Opening Remarks

Jenny Horsman's Something in My Mind Besides the Everyday (1990) influenced my early thinking on women's literacy so I have borrowed her title for this section of writing--as reminder and acknowledgement of the questions in my mind (and heart) since attending to this work. Is there really a lack of women-centered literacy materials? Is there a need for such materials? Would literacy workers and adult women learners use such materials? What do women learners want to use? What issues have literacy workers seen as prevalent from their experience of working with learners? What would learners choose for themselves?

Reading deeper into the literature--defining literacy, woman as learner, adult learning theory, use of language and multilingualism, curriculum development, issues of race and class in adult literacy, national policy on adult literacy, critical and feminist theories and pedagogies--I see two issues emerging. First, my use of the term "women-centered literacy materials" revolves around three socially-defined locations of cultural power and control: 1)women-centered, 2) literacy, and 3) materials. Each word carries a variety of meanings or definitions, yet I find myself using those definitions not only interchangeably but sometimes in contradiction. In various combinations--women-centered literacy; literacy materials; women-centered materials--the concepts become more complicated. It seems important, then, to untangle¹ their connotations, especially if we are to understand the ways in which women-centered literacy materials can affect our curriculums and pedagogies.

Second, I wonder, why are there so few literacy materials for women? More importantly, how would focusing on women-centered literacy materials contribute both practically and theoretically to making transformative social change bringing more justice and respect to women's lives? From my experience, it appears the lack of women-centered literacy materials rests in the definitions of literacy--especially in the specific goals and uses for women. As a feminist activist and bookseller, the lack of women-centered literacy materials relates to the politics and business of publishing--and the response of feminist print activists.

What started out for me as a simple observation (why are there no simpler feminist reading materials for women?), followed by a critical question (who and how does this exclude from our feminist activisms?), has become a complicated process of understanding the powers of literacy, education, and publishing as they relate to social control and continuing oppressions, especially for women.

In this essay, I will first define my basic use of the term materials then explore how two paradigms of literacy generally use reading / literacy materials. I will then shift the conversation to the politics of publishing in order to portray how reading materials are controlled by culture / access / business as well as educational curriculum, and defined by literacy paradigms. Women's literacy and feminist publishing challenges these paradigms and the politics of publishing. I then explain the use of women-centered and propose women-centered literacy materials as a third place from which to support women's literacies. These areas make up the Something in My Mind behind this dissertation project.

Materials

In this dissertation project, I understand materials to be print-based. Similarly, David Barton (1994) describes the way in which the availability of printed materials has contributed to cultural diffusion (getting ideas disseminated) while establishing the standardization of language use. Jennifer O'Rourke (2000) discusses print as a learning technology but she then contrasts it to new developments in computer media--perhaps the next most challenging use of print literacy.

In the United States, literacy generally means the ability to read and to write which then assumes the ability to interact with print-based media in productive (perhaps meaningful) ways. Published materials--books, magazines, newspapers and so on--possess enormous power and authority in the print-centered culture of the United States. Published writings carry with them an air of legitimacy requiring respect and attention. Publishers, booksellers, librarians, English teachers, and writers are generally thought to be knowledgeable because of their abilities to interact with these writings in an accomplished way. Published writings influence the general public discourse on a myriad of topics in the U.S. (and globally). "Books are carriers and disseminators of ideas. More than any other means of communication, they are the most permanent, reasoned, and extensive repository of the thoughts of civilized man" (Coser, Kadushin, & Powell, 1982, p. 362).

From my background as a feminist bookseller, I have seen the place of power held by print-based materials. I agree with Kathleen Rockhill (1993):

…we fail to see how literacy is integral to gender, cultural and language politics, for literacy means, at the very least, reading and writing in the dominant language. Concealed by the banner of liberty and equality is the ethnocentrism, racism and sexism inherent in literacy policies. (p. 163)

In U.S. culture, the dominant language is English and the discourse of power is print-based. This dissertation project therefore views women-centered literacy materials primarily as print-based media. Due to the questioning of the centrality and power of print-based materials and the absences of them, I will later suggest that women-centered literacy materials needs to take a larger cultural view and look beyond print-based media to include music, computers, art, movement, symbols, oral traditions, and other forms of literacies.

Literacy

When I first started thinking about the possibilities of publishing women-centered literacy materials, I had a specific vision in mind. I imagined the variety books generally stocked by Amazon Bookstore² (or any other feminist women's bookstore) simultaneously available at about a 5^th grade reading level--readable, simpler, accessible, affordable. I believed that limited schooling or reading skills should not be a barrier for women who may want access to women's voices, ideas, and experiences contained in print-based media. Feminist women's bookstores hold a wealth of women's writing--educational, entertaining, informational, inspirational, socio-political, theoretical, experimental, experiential, creative/artistic, literary--in a variety of genres on a multitude of topics. In the midst of this wealth, I could find only few titles that were available at basic reading levels. I believed this was unfortunate, limiting, and unjust.

As I began to think about women's literacy issues more concretely (see Claiming My Place), I discovered my understanding of literacy as an educational issue for women was fairly uninformed. Reading Jenny Horsman (1990) and the collection of writings in Canadian Women's Studies/ les cahiers de la femme (Cox & Sanders, 1988) began to challenge my view of who was supposedly illiterate and why. I essentially eliminated the word illiteracy, and all its negative blaming connotations, from my own language use. To understand the larger issues related to adult literacy (including and U.S. national policy), I proceeded to read positions from organizations such as National Center for Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL), National Institute for Literacy (NIFL), National Center on Adult Literacy (NCAL)³ followed by readings about workplace literacy, family literacy, Freirean perspectives on literacy, critical literacy, literacy as social practices, women's literacy, languages and literacy, participatory (learner-centered) literacy. I dovetailed readings from adult education and learning theory, curriculum concerns, and pedagogies. Understanding and absorbing all of these viewpoints filled me with literacy gumbo and offered only a limited sense of how to sort the flavors through the burn of countless nuances.

While discussing women-centered literacy materials with colleagues, I discovered I understood literacy both narrowly and expansively, functionally and critically, moving between definitions randomly and sometimes in contradiction. In all of this, I returned to the image of a women's bookstore where women-centered literacy materials as authentic reading materials -- stories, histories, non-fiction topics, how-to, memoirs, novels, (auto)biographies, comics, humor, art, spirituality, self-help, high-interest books (or magazines and newspapers) -- would be meaningfully accessible to women with basic or limited reading proficiencies. These writings would be for any woman who wanted them but especially available to women in adult literacy programs. The reading level (functional literacy) of the materials themselves would be simpler but the overall content would be expansive, potentially liberatory (critical literacy) as authors made information, entertainment and feminist discourses more relevant. I say women-centered literacy materials because this somehow connotes an educational context, i.e. basic writing on which to scaffold learning. I do not mean workbooks or primers. However, I do mean the materials are easier-to-read. These authentic writings for adult women complete in themselves would be useable by women in learning situations or just for their own access to knowledge and entertainment through reading materials in plain English language.

I have needed to wrestle with the definitions of literacy--a highly charged political arena--because they affect how I frame the problem-posing questions to literacy workers or adult learners when discussing the need for and availability of women-centered literacy materials. As a result, I have outlined two paradigms of literacy⁴ in order to make the conversation manageable. The dominant literacy paradigm (functional) can primarily be found in national policy, coordinated through systems of educational and social agencies supported by capitalist business interests. It is therefore more related to the goals and needs of the state and therefore dependent on social reproduction. The alternative paradigm (critical) calls for a restructuring of power relations and supports the needs of democracy.⁵ Critical views look to literacy as a way to emancipate people from oppressive/repressive hegemonic state structures.

