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Summary: Women's Ways of Knowing
Review: "Women's Ways of Knowing" is an outstanding book based on experiential studies and interviews of 130+ women in varying fields, roles, and capacities. It explores the different "voices" or lack thereof that women hide and/or exhibit. This book not only looks at how women "learn" in formal and informal settings yet it looks at the challenges that women face in a masculine-structured society and educational settings. I found this book to elicit varying emotions from anger to happiness to loneliness. I recommend this book for any woman who is trying to discover who she is, what she's about, and how she got there. I also recommend this book for men to, at the very least, contemplate from a factual standpoint the challenges and ambiguous positions that women face today and tomorrow.
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Summary: Letting the woman's voice roar...
Review: "Women's Ways of Knowing" is an outstanding book based on experiential studies and interviews of 130+ women in varying fields, roles, and capacities. It explores the different "voices" or lack thereof that women hide and/or exhibit. This book not only looks at how women "learn" in formal and informal settings yet it looks at the challenges that women face in a masculine-structured society and educational settings. I found this book to elicit varying emotions from anger to happiness to loneliness. I recommend this book for any woman who is trying to discover who she is, what she's about, and how she got there. I also recommend this book for men to, at the very least, contemplate from a factual standpoint the challenges and ambiguous positions that women face today and tomorrow.
Rating:
Summary: Women's Ways of Knowing
Review: As a grad student exploring women and adult education, this book provided a great jumping off point!It does not compare and contrast male and female learning, which would suggest one is superior. Rather, it thoroughly explores different styles in which women acquire knowledge, and the value they place on learning. It also gives adult educators of women many ideas for enhancing the learning environment, whether single or mixed gender.I recommend Hayes & Flannery's Women as Learners as follow-up reading!
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Summary: A fascinating look at the psychology of the female mind.
Review: Building on the work of previous psychologists interested in the study of the female mind, Mary Belenky and her colleagues have conducted interviews with a sample of 135 women enrolled in various teaching institutions (whether it be a university, community college, or some other institution such as a clinic to aid parents). The authors looked for patterns in the responses they received, and were able to draw together a concept of how women deal with knowledge.The small size of the sample of women interviewed may be looked upon by some as a weak point of the study, but there are some strong motives behind this conscious choice the authors made. Belenky and her colleagues wished to get to know each woman personally, and to conduct a full, comprehensive interview with each one so that they could provide examples to accompany their theories, rather than simply quizzing an overwhelmingly large study group and giving their supporting evidence only in the form of numbers and statistics. The authors have identified five different "ways of knowing" that women utilize. The first one addressed is give the name of silence. By "silence" the authors do not mean an absence of speech, but rather a state of being intellectually voiceless. They do not see themselves as beings capable of receiving or retaining knowledge, and are therefore subject to the control of those around them. The second way of knowing discussed is termed "received knowledge." Received knowers believe themselves able to learn from others, and even to pass on what they have learned, but they do not see themselves as capable of independent, original thought. The authors identify both silent women and received knowers as dualists. They see things in terms of black and white, right and wrong, and one of the two is always seen as superior to the other. "Subjective knowers" do realize that they have the ability to formulate knowledge for themselves, and rely on a strong inner voice with which they develop their thoughts. They believe all knowledge to be subjective, and every person's opinion to be equally valid, though applicable only to that person. In this sense, subjective knowers are multiplists rather than dualists. They recognize that there are shades of grey and that one answer to a problem may not be better than another. "Procedural knowers," which might also be called objective knowers, base their development of knowledge solely on objective, scientific procedures. They distrust as fallible any sort of "gut instinct" that the subjective knowers realy so heavily on. Procedural knowers are also multiplists, however, in that they recognize that there may be more than one "right" answer in a particular situation. This way of knowing is identified as more masculine, and that which tends to be advocated in traditional educational institutions. The last way of knowing is referred to as "constructed knowing." These women see all knowledge as contextual, and rely on both subjective and objective methods to arrive at "truth." I would like to point out that, while one can get the impression from the text that these five ways of knowing are a sequence that one progresses through in the order they are discussed, this is not always the case. Any given woman may shift between any particular ways of knowing in any order, and over any period of time, and they may not ever experience every single one of them. In fact, I would venture to say that most women do not experience each one. A woman may also fall between two different ways of knowing, or may, at any given point in her life, utilize one way of knowing in one aspect of her life, and a different one in another. For example, a woman may be silent in her home environment, but act procedurally in her workplace. Belenky and her co-authors go on to look at how these ways of knowing appear within family structures, and what the consequences of each on both parents and children are. They conclude by evaluating modern academic institutions and proposing a method of education that would be more suited to women. The authors do not compare and contrast male and female ways of knowing in this study - male ways of knowing really aren't looked at at all, except to point out the influence traditional male thought has had on women. Neither do the authors hold one or the other up as being superior. They simply recognize that men and women tend to approach knowledge differently, and that ways of knowing that work for men may not work for women. This is certainly not any sort of final word in female psychology, any even the authors make note of the fact that others may interpret the results of their study differently, but it is a very worthwhile and thought-provoking read and I would highly recommend it.
