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Feminist Education Education is the key to the creation of the future. We are modeled by what we are taught to believe. Our attitudes are shaped, our behavior reinforced and our visions determined by the educational process we undergo. Feminist education challenges both the content of traditional instruction and the process through which we learn. Our efforts in this field include filling in the gap made by women's exclusion from scholastics, restructuring the learning situation and building new institutions that create a context for expanding and nurturing female knowledge. These activities manifest themselves in three major formats: 1) Women's Studies Programs in colleges and universities; 2) Small groups, including workshops, study groups and consciousness raising; 3) Independent schools, programs and learning communities. The purpose of Women's Studies is to transform the content of traditional subject matter to include women's experience and contributions. Similar to Afro-American Studies, Women's Studies are seen as a supplement to existing information. Today most colleges and universities offer classes like Women in Literature or the Psychology of Women, and some have developed departments and degree programs. Female educators in these programs often find themselves restricted by the established tradition of sexism in academia, and subject to budget cutbacks, struggle for tenure, scorn from their colleagues and censorship of their subject matter. Despite the limitations these programs face, they open the doorways to new learning possibilities for women. Consciousness raising is a small group structure that furnishes us with an escape from our isolation, our otherness. By sharing personal experiences in a supportive environment, we learn to validate our own perceptions of the world. Individual lives can be put in the context of cultural and political perspectives and we can learn from what we experience. Study groups form to research and reevaluate existing information. Women who share an interest in a particular topic (e.g. socialism, spirituality, Jewish feminism, lesbian separatism) meet to read, discuss and theorize about that issue. These groups encourage women to think for themselves, to reconceptualize and draw new conclusions. As in C-R, these groups are often leaderless, with participants assuming equal responsibility for the group's development. Similar to these are critique groups, in which artists, writers or performers share their creative work with their peers for feedback, discussion and support. Feminist educational institutions are an outgrowth of both Women's Studies and small group activity. Many of these independent schools and programs began within the confines of an academic establishment and all of them derive from or contain elements of small group process. These new learning centers focus on the content and method of feminist education, personal as well as intellectual development, and experiential wisdom. The particular emphasis may vary: from the study of feminist political theory to the expansion of feminist art and culture to the creation of a women's community lifestyle. In Los Angeles, the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman's Building is entering its sixth year of alternative education for women. In 1973, the founders—Judy Chicago, Sheila de Bretteville and Arlene Raven—left their teaching positions at Cal Arts to build a program where women could engage in creative evolution outside the competitive standards of academia. The Feminist Studio Workshop combines a focus on feminist issues; an exploration of female culture, past and present; personal reflection and collective sharing; and training in writing, performance art, video, graphic art and feminist education. Through these media, a woman learns to express herself and to address issues relevant to a broad public audience. In individual and group learning situations, she may discover her own symbol system, forms that seem intrinsically female or the beginnings of a new language. The program remains flexible, restructuring every year in response to changing student needs and the growth of the feminist movement. Members are encouraged to actively create their own educational process through participation in collaborative art projects, consciousness raising, the formation and experience of community, and the maintenance and survival of the institution itself. As we take control of our own education, we take control of our futures. Feminist education is expanding the possibilities for women both inside traditional institutions and without, creating new information, theories and methods that challenge the very basis of patriarchal society. By our invention of a feminine cosmology, we are redirecting the destiny of human civilization. -Terry Wolverton reprinted from "Spinnin Off" July 1978