The dominant (functional) view understands literacy as benign and neutral and something which makes good citizens while the alternative (critical) view understands literacy as a source of social power, controlled by the status quo to keep people from fully participating in a social-democratic arena. Similar to Kathleen Weiler's analysis of Freire's work on the binaries of "the oppressor" and "the oppressed" it is misleading to perceive only two paradigms, neatly describing some characteristics as dominant and other characteristics as alternative. The characteristics do not fall that generally or neatly. There are places in which the paradigms seem to share similar values, which have different ramifications. Both paradigms want people to have functional reading and writing skills, though they differ on the ultimate uses of those proficiencies. The functional dominant paradigm would have those skills fit into the overall societal and economic functions of literacy pre-determined by policy-makers. The critical alternative paradigm actively seeks to facilitate learner-defined participation through a process of conscientização (Freire, 1970). Literacy (beyond functional skills) uses empowerment to build on a cycle of reflection and action (literacy practices) in order to change society.�

Both literacy paradigms construct and use printed materials differently as illustrated in *Appendix Literacy Paradigms. Adult learning theory recognizes the importance of adult life experience and learning needs and affects both paradigms. Some of the work on adult learning theory indicates that adults learn best when content and context relate to their own experiences (Auerbach, 1992; Brookfield, 1987; Fingeret & Jurmo, 1989; Lankshear & McLaren, 1993; Merriam & Caffarella, 1999; Shor, 1992). Both paradigms promote content and context as relevant to learners' lives assist in their ability to learn, but how this functions for each paradigm in pedagogies and programs differs. For example, questions to learners about their goals may have different outcomes. In the dominant paradigm, curriculum for getting a job may include instruction on how to fill in a job application, teaching the soft-skills needed to talk with co-workers, and developing specific vocabulary or training skills for how to do a particular kind of job. In an alternative paradigm setting, the curriculum may include the activities listed above (or not) while developing broader critical thinking skills such as discussion and analysis about recent plant closings in town, local/national explanations for why there are so few jobs, labor rights, or how to develop more jobs into the area.

The dominant paradigm (functional literacy) may include problem-solving skills to keep people working well within certain work or family situations. The alternative paradigm (critical literacy) seeks to develop the critical thinking skills necessary for questioning what is behind those problematic situations in the first place. The absence of women-centered literacy materials suggests something more exists. I propose a view of women's literacy, especially one that recognizes gender-based oppression and develops a women-centered lens, looks beyond to both paradigms (from the shaded gray place behind as seen in *Appendix Literacy Paradigms). The remainder of this essay addresses these issues.

Dominant (Functional) Paradigm

In the United States, the general operating definition of literacy for adults, which outlines the establishment of remedial adult educational programs, comes from the National Literacy Act of 1991⁶--which was then reframed by the Workforce Investment Partnership Act of 1998 (also known as Workforce Investment Act, WIA). This act established a coordinated system of federal aid programs for vocational education, adult education, and job training at state and local levels. The goal of the WIA (PL 105-220) is to ensure that the U.S. remains competitive in the global economy, by providing workers with the reading, writing, computing, problem solving, and communication skills they need to succeed in the workforce, and therefore providing businesses with highly skilled workers. Signed into law by President Clinton on August 7, 1998, it consolidates over 50 employment, training, and literacy programs--including the National Literacy Act, Adult Education Act, and Job Training Partnership Act--into three funding streams to states: one for adult education and family literacy, one for disadvantaged youth, and one for adult employment and training.⁷

Since most literacy programs are funded through federal dollars (Fingeret, 1991), the functional definitions of literacy remain the most prevalent.⁸ This dominant/functional paradigm thrives on the deficit model of adult learners presented in most advertising or public discussion with metaphors portraying those "illiterates" as confused and aimless people existing in epidemic numbers like a disease, who are either unemployed and a burden to society or are just victims who have lost control their situation (Ilsley & Stahl, 1993). It makes their literacy their problem to correct and disassociates literacy from socio-political contexts. They are the illiterate others (Brodkey, 1991).

The National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) defines literacy as "using printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one's goals, and to develop one's knowledge and potential" (Kirsch, Jungeblut, Jenkins, & Kolstad, 1993, p. 14). This view as developed in public policy promotes adult literacy programs as remedial corrections (Chisman, 1990) and people can be declared functionally literate after they have tested out of some standardized cutoff point (Merrifield, Bingman, Hemphill, & de Marrais, 1997). The mechanical skills developed for functional literacy include reading, writing, numeracy, verbal communication, problem-solving, and document processing (Chisman, 1990; Venezky, 1990). Sometimes the skills are described in relation to general competency areas assessed through a series of standardized tests, for example, CASAS (Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System), "the only adult assessment system of its kind to be approved and validated by the U.S. Department of Education in the area of adult literacy" (from website www.casas.org).

The dominant paradigm of functional literacy includes both workplace literacy and family literacy. The emphasis of workplace programs has been to fill the jobs skills gap (Chisman & Campbell, 1990; Stuart, 1999) and to create a robust economy through a literate workforce (Fingeret & Jurmo, 1989). These programs include union programs, specific job training, on-site workplace classes, soft-skills,⁹ work-readiness and so on. The emphasis on workplace literacy directly relates to current national policy. In this context, the war against illiteracy becomes part of the war against poverty since literacy training is the response to a myriad of social issues including poverty, prison, pregnancy (Fingeret, 1990). Hannah Fingeret (1990) continues:

...federal literacy policy in the United States places capitalism at the center, and the policy research agenda is defined by counting individuals with literacy problems. I say capitalism rather than economic development, because the agenda is framed in terms of insuring profit, productivity and international competitiveness rather than enhanced quality of life. It is an agenda of retrenchment rather than development. (p. 7)

Ultimately, employers and business people define the skills needed in the workplace. Not only do people need to read, write and communicate, but they must work and learn independently, work cooperatively with others, respond quickly and flexibly to new situations, juggle multiple tasks, and decide what one needs to know and then find the information (Chisman & Campbell, 1990). Workplace literacy acts to maintain a literate workforce for national capitalist gain.

Family literacy programs as outlined by U.S. national policy¹⁰ support the dominant paradigm by placing functional literacy in the context of (traditional) family structures. Family literacy programs aim to involve parents but tend to stress the mother's role in developing the literacy skills of her children. Programs encourage parents to work with their children and teach parents how to read to their children. They may include learning opportunities for parents and children separately, and stress parent's interactions with their children's schools. Some of the emphasis focuses on improving the mother's literacy skills through helping her understand and work with her child's literacy skills (Auerbach, 1989 & 1998; Fingeret, 1990). As part of the dominant paradigm, family literacy uses a transmission model to reinforce women's traditional role in the home as transmitters of cultural knowledge responsible for family education (Cuban and Hayes, 1996).

The curriculum and texts used to teach the functional dimensions of literacy have somewhat narrow parameters. Reading (literacy) is presented as a standardized set of tasks, technical skills, decoding procedures, multiple choice questions, comprehension questions, and other school-based tasks to therefore be assessed and evaluated (tested).¹¹ To be sure, reading, writing and numeracy are all important but too often the curriculum materials separate functional skills from the ways in which people use literacy practices throughout their daily lives (Street, 1994). Literacy materials used in the dominant paradigm generally include some combination of grammar books, workbooks, textbooks, GED test preparation guides, citizenship test preparation for immigrants, job-training manuals, specific job-related materials, and children's books to boost family literacy.

