Women talked about how they learned from the experience of making public statements about women's experience in literacy programs. Some of the women became stronger and more confident about all aspects of their lives. For other women, speaking out led to unexpected difficulties, including violence or the threat of violence within their programs. For still others, it led to personal disappointment and growth as they dealt with the response - or lack of response - from colleagues, family members, or friends.

Many women had to deal with their increased awareness of men's violence against women. They not only had to deal with it on a professional level- in their programs, classrooms, and during one-on-one tutoring sessions - they also had to deal with it in their personal lives. Robin Silverman Allcorn (Beat the Street) talked about discovering how angry she feels towards men. Although this anger has been tempered by the joy of discovering what it means to work with women in a women-only group, it also leaves her with what she called "professional suicide." Like several other women, she talked about wanting to continue in woman- positive, women-only work and the difficulties that presents in the current political and economic climate.

The move into reflection and discovery, anger and joy resulted in personal changes that helped some women clarify their need for significant change, even upheaval. For some, the changes tied back into reflection and analysis around their feminist/woman-positive positions. For others, it had to do with the way in which they now understood their own experience as women. At times, it was a combination of the two.

It made me think a lot about what feminism meant - why I was doing the things I was doing. It helped me explore my understanding of feminism and what other people might mean by feminism. . . . I know now what is more important to me personally and politically, and I don't want to waste my time not doing those things. I can't do it where I am. I don't want to do it where I am. I guess I've realized how vulnerable I am and I don't want to be that vulnerable. I want to be with a community of people who accept my way of looking at. things. I don't always want to be defending myself. (Karen Bergman-Illnik, Arctic College)

Several women experienced important life changes during this project. For them, it was a time of intense transition. For others, it was a time of integration and consolidation.

Having to reconcile philosophical and political understandings of competing interests in their programs and in their lives was a common experience. Several women talked about how they came to a new understanding of what "equality" or "learner-centred" or "democratic" or "rights" might mean. Once they started to focus on women's experience as central rather than marginal, it seemed that equity rather than equality became a more legitimate measuring stick.