Radical adult education: An effective tool in the facilitation of gender development

Jodie Harrison,

Brock University, Canada

Introduction

Internationally adult education has a strong tradition of addressing social change. Specifically, researchers have linked adult education with gender development. I am interested in how radical adult education contributes to gender development and to the emancipation of women in developing countries. Drawing primarily from Leach (1999), Merriam & Brockett (1997a and 1997b), Merriam & Caffarella (1999), Momsen (2004), and Mosse (1993), I investigate the conceptual relationship between radical adult education and strategic gender development in order to further understand how adult education can be a means of deconstructing various interconnected power relations. My contribution is to conceptualize the ways in which integrated feminist ethics facilitate social equity. Such a survey leads to questions regarding why adult education has had more limited impact than was originally hoped, regarding both women’s strategic gender interests[1] as well as women’s emancipation from various oppressive power relations.

I begin with background information in order to understand the importance of gender in development and to recognize the distinction between practical gender needs and strategic gender interests. Then I position radical adult education as a viable agent in the struggle for social justice. Finally, I explore ways in which radical adult education facilitates gender development. In this paper, I argue that deconstructing gender roles through consciousness-raising educational initiatives is integral to gender development, and that critical thinking skills and new attitudes about gender are important means of altering dominant power relations. By presenting an integrated feminist analysis, I unmask the interconnections between gender, race and class oppression,thereby raising larger issues about the emancipation of women.

Gender Development

Traditional modernization approaches to development[2] posit local people as passive consumers of development (Mosse 1993). Often, local people are not consulted, and are thereby prevented from becoming active agents in the development process. In addition, such approaches assume that men and women are affected the same way and benefit equally from development. Accordingly, this approach has been much criticized by development scholars who recognize that the development process affects men and women differently and that development, as measured through economic growth, is not gender neutral (see Ellis 1997: Momsen 2004: Mosse 1993). Contrary to earlier assumptions, there is a gendered economic benefit from traditional approaches to development.

As the economic positions of men improved through traditional development practices, women lost status. To compensate, development practice in the 1970s took on an integration approach, incorporating women through income generating projects. Leach (1999: 51) demonstrates, however, that many income-generating projects failed as they merely addressed women’s practical economic needs ‘without attempting to improve women’s status in society’. Further, Ellis (1997: 71) argues that

Development projects based on growth-oriented models…have failed to address the

social, cultural, political, and environmental aspects of development and have neither

improved the situation, condition nor the quality of life of the majority of people.

The integration approach is also critiqued for essentializing women by treating them as a homogenous group with similar needs and interests (Momsen 2004). Also, many men resented the attention placed on women’s income-generating projects and in response to the backlash, development practice began to shift toward a “gender blind” approach. Because this approach neglected women’s needs, reinforced the gendered division of labor and resources, and perpetuated uneven power relations, it was deemed damaging. Thus, feminists argued that neither a sole focus on women nor a gender blind approach were adequate approaches to development.

Numerous non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have sought to improve the lives of women by identifying equality as a matter of human rights. Unfortunately, these efforts were often motivated by a desire to use women to develop other family members and the larger community (Murthy 1999). This failure to improve the lives and economic positions of women ignited a growing demand for women’s needs to be considered in development practices. Alternative literature emerged, highlighting the need for connections between gender and development, and for the promotion of gender equality (eg., Momsen 2004: Mosse 1993). A gendered approach to development challenges women’s subordinate position in society by addressing both women’s practical gender needs (the empowerment of women within current systems) and their strategic gender interests (the deconstruction of current systems to enable the emancipation of women). It is important to recognize that many gender development projects focused on practical gender needs are not necessarily geared toward social transformation (Momsen 2004: 14). Consequently, such projects may result in the empowerment of women without striving for women’s emancipation. However, as Waylen (1996) observes, the two approaches are not necessarily mutually exclusive, because ‘organizing to meet practical gender needs may lead to political activism to achieve strategic gender interests’ (Momsen 2004: 235). While there are numerous ways to respond to gender needs, gender development for women’s strategic gender interests interrogatesthe social construction of gender and gendered power relations.

Adult Education…for Social Change

The field of adult education is divided into two distinct educational perspectives, one directed toward social change, the other focused on personal and /or economic development (Merriam and Brockett 1997). Defined thus, traditional adult education, which inculcates learners into dominant social systems, cannot enable the emancipation of women. These forms of education often have the effect of reinforcing patriarchal, capitalist and racist values, and do not challenge dominant attitudes or values, or question social inequalities (Dighe 1992). Promoting the status quo, economic-oriented mainstream adult education continues to reinforce social inequalities by ‘reproducing and legitimizing the existing power structures in society’ (Dighe 1992: 323: Merriam and Brockett 1997b: Minnis 1993). Consequently, social justice educators have argued that traditional adult education programs operate to serve the interests of those in power by maintaining social inequality.