They may include short authentic pieces (stories, biographies, poetry, historical incidents, etc.) followed by comprehension questions, vocabulary and grammar drills, multiple guess questions, and short answer drills to test comprehension. Such materials do little to help learners understand reading as a meaning building process (Rigg & Kazemeck, 1985). Opportunities to interact with the text using discussion, essay response or rebuttal remarks are rare. This dominant paradigm reinforces standards of English use (language of domination) through these types of curriculum materials while maintaining tight control over their applicability. As Catherine Walsh (1991) points out

School knowledge derives, at least in great part, from commercial texts whose content and approach is, in turn, designed to represent and sustain particular socioeconomic and political interests….The context and content of basals is thus oriented toward how this industry constructs the 'majority'; the orientation is overwhelmingly white, middle-class, and suburban although, in newer versions, faces may be colored, names changed, and city scenes added to increase distribution. (pp. 10-11)

These standards of whiteness also work to shape literacy skills as harmlessly neutral. For example, a group called The Transformational Learning Project (TLP) makes a distinction between informational (skills-based) learning and transformative learning which "leads to deep and pervasive shifts in the learner's perspective and understanding" (Portnow, Popp, Broderick, Drago-Severson, & Kegan, 1998, p.1). In recent years, they have been working collaboratively with the National Institute for Literacy (NIFL) to create a standards-based curriculum system called Equipped for the Future (EFF). TLP believes their view of transformative learning will help learners to make basic facts and skills more transferable, generalizable, and useable across a variety of roles. To support what they call a consumer-driven assessment-based framework, TLP and NIFL have created the Developmental Skills Matrices. In this process, the curriculums of functional literacy--and the materials used to teach these skill-based tasks--maintain the illusion of being neutral in their race-less, gender-less and class-less generalizations.

This manufactured neutrality creates deception and maintains hegemonic interests for education. As B. Allan Quigley and Ella Holsinger (1993) indicated, cultural and political reproduction on issues of racism, classism, and sexism continue to exist in most literacy texts. Through their own study based on research by Gerald Coles in 1977, they determined the "content has moved from what we today would consider 'blatant' sexism, racism, and socioeconomic depictions, and has shifted to less obvious hidden curricula" (p. 28). In white, male-dominated society, "Happy Consciousness" (according to Quigley & Holsinger, 1993) means it is right and normal for women to have lower intellectual, social and job status. Also, socioeconomic class should maintain a harmony of interests and promote individualistic ethic to support unthinking acceptance of the order of things. This order is maintained through the curriculum textbooks used in functional literacy programs. In follow-up writing, Quigley (1997) further asserts the hidden agenda of literacy materials:

these texts instruct illiterates not to be a threat to society's authority figures, employers or social agencies; not to raise critical questions; not to seek collaborative problem solving; not to impute blame to others or to society for their problems; and realize that they should be grateful. (p. 154)

Similar issues exist in much of the ESL curriculum intended to help immigrants survive--through acquiescence--in their new U.S. context (Auerbach & Burgess, 1985). Marcela Ballara notes this phenomenon in materials around the world where "home economics and sewing and didactic materials with a sexist orientation are the common topics" (1996, On-line). While the dominant paradigm centralizes the need of functional literacy, it does so with narrow and restricting agendas reinforcing oppressive social systems.

Alternative (Critical) Paradigm

Quigley and Holsinger's (1993) study partially evolved as a response to the refusal (resistance) of literacy workers to use repressive materials. In recognizing the limitations placed on workers through these programs, there have been strong advocates for participant-generated materials (Auerbach & Wallerstein, 1987; Rhoder & French, 1995). Shreyl Gowan (1992) notes

When workplace literacy training is an effort to initiate minority and working class employees into mainstream ways of communication and behavior, resistance is an understandable response. When literacy providers uncritically accept this agenda and focus only on skills, little significant long term change will occur. (pp. 132-133)

These resistances point to the alternative (critical) paradigm coexisting with--while struggling against--the dominant functional paradigm. Evolving from the works of Freire (1970/1997 & 1998; with Macedo, 1985 & 1987), the critical paradigm understands literacy (and all of education) as an opportunity for freedom and liberation not simply a transfer of knowledge or narrowly-defined skills meant to continue the domestication of learners. The act of reading becomes an emancipatory act as it allows one to read the word and come to a better understanding of oneself in the world (Freire & Macedo, 1987; hooks, 1994). Learners as knowing subjects can, through conscientização, think critically about their world and make transformative action to change--literacy as praxis. As such, literacy cannot be understood only as a series of neutral methodological or curriculum solutions. Critical education (literacy) resists the socio-political and economic contexts in which schooling reproduces the views and needs of dominant society (theories of reproduction, Giroux, 1983). This critical paradigm views "knowledge as socially and culturally constructed, historically generated, and ideologically based" (Walsh, 1991, p. 14). Advocates of the alternative paradigm insist that functional forms of literacy are not neutral but rather imbued with power as they maintain cultural reproduction of dominant paradigms. Therefore, decoding the words only makes sense if accompanied with critical thinking (Bee, 1981; Lankshear & Lawler, 1987; Lankshear & McLaren, 1993; McLaren, 1995; McLaren & Lankshear, 1994; McLaren & Leonard, 1993; Shor & Freire, 1987; Shor & Pari, 1999).

Though he may not use this language to describe his own work, I would include David Barton (1994) within this alternative paradigm as well. He understands literacy work as the control of language as it raises questions about power relations and information access. Literacy reflects the many inequalities in society and must be understood in the context of social relations. Building on the work of Scribner, Coles, Heath & Street, Barton (1994, pp. 24-26) distinguishes between literacy practices (the patterns of using reading and writing) and literacy events (all the occasions in the day-to-day when one might encounter or use the printed word). He wants to start from how people use literacy rather than how they learn literacy. He offers what he calls an ecological use of literacy:

Rather than isolating literacy activities from everything else in order to understand them, an ecological approach aims to understand how literacy is embedded in other human activity, its embeddedness in social life and in thought, and its position in history, language and learning….I would say that it is one which examines the social and mental embeddedness of human activities in a way which allows change. Instead of studying the separate skills which underlie reading and writing, it involves a shift to studying literacy, a set of social practices associated with particular symbol systems and their related technologies. To be literate is to be active; it is to be confident within these practices. (p. 32)

Barton's perceptions complement the critical paradigm in viewing learners lives. A critical paradigm not only offers a theoretical base from which to understand hidden curriculum and theories of reproduction but does so for the purpose of emancipation. Reading (literacy) may not make people rich or guarantee power but it will help in the pursuit of justice and freedom (Shannon, 1998). Changing dominant understandings of adults as learners, the alternative paradigm holds that learners must be active participants in their education. According to Pat Campbell (2001), participation includes programmatic governance as well as curriculum:

Participatory education is a collective effort in which the participants are committed to building a just society through individual and socioeconomic transformation and ending domination through changing power relations….Participatory management involves the representation of marginalized individuals in an organization's democratic decision-making process. (p.1)

Participatory practices include understanding Freirean-based problem-posing formats (Nixon-Ponder, 1995), discussion and critical conversation, various forms of direct action (Auerbach, 1992 and 1996), and shifting power relationships so that learners have substantial control over curriculum and organization of their programs or learning situations (Campbell & Burnaby and contributors, 2001; Fingeret & Jurmo, 1989).

Due to their participatory and potentially radical nature, participatory curriculums from a critical paradigm are generally located in grassroots organizations or community based services. Due to the federally-funded reality of most literacy programming in the U.S., only a very small fraction of literacy programs exist in this capacity, many of which seem to exist in multilingual or immigrant communities (Facundo, 1984; Frye, 1999; Torruellas, 1991; Young & Padilla, 1991). As Klaudia Rivera (1999) has pointed out, since the WIA and Personal Responsibilities Act, funding and support for popular education programs has become much tighter. Individual teachers or special programs within federally funded programs who may have tried to include some participatory elements have found that the new welfare policies and accountability standards create more obstacles and challenges to popular education programs.

In the context of the alternative (critical) paradigm, the literacy materials used tend not to be textbooks, i.e. authentic.

