You could practically feel the question on everybody's mind: "Why did the meetings make us all feel satisfied?" Soon we had a list of reasons from support to friendship to freedom. One woman said she got a great feeling of relief just to be able to talk, and be heard, and feel the pressure lifting. Others nodded, yes. Another woman said part of the relief came from feeling "We can be ourselves- it doesn't matter if I'm myself here," and a third added "It's (all about) women's things (but) you don't feel silly." We knew exactly what that meant and in our final declaration of self-actualization we triumphed in our freedom to do what we liked. Nobody ever said to us, "This is how it's going to be." A month later I wrote:

I feel I've had my eyes opened, but I still can't quite believe what has happened. I'm unlearning things, seeing things in a new way. . . I didn't know (before this) that you could be woman-positive without considerable effort being made.

One of the women has said that she felt relief when she was with the rest of us and I think my feeling in the group was very close to that. But it was the revelation that I was making more than one discovery, not only about the group but about its effect upon me, and therefore about me as a person. Put simply, I was discovering an important missing piece of myself, a small but significant void was being filled. I was grateful for this discovery and the way I was learning about my own needs.

I wondered about the others - what were their lives like as a whole? After all, the group was only meeting for a couple of hours every week or two. In truth, I reflected, their lives were probably much like mine. Probably the only time they had for themselves was in the bathroom and later in the solitude of sleep. It is not simply about being overstretched and worn out trying to meet the demands made on us by others. Nor is it only about women being nurtures or selfless givers and trying to take back something we have lost. Somehow it was the idea of enjoying being a woman, of identifying with women's lives. It was having this one time to be ourselves for a change.

But does this gentle kind of woman-positive activity
make any real difference in women's lives?

As the women in the group expressed it - "It doesn't matter [no one will mind] if I'm myself here." We were experiencing the chance to be ourselves in the group and this is central to the kind of discovery I believe we have made. Even as I make this statement, however, I realize it raises questions as to whether we advance women's causes - or feminist causes - by providing ways for women to feel more fulfilled in their lives as they are. How does it make any real difference?