COMMENTARY

CAROLINE BAMFORD
Women's Education Canada and Scotland

    First, a definition. By women's education, I'm referring to courses especially for women and courses in women's studies. There has been growth in the provision of these courses in both Canada and Scotland in response to growing awareness of the value of special initiatives to meet women's educational needs. Educators across the curriculum can learn from these initiatives. Not only do they highlight women's varied and often neglected experience, but they pioneer new approaches to student-centered learning.

    There are some obvious similarities between Canada and Scotland in the context of women's education. We share a history of male dominance and the denial of the validity of women's experience, values and understanding. We share systemic discrimination against women resulting, for example, in unequal pay. We share the lasting effects of both the overt and the "hidden curriculum" in the classroom, such as women's low self-esteem. And we share the problems of insecure funding which implies lack of recognition and legitimacy for our work.

    There are similarities too in our response to these needs. People working in women's education, in Canada and in Scotland, are working to validate women's experience; to develop knowledge and understanding, often collectively, of sexism and gender relations; to tackle sexism; and to enable women to make choices, taking control of their lives in their own terms.

    The number and variety of women's courses in Scotland has increased. The Workers' Educational Association has pioneered much of this new work, running courses and training people to work in the field. In Glasgow, its work has been almost entirely centered in the Areas of Priority Treatment designated by Strathclyde Regional Council. It has held women's days in local community centers, run discussion groups and courses on such topics as women's health and self-defense. The WEA has also organized short courses and day-schools for trade unionists on issues of particular importance to women, such as sexual harassment and the equal value amendment to the Equal Pay Act.

    In the training field, the Manpower Services Commission funded Wider Opportunities for Women courses which offer the chance to review skills and plan a return to paid work or study. In Glasgow, Strathclyde University runs two WOW courses each year focused on Information Technology. Some organizations are now securing funds from the European Economic Community to run training courses for women, including specialist areas such as computing and engineering.

    University extramural departments and community education centers also provide some women's courses. There are return to work and study classes, courses in self-defense, women's history, women's health, women's studies, car maintenance, to name a few. And I should mention the work of groups, such as Women's Aid, Rape Crisis, the Scottish Convention of Women and other women's organizations and guilds, much of whose work involves education, but who don't necessarily organize courses, and who don't appear in any college prospectus. But, despite the variety and richness of this work, the provision of women's education in Scotland is patchy and funding is far from secure.

    There seems to be a greater legitimacy to women's initiatives in Canada. The very existence of the Secretary of State Women's Program illustrates this. So does recognition in the Canadian constitution that women are a disadvantaged group and the endowment of five new chairs in women's studies by the Canadian Learned Societies. Meanwhile in Britian, despite increasing provision of women's courses and the growth of equal opportunities programs, women's initiatives are marginal, often tokenistic, and still embattled. Many respond to women's studies by asking a less than positive "what's that?"

    Commitment to advocacy work is another issue. Why is the women's movement in Britain less involved in this? Should we not be following the example of Canadian groups? And my thoughts run: to British groups such as Rape Crisis and Women's Aid that are involved in advocacy work around particular issues; to the divergent activities of "liberal" and socialist feminist groups within the women's movement here; to our coming socialist feminist groups within the women's movement here; to our coming together to campaign on particular issues; to the growth of positive action programs in Britain and the accompanying shift in ideas about the way ahead. Now, I think advocacy work is being seen as increasingly important by different groups in the women's movement in Britian - and we can learn from the Canadian experience in this.

     Despite my enthusiasm Canadian women would tell me that they, too, are suffering from marginalization, from government cuts, from "pedaling hard to stay put." My excitement at being in a place where the women's movement has made more obvious advances was tempered by the many concerns I heard. As I was leaving Toronto, I noticed a neon sign on one of the skyscrapers by the lake. It read:

"Toronto Board or Education Says Education - It's Forever."

It struck me as a highly ambivalent message for adult education.

In April 1986 Caroline Bamford traveled to Ontario on behalf of the Scottish Institute for Adult and Continuing Education to study women's education. She is now living in Glasgow and working for the BBC.