Because learners' ideas and experiences form the basis for the instructional program, authentic materials must be used. By authentic materials we mean newspaper articles, magazines, and visuals (pictures, films, cartoons, and the like) that build on prior knowledge and relate to the learners' personal and work lives. Materials on provocative topics are deliberately chosen for their connections with important work, social, and political issues....From the discussion of these high-interest topics, learners generate writings that are then used for further instruction. The teacher uses these materials to create real-life language learning situations in which reading and writing activities have specific purposes. (Soifer, Young & Irwin, 1989, pp. 68-69, emphasis mine)

These programs may tend not to use commercially-produced textbooks but they do have strategies for learning vocabulary, grammar, and other aspects of language by using a Freirean-approach (Nixon-Ponder, 1995; Spener, 1992). Using authentic materials helps connects adult learners with their experiences and feelings while broadening their worldview (Nixon-Ponder, et.al, 1995). Because such programs respond to or develop from the life and community contexts of the learners, many of the materials emerge from the teachers and learners themselves. Through specific learning and pedagogical practices, the creation of such materials gives learners an opportunity to analyze subjects and situations (critical thinking), develop new ideas, and to express them in writing. Participatory materials emerge through Language Experience Approaches (LEA) approaches (Taylor, 1993), writing exercises, testimonial and autobiographical memoir (Torruellas, 1991), journaling, community stories or events, summaries of community research and action and other similar strategies (see Appendix Participatory Resources). The alternative paradigm, therefore, asserts literacy cannot be neutral as it directly acknowledges, examines and addresses the sociopolitical situations and moves learners to transformative actions.

As I have tried to outline (see *Appendix Literacy Paradigm), both paradigms of dominant and alternative paradigms of literacy use print-based materials differently. Educators, depending on their programs, situations, and learners, may not find a need for authentic materials. However, when educators do choose to use authentic materials, their efforts become frustrated as few such published materials exist at basic reading levels. Clearly, much of this has to do with the definitions and goals for literacy as outlined above. Choosing what to read is an ideological act connected to access regulated by the gatekeepers of knowledge. This authority rests not only to the socioeconomic goals of policy-makers and in the curriculum decision-making of educators but also with the of control printed materials by publishers. How trade publishing controls information available through print and how this affects women-centered literacy materials has central location as Something in My Mind.

Publishers: Gatekeepers of Functional Literacy

For publishers in the United States, the primary goal had been creating, maintaining, exploring, promoting and understanding literary culture, intellectual discourse and social organization (democracy) while maintaining financial viability in order to continue the work of publishing. In recent years (the past 25 or so), the growth of consumer market post-capitalism and growing conglomeration (M.C. Miller, 1997) has diminished the literary goals. Publishing today prioritizes high profitability dependent on an unending stream of instant bestsellers. The book as product is ruled by profits and losses. Under entertainment industry conglomerate takeovers, books are required to make quick financial profit and to tie into commercial entertainment business practices thus compromising literary, public and democratic discourse (M.C. Miller, 1997).

Currently, six media conglomerates¹² sell 80% of the books in the U.S. (Schiffrin, 2000). The absorption of general book publishing into large media conglomerates creates various problems related to the availability and quality of published works.¹³ Several book industry professionals (Curtis, 1998; Epstein, 2001; M.C. Miller, 1997; Schiffrin, 2000) discuss how this contributes to a decline in the integrity of publishing in general. These discussions surface at least three complex and intertwining issues underlying the values of publishing: (a) literary quality, (b) appropriate topics for social discourse/publication, and (c) audiences of readers.¹⁴

a) Literary quality -- the decline of literary merit & the compromise of editorial influence

Conglomerate publishers¹⁵ and chain bookstores work "like a pincer movement to narrow the scope and prospects of literary and intellectual publishing in the book trade" (Solotaroff, 1987, p. 33). "Literate people who read for pleasure continue to be assaulted by commercialized mediocrity, and one may wonder why such books are published at all. The bottom line, of course, is profit for the publishers' shareholders" (Brinton, 1987, p. 11, emphasis mine). The main purpose of bookstore chains (such as Borders and Barnes & Noble) is to discover the next big bestseller appealing to the lowest common denominator. For this reason, the buyers in chain bookstores currently exert influence over publishing companies on the selection and editing of new books and demand deep discounts and special promotional deals (Curtis, 1998; Petrocelli, 1999).

Critics of trade publishing criticize the loss of literary quality. Unfortunately, those who argue for literary taste and quality also tend to denigrate what might be considered accessible readability thus creating a privileged and patronizing dichotomy. The recent memoirs of experienced book industry professionals (Curtis, 1998; Epstein, 2001; M.C. Miller, 1997; Schiffrin, 2000) illuminate the picture of a publishing industry dominated by white men, young and old, with educated literary tastes who control the directions literary culture. The contributions of women and people of color receive minimal mention making them practically invisible, alluding to a genderless, raceless, classless view of literary quality. This effectively renders a kind of intellectual and cultural snobbery based in privileged, male, patriarchal, hegemonic, educated, whiteness discourse. The publishing industry managed by white, privileged, educated men--and reinforced by their peers in academia--controls the definitions of literature. The literary/literacy effects of this control, specifically for women, will be more fully addressed later in this section.

b) Appropriate topics for social discourse & the decline of democracy

André Schiffrin (2000) points out that some ideas, books and authors just take time to catch on and, because of this, they won't survive the market censorship which demands high profit and immediate turnover. "The major houses have pretty much abandoned well-argued left-of-center books, which are now the preserve of a few independent and alternative houses" (p. 136). He continues, "We cannot speak of open competition or a free market in American publishing today. We are faced with a classic situation of oligopoly, approaching monopoly" (p. 147).

Trade publishing continues to abandon or ignore various topics, types of writing, and challenging viewpoints because they threaten the status quo. Small, independent and alternative publishers have struggled to fill the void. "…it's here that the small presses may find their niche in the market place--literate books, both fiction and non-fiction, both of which should illuminate some aspects of the human condition and do it with compassion, understanding and accuracy" (Brinton, 1987, p. 7).

The independent presses often have the role of making the time and taking the risk to cultivate and publish cutting edge work on crucial topics. In fact, hundreds of alternative, small, independent, literary, and niche publishers exist and thrive quite nicely, though marginally. It continues to be harder for them to compete and remain visible with the closing of independent booksellers over the past 10 years (Petrocelli, 1999). "From 1997 to 2000, one-third of the country's feminist book stores closed for good" (Norman, 2001). The chain bookstores may carry some alternative books, but by-and-large their attention and promotion of independent presses remains limited. Independent presses simply lack the capital to gain high visibility for their books. Ironically, trade publishing waits for the proven successes from small presses then appropriate and co-opt authors and subjects for their own profits.

c) Audiences -- Homogenization of the marketplace & Pandering to deficient readers

Jason Epstein (2001) claims the expanding suburbs and the proliferation of chain mall bookstores created a "morally neutral market condition" (p. 26) thus denying books "the complex cultures of great cities in which to reverberate" (p. 13). Ted Solotaroff (1987) views publishing as an institution of culture. He adds to the chorus claiming big publishers are only interested in books that will sell quickly. Choices are directed by chain bookstores looking to fill popular needs and the demands of their customers. In this way, he seems to place the burden of mediocre publishing on "a new breed of American book consumers" (p. 33), though he does not specifically identify who those consumers are.

