The CCLOW research project seemed to be the perfect vehicle to get ideas for starting something new, whatever that might be.

Confronting the "f" word becomes
a catalyst for understanding '"woman-positive"

Two women on our staff - Mary Snow and Donna Lynn McNulty- expressed interest in pursuing the somewhat mysterious-sounding woman-positive project. They were both young, self-confident women - curious to find out what ideas they might pick up and pass on. Both were energetic workers with a clear grasp of our program's philosophy and purpose. As they prepared for the first national workshop in Winnipeg they gathered information on aspects of the centre to take with them. They wanted to showcase some of the activities they had developed with learners. They also wanted to find out more about CCLOW and ways it could help women in education.

When we met to discuss the workshop we identified the purpose of participating, from our point of view. Our purpose included learning more about CCLOW, getting ideas for activities, finding out how to conduct the research on the activities, and coming back to the program ready to embark on a process that would affect women's lives positively.

The Winnipeg workshop was a crucial learning point for us. It was intense enough to warrant the term catalyst.

The two women who returned from the workshop on woman-positive activities were angry. The workshop was not what they had been expecting. I felt uneasy as they talked. Something had gone very wrong for them. They sat with me for an hour and everything came out in a jumble. I wrote in my journal later:

Mary and Donna Lynn really needed to talk! Woman-positive, woman- positive activities/programs - what do we really mean by these terms? Donna Lynn seems to feel the need to question her own lexicon of terms. She is confused...

It appears that at the workshop, part of the agenda was some sort of "teach-in" (to use a seventies term) to help women figure out where they stood in the feminist spectrum. Mary and Donna Lynn felt nervous about the process, primarily: because they didn't really understand what was happening. They felt uncomfortable not knowing the ground rules and had the feeling that they were being judged by the workshop leaders and by other participants.

That episode caused me to reflect on my responsibility and my role in what' had happened. I felt very concerned that I had not done enough to prepare Mary and Donna Lynn for this project. I also wondered whether I should have spent more time talking to CCLOW about the agenda for the workshop, for the entire project in fact.