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Summary: Nothing here about Knowing
Review: If this book represents the level of academic excellence women bring to social studies, the feminist movement has just been set back a generation. Basing their analysis [if it can be called that] on but 135 women, all of them from the United States, they come to the conclusion that wimmen have a special way of knowing. Knowing what? Oppressive parents, demanding management, demands for academic competence? Where do these four get the idea that these experiences are unique to women? Men in their various endeavours experience identical fears from identical sources. Parents have different values than your generation? Welcome to the club. Your boss demands that you accomplish tasks in an unreasonable amount of time? How much midnight oil have any of us burned to complete an irrational deadline? This type of book has led to the diversion of uncountable resources from areas sadly in need of support. We now have 'wimmen's studies' in universities. What have they contributed to a better understanding between genders? Since they only seem to study each other, what are we gaining? Are we learning more about people? Suggest to women that many of their urges are biologically based [see E.O. Wilson's 'Sociobiology'] and may be as much a product of their genes as the other animals, and the lynch mob response is truly alarming. It would be interesting to know just what the differences and similarities between males and females are. We won't find out, however, so long as these quasi-cultural studies continue to sop up needed research funding. Even if the cultural aspect is more valid than the genetic, we aren't going to find out what women 'know' until a much greater scope of research is applied. Let these four travel to New Zealand, India, Australia, or other countries, even with a [female] translator and ask their questions. In the meantime, please don't foist off any more of these studies about how terrible men are until they are based on a solid foundation of research. This is a book on women's ways of thinking, not Knowing. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
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Summary: Nothing here about Knowing
Review: If this book represents the level of academic excellence women bring to social studies, the feminist movement has just been set back a generation. Basing their analysis [if it can be called that] on but 135 women, all of them from the United States, they come to the conclusion that wimmen have a special way of knowing. Knowing what? Oppressive parents, demanding management, demands for academic competence? Where do these four get the idea that these experiences are unique to women? Men in their various endeavours experience identical fears from identical sources. Parents have different values than your generation? Welcome to the club. Your boss demands that you accomplish tasks in an unreasonable amount of time? How much midnight oil have any of us burned to complete an irrational deadline? This type of book has led to the diversion of uncountable resources from areas sadly in need of support. We now have 'wimmen's studies' in universities. What have they contributed to a better understanding between genders? Since they only seem to study each other, what are we gaining? Are we learning more about people? Suggest to women that many of their urges are biologically based [see E.O. Wilson's 'Sociobiology'] and may be as much a product of their genes as the other animals, and the lynch mob response is truly alarming. It would be interesting to know just what the differences and similarities between males and females are. We won't find out, however, so long as these quasi-cultural studies continue to sop up needed research funding. Even if the cultural aspect is more valid than the genetic, we aren't going to find out what women 'know' until a much greater scope of research is applied. Let these four travel to New Zealand, India, Australia, or other countries, even with a [female] translator and ask their questions. In the meantime, please don't foist off any more of these studies about how terrible men are until they are based on a solid foundation of research. This is a book on women's ways of thinking, not Knowing. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
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Summary: Not only for academia, but for all thoughtful women
Review: Introduced during a Women's Studies class (University of Wyoming), I return to this "researched" book again and again. My copy's heavily underlined and starred. Here goes a typical quote: (about learning) "Much time has been wasted (on women's) being good...." (209) A woman's route to knowledge begins with "silence," goes to passively receiving knowledge from authorities (usually men), then to "intuiting" knowledge (explanation of angel and crystals phase?), and to the final (or ultimate) of "integrating knowledge." Integrating means combining the intuitive with academic investigation. Along this route, many of us (women) are stuck, pre-distined by our familial backgrounds, or bumping through the educational system. This books gives us more and pre-dates REVIVING OPHELIA--more to measure where we are in our own learning
Rating:
Summary: Not only for academia, but for all thoughtful women