Additionally, non-formal education (NFE), common to development programs, is often designed in ways which continue to ‘reflect the bias of formal education systems’ (Leach 1999: 49). For example, many literature programs are designed to maintain women’s role of housewife and mother, perpetuating gender inequality and gender role stereotypes (see Leach 1999: Momsen 2004: Mosse 1993). Little traditional NFE is designed to enable women to question the gender-based division of labour in society (Dighe 1992). Although formal and non-formal education has contributed to the empowerment of women, these programs only serve to meet practical gender needs (such as vocational training to meet basic literacy and functioning skills) while neglecting the strategic gender interests of women. Calling for a more radical approach to adult education, Leach (1999: 56) proposes consciousness-raising, ‘including raising women’s awareness of rights and the analysis of women’s subordination in society, as well as teaching mobilization techniques’. Feminist adult educators can challenge inequalities in society by addressing women’s status and by challenging the status quo in order to dismantle the numerous structures that oppress women. Adult education for social change, what Gramsci refers to as ‘counter-hegemonic education’ (Dighe 1992: 329), is concerned with disrupting ‘the social, economic, political and moral issues facing people’ (Merriam and Brockett 1997: 249). Therefore, initiatives geared toward the development of strategic gender interests not only confront traditional economic adult education, but move beyond merely solving immediate practical needs (Leach 1999: 51).

I argue that radical adult education aimed at promoting strategic gender interests, may partially enable the emancipation of women. Speaking to the transformative nature of radical adult education, Scott (1997: 103) contends that ‘the aim of adult education for social change is to transform society through political action by educating its members to a new vision’. Facilitators operating from a radical orientation to adult education believe that ‘humanization takes place in the world only when people become conscious of the social forces influencing them, reflect on these forces and become capable of action to change those forces that hinder liberation’ (Scott 1997: 103). As such, radical adult education is geared toward transformative learning that results in collective action taking.Not restricted by the implicit goal of maintaining white, male, middle-class hegemony, adult education for social change initiatives are ‘expressly concerned with social inequalities and often seeks to raise the consciousness of participants toward social action’ (Merriam and Brockett 1997b: 168). As facilitators of adult education for social change, we have the responsibility of consciousness-raising by questioning and challenging the structures in society that legitimize and reproduce social inequalities.

Radical Adult Education: An Effective Tool in the Facilitation of Gender Development

Feminist development practitioners agree that gender issues are key to effective, equitable development practice. As Momsen (2004) notes, however, the term ‘gender’ was widely misunderstood in its original association with women and women’s issues. Gender studies have now come to include the social construction of masculinity and femininity and the subsequent gender roles resulting from such constructions (Momsen 2004: Mosse 1993). Additionally, the study of gender in development includes the interrogation of gender as it influences power relations (Momsen 2004). According to Mosse (1993: 83), ‘one of the most powerful ideologies underpinning gender difference is the divisions of the world into the realms of public and private’. With the Industrial Revolution, men left what is now understood as the private sphere to work in the public sphere, facilitating an increase in their status and the concurrent decrease in the value of women’s roles and contributions. This decline in women’s status relates to the socially constructed understanding of value, which, in the new capitalist economy, is attached to productive work from which profit is made. Therefore, work that does not generate profit (unpaid work mostly produced by women within the home) is considered of little value (see Waring 2004). As Waring (2004: 17) argues, ‘words we think we understand (such as value, work, labour, production, reproduction and economic activity) have been hijacked’. Through capitalism, production is now equated with the cash economy, creating a distinction between domestic and economic functions (Momsen 2004: Mosse 1993: Waring 2004), while dichotomizing men’s and women’s work.

The social construction of gender roles varies across time and space, and from culture to culture. As Mosse (1994: 4) observes, ‘that different societies have a wide range of different ideas about appropriate ways for women and men to behave, should make it clear just how far removed gender roles are from their origins in biological sex’. Nevertheless, due to the construction of ‘women’s work’ as a result of biology (rather than a construction designed to support the interests of those in positions of power), women’s unpaid labor is ignored and rendered invisible (Mosse 1993: Waring 2004). Thus, the triple reproductive roles of women - biological reproduction, social reproduction and community management (Momsen 2004: 73) - are not understood as work, but merely as tasks that women are ‘naturally’ meant to perform. Such beliefs, which place women as primarily accountable for domestic work and childcare, must come to an end. As Waring (2004: xi) notes, the world’s capitalist, patriarchal system teaches that ‘water carried through pipes has a value, but water carried daily and a long distance by women does not and that a mother’s labour maintaining her family and household is worthless’. By increasing the gender dichotomy through decreasing women’s status in society, the socially constructed gendered division of labour produces unequal gendered power relations.

Failure to value the work done by women has not only resulted in women’s decreased status in society, but has also led to women’s exclusion from community decision-making (Mosse 1993). Consequently, ‘women’s household labour [operates] as a basis for subordination’ (Mosse 1993: 153). It is important to note, however, that social and biological reproduction themselves are not the problem. The problem facing women is that women’s work is understood as having no value. We therefore need to re-evaluate how we understand labour, value, production and work. Thus, the gendered division of labour can be understood as a social development issue (Mosse 1993). It has, therefore, become increasingly important to interrogate gender relations and social dynamics in order to deconstruct gender roles.

