This was their way of finding their own place in the group at their own pace. It left me wanting to find some new ways of integrating collective and individual approaches without seeing them as dualistic. In the short term I tended to balance these two forces by spending some time on both in each session and by taking turns focusing on things they want and things I think they may be interested in. It would be nice if the literacy movement worked at integrating these forces into a philosophy since I see the learner-centred tradition causing problems allover. I would love to turn this into a dialogue with other literacy workers!

Feminism and resistance

I had to re-evaluate what feminism meant in this setting. I identify myself as a feminist and I wanted to openly explore this identification with women from different backgrounds. I discovered again what I already knew from years of work in the literacy field. Most of the marginalized women I work with have never had the opportunity or the privilege to explore who they are from within a political context. Or if they tried, it threatened the security they had found in their lives. These women knew only too well that it is often the men in their lives that stand between them and dependency on welfare. To question that might mean poverty or violence. Even if they were ready to define themselves differently, it was a long road before they might feel involved at some level. They did not see other options for themselves that were real enough to warrant taking major risks. I think feminism is very hard to identify with if you are not middle class and you don't live in a city.

In a session that took place during the Clarence Thomas hearings, I began to talk about sexual harassment. One woman burst out crying and said she didn't want to talk about that because it reminded her of being beaten. I changed the subject, and talked to her about counselling when the session was over. To my surprise she had already been hooked into various counselling opportunities around town and had dropped out because she either felt unaccepted or uncomfortable in those settings. Whether I liked it or not, the burden of her counselling needs rested with the group. We were very clear from the start that this was not a counselling group, but in reality it did work as a support and we were always bumping into someone's major issues.

Should I have pursued the discussion of sexual harassment despite her discomfort, knowing that the other women could benefit from the discussion? I began to wonder what my "feminist agenda" had to do with their lives.

For example, when the group started writing a play, we decided to focus on women through the last century. When we talked about the early decades, the women were very critical of women's situations. The closer they got to the present, however, the more they insisted that "everything is fine now. Women are equal." When we started to explore whether that was true, the strength of their anger over their own personal experience of violence scared them into wanting to change the subject of the play.

I don't think we can interpret these examples of women's resistance as their: lack of strength or lack of feminist consciousness. I don't think we can blame me, or them, or other literacy workers. I think we have to talk about respecting where women are in their lives and what risks we can expect them to take, women students and women workers.