William Brinton (1987) continues this thread by noting

what we are reading today and will read into the 1990's will be determined by money. Money is shaping our reading habits, and to paraphrase Hannah Arendt, is perpetuating the banality of mediocrity which is well on the way to being 'globalized' by some publishers. (p. 7, emphasis mine)

Ted Solotaroff (1987) chides publishers for their corporate mentality and financial greed but also seems to blame the consumer for this situation. Solotaroff insinuates publishers should not give into the simplified demands of these readers. Epstein (2001) concurs, by noting Doubleday's division promoting book clubs was devoted "to commercial ephemera aimed at unsophisticated readers, while its backlist deteriorated and its more literary editors complained of being trapped, like Chaplin, in the gears of a machine that went nowhere and produced nothing" (p. 41, emphasis mine). While the bottom line profit-making goals of the conglomerates create a problem, according to the critics, the fault or blame for poor literary quality falls on the indiscriminate tastes of common readers (Epstein, 2001).

Similar to the adult education curriculum concerns noted earlier, the three values of publishing as outlined above raise two issues, namely content and context. First, publishers themselves control content and proliferate mediocrity by over publishing repetitive books on an increasingly narrow range of topics. In this way, conglomerate controlled media¹⁶ (and publishing) manufacture consent (Herman & Chomsky, 1988).¹⁷ Due to media conglomeration, readers continue to demand and "choose" what publishers have already decided readers should want--those ultimate profit-making items. Sometimes challenging and powerful books do get published. As Noam Chomsky (1989) points out, corporate media allows some independence and marginal dissent so consumers don't feel manipulated while publishers, in fact, frame the boundaries and topics of the discourse. They exploit and manipulate changing social realities¹⁸ to their own economic benefit while still denigrating those previously marginalized readers.

The second issue centers on context--the pundits who decree the loss of literary quality because publishers pander to the common reader. The printing press and movable type narrows "the notorious gap between the educated rich and the unlettered poor" (Epstein, 2001, p. 31). The commentators on publishing do not identify who the common reader is. Do they mean the working people who have more access to public education and interest in continuing education? Solotaroff (1987) makes reference to the growing number of "educated middle class and serious reading public" emerging from the spread of higher education after World War II and the GI Bill (pp. 31-32). Dessauer (1981) mentions the sales of college outline guides not to college students but to "truck drivers, subway guards, accountants, and office secretaries" (p. 15).¹⁹ These references hint perhaps at class or race differences of the changing reading public--from a primarily white, educated (male) elite to publicly educated masses. Does an increase in broader access to education and functional literacy affect literary quality, presumably because lesser educated people demand more popular writing or supposedly cannot appreciate highly literate / literary writing? What ramifications does this have for the power of publishing?

Would it be more accurate to view the concern for mediocrity as actually a threat to hegemonic, educationally elite, whiteness losing control of the discourse (content) or definition of what is considered quality literature (context)? Will a proliferation of simplified books for commonly educated adults threaten elitist literary standards, or would it simply make studied opinions more accessible? Do so-called popular interests and simplified readability dumb us down²⁰ or does is make the conversation more interesting because more people have access to it? Will this supposed acceptable mediocrity encourage those with limited writing practices to find enough self-confidence to enter the print-based arena--thus broadening the community discourse on our lives and social political perspectives? As long as a narrow elite controls 80% of all media, many voices remain denied.

While this may all be very interesting, what does it have to do with adult literacy publishing? Although adult learners might be considered among the so-called common readers who benefit from lowest common denominator bestsellers, even those books are generally beyond the reading proficiencies of many adult learners.²¹ In the conglomerate climate, publishing basic authentic reading materials for adults is not adequately profitable. Books for adults reading at basic levels--and most likely with limited income--will not sell in the numbers required to produce a profit and will not become bestsellers, or even steady sellers. Adult reading levels vary too much to be predictable as well, so a wide range of books representing many proficiency levels contributes to even slower sales and profits.

Some publisher reluctance may have to do with the societal views of adult learners--stupid, simple, deficient, infantile, not responsible. Adult learners are blamed for their misfortune because they did not do their learning work in K-12 as they should have. Therefore, publishers²² may unconsciously believe adult learners do not deserve books they can read or use for a variety of literacy practices. According to industry professionals such as Curtis (1998), Gitlin (1997) and Schiffrin (2000), trade publishing has compromised literary quality. To prevent this further, the readability levels for adult books need to remain well above certain basic levels--still beyond the proficiencies of most adult learners.²³

Tensions created by financial profit and literary purpose clearly push the needs of adult learners further to the margins. Adult learners seeking to improve their reading or adults with limited functional literacy skills are simply not visible to book industry professionals, let alone valued. Though few of the writings from trade publishing discuss literacy or literacy publishing per se, references to this area are made in discussions of educational and textbook publishing. Most of these references, however, discuss K-12 or college level textbooks used by or prepared for school systems (Bratland, 1995; Brinton, 1987; Dessauer, 1981; Elliott & Wooward, 1990; Solotaroff, 1987). An article by Kenneth Levine (1986) published in a book research publication outlines the problem of illiteracy in Britain and encourages a campaign to address it. He makes no real suggestions for the roles of publishers to produce literacy materials. William Brinton (1987)²⁴ and M. Carus (1990) positively discuss the ways in which small and niche publishers can fill the gaps in basal textbook publishing (K-8)--especially in light of the changing social conditions and educational reform making it increasingly harder for one text to satisfy all needs. Trade publishers have not moved to produce authentic adult reading/literacy materials.²⁵

Nor have literacy educators, for the most part, entered this discussion of publishing and materials production. In the United States, research about literacy generally focuses on the definitions of literacy, purposes and goals for literacy, reasons for "illiteracy" and remedies, the characteristics of or problems with learners, and development of curriculum and pedagogies to achieve adult literacy--specifically print-based English language reading and writing skills.²⁶ In all my reading and searching, though, I have noticed only passing recognition about the actual availability of specific literacy materials. The power of publishing in relation to the availability of authentic reading materials for adult learners has generally not been recognized or addressed by adult literacy educators and researchers.

Concerns about curriculum might center on what should be covered in adult literacy programs but there is no intentional focus among educators on how the politics of publishing affects what is available for their use, or how to increase the commercial publishing and availability of authentic reading materials for adults. In an article about common definitions of literacy, Ronald Cervero (1985) notes commercial publishers would most likely benefit from a standardized definition of literacy.²⁷ Adult literacy textbooks are usually prepared by educational textbook publishers (including K-12) producing few texts and workbooks for adults within the larger array of their publishing. Catherine Walsh (1991) discusses the ways in which commercial publishers of textbooks sustain dominant societal interests. Similar to trade publishing, she goes on to point out how the textbook market is also dominated by monopoly and profit interests. With the notable exception of fiction titles published by Fearon Education, educational publishers emphasize textbook materials further contributing to the lack of authentic reading materials for adult learners.

In general, the availability of literacy publications for adult learners have primarily been filled been by niche publishers. New Readers Press (http://www.newreaderspress.com, a division of Laubach Literacy Action) has been one of the most visible adult literacy presses. But these companies generally do not view learners as readers of authentic materials either. In the 2000-2001 New Readers catalog, the majority of the materials are workbooks, curriculums, and readers with content-based questions. Only 24% of the titles²⁸ were specifically for enjoyment or personal information--though they often still include questions to test comprehension. Of those authentic materials, only 18% specifically addressed what could be considered as women's issues (e.g. parenting, health, sexual harassment). A quick glance at the current LVA catalog (Literacy Volunteers of America - http://www.literacyvolunteers.org) shows similar priorities. While their emphasis on functional skills remains similar, Laubach and LVA differ in their teaching methods. The Laubach system is based on traditional phonics-based practices while LVA is "based on whole language principles" (Spanenberg, 1996, p. 83). In both cases, though, the predominance of the deficiency model--and the dominant paradigm of functional literacy--prescribes primarily materials for remedial help and improvement. This view underlines the functionality of reading rather than a view of reading as connected to literacy practices supporting human growth and potential or facilitating engagement in thinking critically about complex social issues. In general, both trade and educational publishers²⁹ produce few authentic reading materials at basic reading levels. This discourages the desire of adult learners to read widely and limits their opportunities to enter through reading the issues and discourses developed via print-based culture.