Radical adult educators can facilitate strategic gender interests by challenging attitudes through the development of critical thinking skills. As conceptualized by Watson and Glaser, critical thinking includes skills of inference, recognition, deduction, interpretation and evaluation (Loo and Thorpe 2005). In their investigation of the correlation between critical thinking and attitudes toward women’s roles in society, Loo and Thorpe (2005: 47) determine that ‘greater critical thinking skills could be associated with more liberal attitudes toward women’s roles in society’. Such skill development would partially facilitate gender equity by enabling people to ‘see through their biases, prejudices and other forms of oppressive thinking’ (Loo and Thorpe 2005: 54). It is imperative to understand women’s position in society as a structural phenomenon, produced, reproduced, and legitimized by and through social institutions. Murthy (1999: 168) notes, however, that ‘few NGOs see women’s subordination as arising from the distribution of gender-based power that is reflected in our social institutions’. In an effort to achieve radical change, adult educators and grassroots organizations work to mobilize men and women to uncover and amend gendered power relations. Through the deconstruction of ideologies, and through the ‘recognition that gender is a phenomenon that helps to shape our society …where women are located unequally in social formation and are often devalued, exploited and oppressed’ (Scott 1997: 103), existing social orders can be disrupted as ‘grassroots movements address society’s underlying structural problems’ (Dighe 1992: 328). There is a need to value women’s work for women to become equal participants in society, with full access to the decision-making process. This approach to development is necessary because, ‘as long as gender discrimination exists, women will be disadvantaged’ (Leach 1999: 52). By addressing ‘the core values of a culture, which include gender roles’ (Mosse 1993: 3) radical adult education can facilitate gender equity and the emancipation of women.

By developing a ‘Freirian’ model of critical attitudes toward social structures, radical adult education is able to facilitate social change. As Allman and Wallis (1992: iii) put forward, radical education intent on social transformation necessitates an ‘active collective engagement in transforming or abolishing all social relations that block or limit the project for humanization’. A gender analysis can then operate as a transgressive site from which to deconstruct various social structures which operate to maintain systems of dominance and subordination. By building on a gender analysis, it may be possible to contest social dynamics and power relations by disrupting the social structures of gender, class, race andsexuality. As such, through an integrated feminist analysis, radical adult educators can work to build alternative knowledge production in order to liberate women from interwoven social inequalities. The notion that patriarchy is the main source of women’s oppression is integral to feminist thinking. However, the assertion that gender is the greatest axis of oppression in the lives of all women is perhaps, shaped by the legacy of colonialism, along with present-day systems of class and racial bias. As Westwood (1990: iv) observes,

The oppression of women, for example, cannot now be understood in essentialist terms through an overarching theory of patriarchy or an appeal to the essential sisterhood of women which masks difference. Instead, our politics must be forged in relation to difference which allows among women distinctive class, racial, ethical and sexual identities that generate similarity and difference simultaneously.

Integrative feminist analysis recognizes that feminist ethics necessitates a gender analysis concerned with various social dynamics. By working to challenge the status quo, a critical theory analysis dismantles power structures that produce, reproduce and legitimize existing power relations. Thompson (1980: 27) notes that ‘without a class perspective, it will be impossible to radicalize adult education’. Connecting Bourdieu’s work to adult education for social change, Westwood (1980: 41) suggests that ‘it offers an explanation of the middle-class bias [and domination] of adult education in terms of cultural capital and cultural competence’. Additionally, Williams (1994: 53) observes that ‘women liberators raise the issue of ending white supremacy, gender supremacy, and class bias’. Moving toward a more ethical approach to strategic gender interests, womanism scholarship attempts to disrupt power relations by moving away from a white, middle-class, male biased orientation. By acknowledging the lived, embodied experiences of women, radical feminist adult educators can recognize that women’s movements are not a homogenous movement, but rather, are a combination of interconnecting movements working toward common interests and goals, mainly, emancipation from all forms of power oppression (Williams 1994).

It is imperative to avoid a simplistic analysis of oppression focused on gender alone. Rather, integrated feminist ethics is about understanding the interconnections among communities of struggle. As Williams (1994: 54) states, ‘an analysis of sexism that is not also an assessment of racism, ethnic prejudice and economic injustice, is not a feminist analysis’. Scholars recognize the need to ‘cross race lines and class lines, join forces to stop this messing up of lives by the racist, patriarchal systems and structures steeped in a greed for power and domination’ (Cannon and Hayward 1994: 62). Consequently, the task for facilitators working for social equity is to assist learners in the analysis of all social dynamics, in terms of power imbalance. Speaking to the politics of difference, and promoting an integrated analysis of layered oppressions, Westwood (1990: v) suggests ‘an understanding of subjectivities and the subject as shifting terrain, bringing together ‘multiple selves’ that seek forms of cultural and political expression within the politics of difference’.