What have the universities done to address the needs of rural women? Very little. A handful of institutions have made women's studies courses available to isolated non-urban students. In British Columbia, Simon Fraser University offers women's studies courses by correspondence, as does Athabasca University in Alberta. Carleton University has developed a "talking head" video version of an introductory course in women's studies. In Newfoundland, Memorial University has offered women's studies through a combination of print, video and teleconferencing. Some other universities have sporadically made women's studies courses available off-campus.

There are, however, serious discrepancies between distance education technology and the objectives of women's studies courses. The development of the capacity to transmit information to remote locations has revolutionized post-secondary education and made it available to people who previously had no access to university courses. What it does not permit, without significant modification, is the collaboration of the students in the learning process as equal partners with each other and the instructor.

The print medium is, of course, fundamental to any academic course. Reading is a vital part of developing the cognitive framework within which one's personal experience assumes meaning. Video presentation can be a stimulating way to transmit information and challenge patterns of thinking. What neither of these technologies permit is interaction; they cannot be made responsive. Consequently, they reinforce the old learning hierarchies: "I must learn what the experts say about my experience" is only a small step forward from "My experience is not valid here". This "banking" methodology whereby information is deposited by the teacher into the essentially passive learners is completely incompatible with feminist pedagogy. A further difficulty with the distance delivery of women's studies courses is the lack of any provision for the affective impact of the material and its relation to personal experience. Eruptions of pain, anger and grief are a common inevitable component of women's studies. Women must be permitted to process the rediscovery of their suppressed experience and to deal with the emotive explosion this often produces. Anger and pain are unlikely to be converted into constructive energy when they are confronted alone. Women experiencing emotional release in a supportive group of their peers feel cleansed and strengthened by the experience. Women facing pain alone will avoid it, and turn their anger against themselves. In Atlantic Canada, attempts have been made to use teleconferencing networks to link women in isolated locations with each other and with the instructor. Clearly, there are advantages to this. The telephone is a communication tool that most women are comfortable with. There is the possibility of making students responsible for segments of the curriculum, breaking down the teacher-learner hierarchy. Some interaction is possible between all participants who are therefore able to collaborate more actively in the learning process. This approach does little, however, to overcome the lack of private space and time that any student needs, or the non-supportive environment in which these women live.

The role of the universities and women's studies programs in particular, among rural women must be examined carefully. Are we offering a new tyranny of the experts, which will serve further to alienate women from their own experience and stifle their voices? Are we imposing another alien value system on rural women which no more reflects their reality than did the one it replaces?

The universities do have a responsibility to teach rural women not what their experience is or what it means but how to tap into that experience and find ways of expressing it. Feminism has become in many ways as elitist and exclusionary as the patriarchal system it seeks to replace by reflecting the reality and the consciousness of a segment of society sufficiently privileged and secure to question current social and academic structures. Feminist educators should use their strength to develop ways in which rural women can also be empowered to reclaim their own history. By reaching out to rural women, university-based feminism can provide assistance in community development, in organization, in building networks. Rather than interpreting experience for rural women, the universities should be assisting them to build the supports they need to rediscover and articulate their own reality.

Beth Westfall has been involved in education of the geographically isolated for the past 15 years. She is currently the Director of Extension at Brandon University in Manitoba.

1. Rich, Adrienne. "Towards a Woman-centered University," On Lies, Secrets and Silence. Selected prose 1966-1978. New York: W.W. Norton, 1979.
2. Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982.