Review: Introduced during a Women's Studies class (University of Wyoming), I return to this "researched" book again and again. My copy's heavily underlined and starred. Here goes a typical quote: (about learning) "Much time has been wasted (on women's) being good...." (209) A woman's route to knowledge begins with "silence," goes to passively receiving knowledge from authorities (usually men), then to "intuiting" knowledge (explanation of angel and crystals phase?), and to the final (or ultimate) of "integrating knowledge." Integrating means combining the intuitive with academic investigation. Along this route, many of us (women) are stuck, pre-distined by our familial backgrounds, or bumping through the educational system. This books gives us more and pre-dates REVIVING OPHELIA--more to measure where we are in our own learning
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Summary: A refreshing point of view
Review: Starting from the awareness that much of the way education (both formal and informal) is carried out in society is very male-dominated and the voice and experience of women is largely absent, Belenky and her co-authors make a case for examining ways of knowing and learning that is unique to women. The authors recognise early differences in studies that have included women as a primary or central focus, such as those of Carol Gilligan. One strong tendency of women's ways of knowing in these early studies is the presence of responsibility and connectedness that significantly exceeds those of men. After exploring different aspects of knowledge and how women come to acquire, use, produce, and disseminate this knowledge, the authors work to put these insights in context for the family and academia. The authors work largely in the area of developing for women a means of gaining a greater sense of self (also see Howard Gardner's section on personal intelligence in his book, Frames of Mind). This sense of self enables women to construct meaning for themselves, and find their own voices for both teaching and learning. Perhaps one criticism I would hold is that, while this work looks at women's experience, it still seems to remain very Euro-centric. I am reminded of the arguments of black women against feminist theological processes, which led to the development of womanist theological discourse. Recently I received an email from a friend with a link to an on-line quiz, which was attempting in a Turing-machine sort of way to be able to determine one's gender from the answers given to a set of questions. As I was taking the test, I thought about it in the context of women's ways of knowing and learning, and realised that this test was very objective, non-connected, largely non-feeling, and very masculine in approach. Certainly this test did not have the kind of objectivity called for in the text. 'Objectivity in connected teaching, as in connected knowing, means seeing the other, the student, in the student's own terms.' (p. 224) This test was seeing everyone in terms of a standard model, a model derived from male-dominant considerations. For the sake of liturgy and learning, which is my particular field of study, and the purpose behind reading this book, the kinds of issues raised here are important. The authors begin with the idea of silence. This is not a silence like monastic silence or the silence between prayers, hymns and readings, but rather a silence of voices from the shaping and practice of the community. Too often liturgy is viewed, by laity and clergy, as something handed to them from 'authority' with little or no room for adaptation or adjustment to context. When liturgical practice becomes this rigid or this 'unlistening', it can cease to have any many or validity for the community of worshippers. The authors also develop ideas of received, subjective and procedural knowledge, all of which can be used in liturgical practice. There can be, particularly in my prayer-book-heavy tradition, a tendency to emphasise received knowledge and some aspects of procedural knowledge, while confining other types of knowledge to secondary or tertiary roles in the liturgy. Dialogue sermons and opening up the participation to others can enhance the service, broadening it to other forms of learning styles. Applying the principles of connected teaching to liturgy can have important results. 'Connected teachers try to discern the truth inside the students.' (p. 223) Perhaps this same kind of constructed style of shaping the liturgy to be more inclusive, more sensitive to the voices of the members of the community while still paying respect to the overall shape and intention of the community, can lead to greater connectivity of the community amongst itself, and of the community members to the experience of the liturgy. Overall, this book can yield insights into many types of practices, learning, and knowledge. While it does not constitute the final word on intelligence by any means, it is a valuable conversation partner.
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Summary: Academic but Moving and Empowering
Review: The authors conducted 135 interviews to investigate the way women acquire and convey their knowledge of the world. They identify five epistemological categories, or "ways of knowing," intimately connected to women's experiences of authority. Generally, but not exclusively, they found, as did other researchers they cite, that women approach life from a position of relationship and connection to those around them, while men tend to operate from a position of separation and autonomy. This is a very important addition to the body of work on gender differences which demonstrate that women are finding their way in a world tailored to the masculine way of being.
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