Final thoughts

The last part of the book speaks of "conceiving the self", meaning when do we know who we are? Studies done by Vy Gotsky (1978) suggest that exterior "dialogues are a necessary precursor to inner speach and an awareness of one's own thought process". If you grew up with a mom that was very quiet and subdued, did that change who you became as an adult? The book uses the term "silent women" for those women who were always just part of the background, what I would call just wallpaper. It is there every day and you never notice it.
The book suggests an utopic place where instructors (women in particular) have the freedom to make their own decisions and decide on their own curriculum without being judged or supervised by someone who would take their voice away.
Reflecting on this book, I am glad I read it because it made me understand more about myself. It also made me realize what a difference we make in the younger generations by speaking our minds and especially speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves. I work a lot with abused animals and abused children and women. Whether it is popular or not, I will keep having a loud voice to help them, and will first and foremost help empower them to find their own voices.
I think the best help you can give anyone is to encourage and help empower them to achieve their dreams and overcome their past.
I hope I can always be a positive influence and hopefully make a difference in someone's life.

Who are you?

This chapter of the book really intrigued me because I felt very much this way when my daughter was younger. It mentions how women tend to lose their identity when they get married or have children. Instead of being you, now you have become John's wife or Johnny's mom.
To illustrate their findings, the authors asked a number of subjects (all women) to describe themselves. Each one started with.... I am Jane Doe, a mother of 3, married to John Doe, who is a carpenter, etc.... You notice that the person identifies herself by what she does, not who she is.
Hardly ever do you see these women describing themselves as blonde, tall, brunette, etc. Another observation was that the young mothers who were oppressed by their husbands tended to always answer by giving more information about their husband then themselves.
It is not a surprise, since some of these women do not go to school or work, so their entire life is surrounded by what they do, rather than who they are.
If we looked at pictures of ourselves as teenagers, maybe we had a style, we liked certain hobbies, etc. As a young teenage mother and wife of a very abusive husband, I was very much like these young ladies. I had completely lost myself.
I found my voice when I left him and returned to school. I started feeling my self worth, rather than only being someone's mom or someone's wife.

Authorities

Another concept that my book brings up is that of authorities. For example, since our instructor is a figure of authority, we immediately assume that they know more than we do and they cannot learn anything from us, only the other way around. I have often learned a lot from students, so I know as an instructor I am not the smartest person in the class... I just know more about the subject I am teaching and therefore am helping others in their learning journeys.
We also sometimes see other authorities, such as parents, political figures, police officers as all-knowing and possessing the truth. Why do we do that? Were we taught that way? I know I was taught that the nuns in our catholic school were the authority figures, and therefore knew everything. The goal was to learn from them as much as we could so we could become as smart as they were. In retrospect I have learned a lot from them. Discipline and dedication, caring and sharing. Many things I learned from growing up in a Catholic schools. I would be willing to bet that those nuns learned a lot from us, too!

Learning ONLY from experience

I like this recent chapter very much, as it speaks of learning from experience versus learning from school and the combination of both. It states that Russian psychologist Luria( 1979, pp 77-80) described people in the north of Russia who had only seen white bears. When they were told bears can be different colors (black, brown), they would say that unless they saw a brown bear, only white bears existed to them.
Just think about how you immediately picture a certain color when someone says a word. For example, if I said squirrel, you picture a greyish brown color. That is a typical squirrel. There are areas of the country and the world that have black squirrels, etc.
With the internet, books, schools, etc that we are used to , we are learning several different ways. The people who lived many years ago could only learn from what they (or someone else) had actually seen.
Just imagine how many folk tales were created due to one person "learning" from another. If someone said they saw a Bigfoot, then that was all you knew.
Experience is a wonderful way to learn, but it cannot be the only way one learns. In my opinion, a combination of experience and schooling is ideal, since you get your own perception of the world, as well as learned skills from others.

Another theme emerges

As I do some further reading of my book, "Women's ways of knowing", I find other themes emerging. One of them is the ability of men and women to listen differently. An example given is how women tend to understand what a baby's cry means and are able to differentiate the "I want my bottle" and the "my diaper is dirty" cries from a distance. According to the book, most men are not as apt in understanding this "baby speak". On the other hand, the book mentions how children tend to listen to dad's voice more than mom's, citing the fear that dad means business as a reason.
The book also states that most women who remain quiet, even when they have an opinion, do so for fear of sounding stupid. One of the collaborators states she feels "deaf and dumb" when listening to others, since she does not feel she can eloquently speak as her friends do. That causes her to remain silent. The idea here is to encourage women to learn more, rather than remain silent for fear of not knowing enough.

Surprised

I have to admit I was not very thrilled with the idea of my book. That is one of the reasons why I decided to read it and allow myself outside my comfort zone. Not trying to argue the necessity of women to express themselves, but at times I feel a feminist point of view becomes very narrow, and I thought my book was just that.... a feminist book.
The surprise I had was that the book brings out some ideas that come out of interviews with women (written verbatim), but it is not a "man bashing" book.
Some of the themes that emerge as I read this book are:
- Voice versus silence:
The authors use the metaphor of voice and silence to encourage people to listen to their inner self and give themselves a voice.
They feel women were raised to be silent in society in the past, resulting in many women allowing themselves to be in abusive relationships. If they came from a family where the father was the only one allowed to have a voice, they are more likely to marry a man with a voice, while they remain silent.

- Ordinary yet necessary learning:
A passage of the book states that you can learn from anything, even from "hearing the grass grow and the squirrels' heartbeat".
We have equated learning with a classroom, and many times forgotten how much we can learn from everyday experiences.

Some very interesting points so far in this book. Do you feel that you have an equal voice in your family? Do you feel that everyone in your family has an equal voice regardless of their gender?

Women's ways of knowing

This book is about women feeling free to speak up and share their knowledge. It also involves understanding of why women doubt their intellectual competence, and some feel inferior to their male counterparts. It is a collection of stories of different women who share their stories of learning and sharing their knowledge.
The reviewers of the book state that it is a learning opportunity for both men and women of compassion and understanding of one another.