The emphasis on learner participation and emancipatory goals places a different set of criteria on the authentic literacy materials preferred in programs using popular education or more critical paradigms of literacy education. Because the emphasis is on the social context of the learners, usually with some critique of mainstream repressive culture, commercially published materials--with the exception of current newspapers and magazines--may have less viability. These participatory programs tend to develop their own materials with their staff and learners making them responsive to specific situations and perhaps limiting their re-use. As Marilyn Kay Gillespie (1991) has illustrated, many literacy program do create their own materials though they remain isolated incidents with little opportunity for networking or sharing resources between programs.

Before we can look at the place of women-centered literacy materials in this larger conversation of paradigms of literacy and publishing, we must understand some crucial views of women's writing and communication. We must look at how women's writings have been treated by publishing practices and affected by discussions of education and literary quality. To do this, I will now acknowledge the important work of the feminist Women in Print movement.

Women's Writing and Lessons from the Women in Print Movement

The male-centered definitions of quality and profitability demanded by publishers has historically created difficulties for women's writing and women in publishing. Dale Spender, an important advocate for women's writing, has pointed out the prejudice of that male focus--"you don't need to read women's writing to know it's no good" (1989, book subtitle). The male perspective further persisted--even if some of it might be good, it wouldn't sell. Who would read it? Therefore, who would buy it?

As a center of male-defined discourse and power, print media had historically refused to acknowledge the importance of women's writings. The popularity of the novel in England and the U.S. began in the early 19^th century.

As a new form of literature intended for a broader audience, the novel did not quickly win the admiration of the guardians of literary taste and morality. The early novel's characteristics, coupled with the prominence of women as authors, subjects, and readers, assured it a low intellectual and social position. (Coser, Kadushin & Powell, 1982, p. 233)

As a visible threat to male power, women's writings were either belittled or co-opted. By looking at the work of Gaye Tuchman, Nina Fortin, and Ann Douglas,³⁰ Coser et.al. (1982) summarize that towards the end of the century, men began to write more novels, thus making it a higher-status profession. This, in turn, gave those books and male writers an increased number of book reviews, therefore, more visibility and credibility. Over time, especially in the U.S., there developed a distinction between high culture and popular culture--"...high-culture novel became an almost exclusively male preserve; the popular novel became associated with women and the clergy, both of whom were 'dis-established' by the waning of Puritanism and the rise of industrialism" (p. 234).

At the beginning of the 20^th century, Virginia Woolfe puts it more directly in A Room of One's Own (1929). She discusses how the novel corresponds to real life but that the stuff of men's lives (war, sports) are valued more than those of women's lives (drawing rooms, fashion and clothes).³¹ Men's writing has more authority where women's writing is viewed as fundamentally flawed, though Woolfe admires women's persistence:

What genius, what integrity it must have required in the face of all that criticism, in the midst of that purely patriarchal society, to hold fast to the thing as they saw it without shrinking….They wrote as women write, not as men write…. One must have been something of a firebrand to say to oneself, Oh, but they can't buy literature too. Literature is open to everybody.…Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind. (pp. 77-79)

We could view women's place in publishing as not only about literature but about communication in general. In Women Speak, Foss & Foss (1991) discuss the ways in which women's communication about their lives, especially in the public arena, has been muted, misinterpreted, and held as insignificant. In their book, they provide 30 examples of women's communication, several of which may involve some form of print literacy and many that don't: architecture, baking, children's parties, comedy, costume design, dance, dress, family stories, filmmaking, gardening, graffiti, herbology, holiday greetings, interior design, jewelry design, journal writing, language, letter writing, mother-child interaction, motherhood, needlework, newsletters, painting/printmaking, photography, poetry, public speaking, quilting, reading group, rituals, and shopping. For those of us centered in book knowledge and publishing, this list represents some challenges to our understandings of the power of language and literacy and the centralization of print-based communication. It becomes especially interesting when situated next to the types of books Ted Solotaroff (1987) lists as consumer-oriented titles found in shopping malls:

The books that service popular needs for information, instruction, entertainment, and fantasy….the proliferation of cookbooks and dieting books; physical, mental, and spiritual self-help books; fad and celebrity books; and books on all stages of the life cycle from infant care and child-rearing to retirement and estate planning. It also explains the corollary development in fiction, the domination by the masters of the categories--occult, romance, detective, spy, Western, horror, and so on. (p. 34)

Are women's interests and forms of communication therefore to be blamed for the mediocrity of contemporary consumer-based publishing? I am aware this is contradictory and treacherous ground. The existence of what might be considered as undeserving junk created just to snare the uncritical, "gotta have it" fad-driven consumer produced and published by profit-hungry unscrupulous conglomerates in undeniable. But how do we decide what is worthy when many literary silences and oppressions (gender, sexuality, race and class) have been legitimized through accusations of using bad writing, lacking integrity or rigor, proving too political, or containing frivolous subject-matter?

Gender-based and paternalistic metaphors of reading and definitions of literary writing continue to invalidate women's experiences and belittle as domestic and parochial women's writing and literacy (Schweickart , 1986; Simons & Fullbrook, 1998; D. Spender, 1989; L. Spender, 1983). Here we can glimpse the power of print and publishing to legitimize certain kinds of knowledge and its production, to transmit prescribed understandings of culture and social roles, to control who writes to whom about what, to "select the information and ideas that will be allowed to pass through the 'gates'" (L. Spender, 1983, p. 6), to guide discourse related to governance and social change, and to affect what we know as "truth."³²

The Women in Print Movement emerged to pursue justice and equality for women by putting women's writings into print. I acknowledge the long and proud history of women who have participated in print-based activities as publishers, writers, editors, journalists, critics, agents, publicists, librarians (for example, Cane & Alves, 2001; Royster, 2000). However, I use as my point of reference the contemporary Women in Print movement--the time-period since 1969 focused by lesbian and feminist print activism. As Carol Seajay (1992) has noted about print and the women's liberation movement:

In the late 1960s, little of what we needed to know was available in any written form. When we did get coverage in mainstream publications, our ideas were distorted and trivialized, and it became increasingly clear that if we wanted feminist ideas in print we would have to do it ourselves. Freedom of the press, we learned in the early 1970s, belonged to those who owned printing presses.…we established our own typesetting shops, binderies, wholesale distributors, and bookstores to put literature into women's hands….The development of the women-in-print movement was a part of that drive for women's independence. (p. 60)

The Women in Print movement has been one of radical social change for women--and men--concerned about women's writings. Most importantly, it proposes alternative options against "the gatekeepers for public discourse" (Murray, 2001, p.1).

During the late 1960s and early 70s--through the initial use of letterpress and mimeograph machines, and hand-collated, stapled pages--small and alternative presses began to emerge in the U.S. through creating magazines, newspapers, and eventually books. "These new publishers came out of the counterculture, civil rights, and anti-Vietnam War movements" (Barbato, 1997, p. 42).³³ While critics of the trade publishing industry regard the shifts in choices of what to print, feminists continued to note what remained unpublished. As Kay Adams (1998) points out:

The Women in Print movement challenged the publishing establishment and in the process changed what counts as knowledge. In so doing, the movement created some of the most lasting alternative institutions of cultural feminism....And the literacy and theoretical products of alternative lesbian-feminist publishing have been one of the richest and most lasting accomplishments of the women's liberation movement. (p. 136)

Along with the growing number of alternative, socially progressive, leftist and black publishers emerging during this time period, the Women in Print movement contributed to the evaluation of publishers as gatekeepers of mainstream U.S. culture and recognized how the so-called freedom of the press managed to exclude large numbers of marginalized peoples.

