved in a literacy program, when she's becoming more independent, the man is losing his grip and he's becoming more violent and more aggressive and attempting more control...

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