Abstract
Feminism in Community grapples with various locations of adult learning for women including formal, informal, and nonformal locations. The authors explore learning in specific content areas such as health, the arts, social media, and religion as they consider conundrums created by policy, research, and funding. They investigate learning and education in relation to critical feminist pedagogy, social movements, transformative learning, and community and international development.
For this adult educator, a quality feminist book on women’s learning is one that provides theory, context, and a big picture view while offering specific examples and applications for the day-to-day of women’s lives. More important, though, it should prime the pump for the inquisitive activist/educator to engage in new thinking, creative ideas, or discovery. Such a book would challenge and stimulate the reader not only to learn but also to reconsider and even modify current practices toward new directions or applications. It is a book that encourages “talk back,” demands questioning, or elicits responses beginning with “but . . .” or “and . . .” It is a book that causes a feminist reader to seek a group of equally curious women readers who will digest and discuss the theories and insights chapter by chapter. Feminism in Community is a compelling book that does just that.
Feminism in Community acknowledges and locates education and learning for women in a variety of contexts, issues, and organizations embraced by feminists. Unfortunately, the authors do not outline at the outset what they specifically mean by adult education and various forms of learning (formal, informal, nonformal). While this may give readers room to define and understand such terms on their own, it also means needing to dig deep to understand what the authors are trying to convey. Why does this matter? Presumably because the authors want to acknowledge that women are lifelong learners in many spaces outside of formal structures not necessarily recognized and possibly (probably) overlooked. This is especially refreshing as the authors rightfully reclaim the historical reality that feminist thinkers and educators predated the discourse on participatory education often attributed to Freire, Knowles, and other male educators. In feminist organizations and activisms, women gain skills and expertise in ways to support the goals of feminism without “educational preparation” (p. 16). Women learn collectively and this learning creates leaders and contributes to social transformation.
Unfortunately, the structure of the book implies that education (structured teaching in formal settings) potentially stands independently from community learning (women gaining skills and knowledge and leadership in informal and nonformal settings). This is especially true in chapters 8 (Critical Feminist Pedagogy) and 9 (Social Transformative Learning and Women). Though the discussion on feminist pedagogy refers to its potential use in community (informal/nonformal) spaces, this chapter reads as if it is assuming a formal classroom (or online) setting. It acknowledges the criticalness of connecting educational encounters to everyday lives of women, but what about the everyday places where women learn? How specifically does feminist pedagogy affect women learners in formal, nonformal, and informal settings? More curious, though, is why does the social transformative learning chapter stand separately from critical feminist pedagogy? The authors make a distinction between transformative learning as an individual and personal focus and social transformative learning that looks broader to global concerns and international contexts. How does critical feminist pedagogy specifically relate to social transformative learning? These connections would be particularly useful since the authors note the de-politization and hiding of women’s needs and causes in social transformative learning arenas. A stronger, more explicit, connection could be made between the goals of critical feminist pedagogy and the facilitation of women’s transformation.
In spite of the discussion on informal and nonformal learning settings, the location of formal adult education as connected to higher education settings is particularly troubling. As a practitioner that works in adult basic education and job training, these descriptions became (unintentionally) exclusionary. Where do women who attend basic literacy programs, language learning classes for immigrants, or upgrading or college transition programs, or job skills training fit in this continuum of adult education? How are these women affected by or made visible to feminist education? Where are these women located in women’s learning in community, especially if they are feminists not formally connected to a women’s organization? How can critical feminist pedagogy extend to the formal (institution-based) adult literacy and education programs or workforce development settings and in what ways can social transformative learning become fostered in those settings?
Feminism in Community assumes a vibrant feminist movement, one filled with bright stars of hope, organizational promise peppered throughout, still facing very serious and ongoing challenges that undermine, co-opt, invisiblize, degrade, and sabotage feminist activism and justice and integrity for the everyday of women’s lives. Overall, this brief compendium of global feminist activities makes visible the many forms and functions of feminist learning and organizing. It is a promising book that, chapter by chapter, could be a great book for community-based discussion. Now, if only it could find audience outside of the academy.