During the women's movement of the 1960s and 70s, it had been the topics raised in consciousness-raising conversations that became the focus for many early publications produced by feminist and lesbian presses (Adams, 1998)--such as experiences of domestic violence, sexual harassment, pay inequity, racial discrimination, lesbian relationships, and so on. One of the emancipatory goals of the contemporary Women-in-Print movement has been to break new ground on issues and topics important to women's lives. By doing this, opportunities in print and conversation could be opened for discussion, action, and social change. Magazines, journals and women's newspapers provided outlets for creative writing and poetry, information sharing, news, opinion and analysis. They generally functioned as tools for organization.

The Women in Print movement developed women's literary heritage in several ways. The creation of mimeographed writings developed into longer staple-bound formats that eventually became complete books. Our Bodies, Ourselves by the Boston Health Collective started this way as did many books of poetry. In many cases, chapbooks or poetry collections became the first available publications because they were the easiest and least expensive to produce. They were easy to carry around and many women tell stories of moving books across country in their suitcases or car trunks, and making them available hand to hand. In this way, the women's liberation movement and the Women in Print Movement co-created each other.

For presses such as Virago in England and Feminist Press at CUNY in the U.S., some of the heritage making work involved recovering the lost works of women writers--women whose writing had long been out of print. Some publishers worked to fill the void in specific areas, for example, Lollipop Power created a number of non-sexist children's books and Naiad Press published lesbian fiction. Many presses--most starting with no capital but with a lot of hard work and imagination--produced both fiction and non-fiction on a wide array of subjects bringing to voice many topics previously unconsidered. Authors who are now extremely well-known and respected--Rita Mae Brown, Dorothy Allison, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Adrienne Rich, Barbara Smith, Gloria Anzaldúa and many more--were first published by women's presses, many of which no longer exist.³⁴ As I write this in 2002, it is hard to remember or imagine a time when there were few or no women's presses and when women's literature did not have the visibility it does now.

The Women in Print movement has succeeded on many levels:

• To break new ground on issues and topics important to women's lives
   
• To take action by doing it ourselves--empowering ourselves to take women's writing seriously and encouraging our writers and ourselves to develop our craft
   
• To bring women's voices and experiences to visibility in the public forum through print media
   
• To respond to heteropatriarchal power centers controlling the public accessibility of women's writings and topics for discussion
   
• To increase the numbers of women in editorial positions and other decision-making and power sectors of publishing
   
• To develop our own critical lenses for reviewing each others work
   
• To create a (feminist/womanist) consciousness, both personally and politically
   
• To understand ourselves as creators and interpreters of knowledge, distributors of information, and leaders in communities

Women in Print has created an international community of writers, readers, critics, and fans. It has proven there is a market for women's writing, a market which has been successful on many levels. Given the current publishing trends and directions towards conglomeration, there remains a vital place and purpose for the Women in Print movement. The visibility of women's writings, especially those by new and emerging writers and those on controversial issues questioning centers of power, depends on a viable network of alternative and independent presses with clear missions.

Women's presses too need to remain financially viable while continuing to publish provocative work. The women's liberation movement has changed so significantly in focus and strategy, Unfortunately, it is no longer symbiotic with the Women in Print movement. As Lynne Spender (1983) notes, editorial and marketing decisions become increasingly affected by more mainstream factors.

The resources and the influence that have accrued to male-controlled publishing and organizations allow men to determine the market conditions and the acceptability of all published material. Gatekeeping practices that have served to project the image of feminists as radical, anti-male, and anti-society have pushed feminist publishers and publications into a marginal position and for both financial and political reasons…. (p. 107)

That observation, written just prior to the large-scale shift towards conglomerate publishing, is nearly prophetic. There has been an enormous decline of women's presses and publishing in the late 1990s, partially due to the success trade publishing has in co-opting women's issues and in attracting our most popular writers with financial resources. The contemporary Women in Print movement is struggling as are feminist and independent bookstores, which close daily due largely to chain bookstore aggression.³⁵ Today, there are fewer outlets to make alternative and feminist publishing accessible and available. Conglomerate publishing increasingly controls the level of debate and discussion available in print, using economic resources alternative publishers do not have.

How this decline will affect what trade publishers do with the future of women's writing or feminist publishing remains to be seen. Long-time feminist booksellers with memories reaching back to the 1970s and 80s share our foreboding as we contemplate the future. We fear the passing of the Women in Print uprising when conglomerate publishers--still male-controlled³⁶--will once again under publish the work of women (writers of color, queer folk and other marginalized communities), especially those who present challenges to heteropatriarchy or surface new issues in women's lives. The success of Oprah Winfrey's book club³⁷ notwithstanding, corporate controlled hegemonic publishers will make narrower publishing choices, lean towards the trendy--or demeaning--and avoid provocative or empowering viewpoints. This is not paranoia but a sophisticated reading of current publishing activity..

Women in Print as a social movement does not have access to the path of big profit though we have shown that women's writings do have financial viability. The experiences of Women in Print may be of some help when considering why there are so few women-centered literacy materials and encouraging the revolutionary work of making our own.

Women-Centered

Before I return to the discussion of women's literacy in relation to the previously discussed paradigms, it is important to understand why I refer to authentic basic women's reading materials as "women-centered." Initially, because of my own background and agenda, I thought I should use the words "feminist" and "womanist" to describe the sorts of materials I was discussing. From years of feminist activism, I understand how naming carries an incredible amount of power in forming our perceptions, reactions and actions.

As I began to work with teachers and literacy workers on Women Leading Through Reading (see Claiming My Place), there was a general recognition about the importance of addressing women's specific needs but I only recall one teacher willing to use the word feminist for our project at hand. Though Laubach Literacy Action has a project called Women in Literacy (http://www.laubach.org/WIL/USA/usa.html), it does not appear to have a consciously feminist agenda, though certainly women participating may consider themselves feminists. When I participated in the International Women and Literacy Conferences in 1999 and 2001, it seemed to me the only women perhaps more silent than the feminists about their perspectives and identities were the lesbians!

Feminist perspectives do exist in the research writings on women and literacy. My guide into this literature on women's literacy was the very impressive bibliography developed by Susan Imel and Sandra Kerka (1996).³⁸ They referred to their own work as "woman-positive" as does the work published by CCLOW--Canadian Congress for Learning Opportunities for Women (Atkinson, Ennis, & Lloyd, 1996; Lloyd, with Ennis, & Atkinson, 1994a). Several other writers having been willing to claim feminism outright (Beckelman, 1988; Hugo, 1989; Lind, 1990; Nonesuch, 1996; Olson & Hirsh, 1995; Stalker, 1998; Tisdell, 2000; Turner, 1990). I myself used the word feminist in the Spring 2000 research on women's literacy materials (Miller, 2000a). I have found only one use of the term "womanist" in relation to adult women's learning (Sheared, 1994).

For the most part, though, "feminist" or "womanist" do not seem to be the primary language used by educators when talking about "women's experiences," "women's learning," or women and literacy, though many of these writings clearly are concerned with gender-based oppressions, sexism, women's way of learning/knowing, and women's rights to education. I also noticed that much of this literature was coming from Canada, Australia and other places around the world. My suspicions were confirmed by Imel and Kerka (1996) who note that "the relationship between feminism and women and literacy are only beginning to emerge in the literature produced in the United States" (p. 46). They offer some reasons for why literacy workers have shied away from feminism--negative connotations, lack of representation of women who are not white and middle-class, and women not self-identified as feminist.

I debated with myself about the pros and cons, gains and losses resulting from a decision not to use the term feminist. Was I afraid of being negatively labeled and perhaps not invited into the literacy circles? Was I taking the path of least resistance? Was I afraid to be clear with my liberatory agenda? And sacrificing what? Was I concerned about seeming confrontational to the powers of policy-makers and curriculum writers or too alienating to women learners or literacy workers with whom I wanted to work? Why was I afraid to be out as a feminist? On some level, I wanted to shun the word feminist to prevent having to define which feminisms would be presented or to decide if some materials were indeed feminist. And I wondered if not loading the sense of these materials with political connotations of feminism would perhaps allow an even larger possibility of women's emancipatory discourse or activism to emerge.

