For some, this meant breaking free of an almost paralyzing need to be "fair." A few women talked about how, in the past, fairness appeared to mean giving everyone equal right to expression, to attention, to choice about acceptable behaviour in programs.

If you're working in a mixed program of marginalized people, that idea of fairness really has to come across in everything you do. I mean these people, men and women, have been ripped off at every turn in their lives and I feel like, "who am I to suddenly come down on them really heavily." It's very hard to do that when you know this guy hasn't had food for days. To suddenly call him sexist is very hard to do. (Anne Moore, Action Read)

Through their involvement in this research, women said they recognized that individual men are often granted their rights at the expense of women who might suffer from their sexism or heterosexism, harassment, or even assault. From this realization came the recommendation that

All staff must acknowledge that a woman's right to safety within the program takes precedence over a man's right to education.

Many women talked about their professional learning as a discovery of new writing activities, math strategies, homework incentives. Some developed new classroom practices because the research required them to pay attention to and reflect on other aspects of their work. Others commented on how they became more confident about their own writing skills since they felt obliged to meet our expectations for reflective writing. Still others said they became more aware of their teaching style and the way they like to work in a group.

Several of the women that work in more institutional settings talked about a renewed understanding of the ways those settings can fail to accommodate women who are students, clients, or inmates. Eileen Gorman (Pine Grove Correctional Centre) talked about the way she now checks with women to make sure they understand the bureaucratic language on many of the forms she has to use. Mary Ann Tierney (College of New Caledonia) described changing her class time by fifteen minutes.

People wanted to come at 9:00, and I wanted to start at 8:45. I thought, what am I doing? These women have children, they want to come at 9:00, why don't they come at 9:00? And so, since we came back from Winnipeg, I've started having my classes at 9:00. That's just a little tiny thing, but part of it is I don't have kids so although I know about those stresses, I don't really know what they're like day in and day out.

Many women believed they learned a great deal more about what it means to be a woman. For some, that meant a better understanding of their own reality as women.

Awareness and sensitivity. It's been great. I've learned a lot as far as what it means to me, personally, to be a woman. I took things for granted. I look at things differently now. (Mary Snow, Saint John Learning Exchange)