Recent experiences with women learners further complicated this thinking. On two separate occasions in book groups with learners at Family Learning (see p. 26) when I did use the word feminist or feminism, women learners did not know what the word meant. They had never encountered the word before so had no idea what I was meaning. Explained simply as a movement for women's rights,³⁹ feminist was a fine term. Using the term "women-centered" allows this discourse to emerge but "feminist" can later be introduced to push the conversation forward.

I did not choose to use "women-positive" and I consciously don't know why. I think this was a subtler decision because the term "women-centered" was used frequently throughout some of the literature--and perhaps this was the term most used among literacy worker with whom I was speaking. Though "women-centered" perhaps makes the description of the project more understandable and visible--and perhaps less threatening--to learners and literacy workers and policy-makers, it too has some problems. After all, something could be women-centered but not have feminist/womanist analysis and values. In fact, anything women-centered--in its seeming neutrality--could just as simply be woman-hating in the way it subtly maintains or reinforces damaging stereotypical oppressive views of women. For example, we could argue that family literacy programs may have women-centered components but in fact reinforce women's domestic roles and devalues or adds conflict to women coming into their own knowledge or desiring to change their lives (Auerbach, 1989 & 1998; Carmack, 1992; Cuban & Hayes, 1996).

In playing this game of semantics, though, the words "women-centered" may be just as threatening as "feminism" to literacy workers and adult learners who view opportunities for women necessarily discriminatory against men or must always exclude men. As I mentioned in Claiming My Place when discussing the book groups, some women have little experience with women-only space so the concept of women-centered is just as unusual. In most cases, though, "women-centered" was clear, simple, and accessible. Both literacy workers and women learners were responsive to this language.

While I use "women-centered" throughout this dissertation project and while I want to remain open to the many possibilities and ramifications this suggests, my own usage of the term originates from feminist/womanist perspectives. For me, this means understanding gender-oppression as central but integrally connected to and interdependent with differences and disparities for women based on race, class, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, ability, religion, language, body size. Imel and Kerka (1996) suggest that "an analysis of the relationship between feminist theory and women and literacy could increase an understanding of the contributions of feminism to the field and shed light on many of the current issues" (p. 52). Furthermore, I would also hope that the Knowledges in View from adult women learners and literacy workers would also gain visibility and inform those activists and academics who develop feminist theory.

Effects of a Women-Centered Lens on the Paradigms of Literacy

The two paradigms of literacy (dominant/functional and alternative/critical) do not necessarily help us to understand what literacy means for women. While both paradigms may offer some promise that literacy will improve women's lives, those theories still glaze over the unique experiences of women based in experiences of gender and gender-based oppression. Kathleen Rockhill (1993) makes an illustrative point:

The politics of literacy are integral to the cultural genocide of a people, as well as the gendering of society. The construction of literacy is embedded in the discursive practices and power relationships of everyday life: it is socially constructed, materially produced, morally regulated, and carries a symbolic significance which cannot be captured by its reduction to any one of these. Literacy is caught up in the material, racial and sexual oppression of women, and it embodies their hope for escape. For women, it is experienced as both, a threat and a desire: to learn English means to go to school, to enter a world that holds the promise of change and, because of this, threatens all that they know. (p. 171)

As Elizabeth Ellsworth (1989) points out, even critical paradigms of literacy may not be empowering for women as they keep us involved in analytical thinking and rationalism, thus separated from holistic possibilities of emotion, intuition, dialog, and embodiment.

It is impossible to understand or discuss women and literacy unless we also understand how gender oppression for women is deeply connected to and infused with gendered, racial and class-based oppressions. The allocations of privilege, status, power and authority according to sex and gender differences are reproduced throughout societal institutions, including education, and continue the oppression and exploitation of women. "Masculine characteristics, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are valued as the norm, and the feminine counterparts are devalued. Men are empowered, women are disempowered" (Collard & Stalker, 1991, p. 72). Lalita Ramdas (1994) illustrated how women's illiteracy (70% globally) is intricately related to structures of patriarchy and oppression of women. Women's literacy, then, is necessarily tied to women's quest for justice.

To separate gender issues from an understanding of racism, whiteness, and social class does a disservice to women. As Kathleen Weiler (1994) so eloquently points out, the locations of our differences make it difficult for us to form common knowledge. Additionally, in the context of the United States (as well in Canada, England and some other English-speaking countries), we cannot understand the programming and curriculum for women's literacy unless we also understand national policy on welfare and its regulations, and issues of poverty in general. Internationally, in developing countries, women's education and place in society are directly related to development policies and practices (Ballara, 1996; Ramdas, 1990; Stromquist, 1990). Ultimately, these gender-based oppressions for all women are connected to the control of women's reproduction (sexuality) and the sexual division of labor (Turner, 1990), complicated further by race, class, sexual orientation, age, ability, body size, language, ethnicity, religion (see *Appendix Complicated Literacies). As long as these social systems exist, the perceptions that educationally disadvantaged women can improve their lives primarily through literacy will continue to be tragically false.

Over the past 10-15 years, numbers of writings by women researchers and practitioners have emerged to develop a portrayal of women's learning experiences, women's ways of knowing, goals and purposes of literacy and education, program development and learning environments, barriers to literacy, gender-based oppressions.⁴⁰ I do not need to cover all of that ground as Imel & Kerka (1996) have done it quite well, but I will explores those writings to illustrate the place and importance of women-centered literacy materials.

Women Reading the Word

Leonard Shlain (1998b) suggests,⁴¹ "the rise and fall of images, women's rights, and the sacred feminine have been closely tied to the rise and fall of alphabet literacy" (p. 75). Shlain, a vascular surgeon, understands the two hemispheres of the brain as having functionally different characteristics. The right side integrates feelings, music, images (pictures, etc.) and brings feeling states into consciousness. The left side has more to do with speech, and analytical functions. The right side has come to correspond with feminine characteristics (holistic, synthetic, concrete) while the left side is associated with masculine attributes (linear, sequential, abstract). Alphabet literacy, because it involves decoding and making sense of otherwise meaningless symbols, involves more left brain functioning. Shlain traces the history of alphabet literacy and shows that historically, as alphabet literacy has taken on more centrality and power, the right hemispheric, feminine features have been subordinated, thus contributing to the women's oppression in societies.⁴² I am not sure how much credence to give to his theory. However, there is one point he makes that I do find fascinating--what makes print-based cultures repressive to women is not so much the content of what is read but rather the process of reading itself dominated by abstract functions.

This becomes interesting when held in comparison to the work of Patrocinio Schweickart (1986) who argues for a feminist theory of reading. She revisits the work of Judith Fetterly who has outlined the ways in which women, when reading androcentric literature, go through a process of immasculation of women--"'women are taught to think like men, to identify with a male point of view, and to accept as normal and legitimate a male system of values, one of whose central principles is misogyny'" (Fetterly as quoted by Schweickart, p. 41-42). This becomes a double oppression as women are enlisted to immasculate themselves. As an isolated event, this may not be so problematic, but in patriarchal culture, "the experience of immasculation is paradigmatic of women's encounters with the dominant literature" (p. 50). On a similar note, Dorothy MacKeracker (1994) proposes that using male-centered ways of defining meaning results in women tending to convey a sense of uncertainty or lack of conviction in what they say because it is not their minds being spoken. I would say to those worried about motivation that perhaps being a resistant reader to this process could be quite healthy and liberating!

While not the focus of this dissertation project, reading or learning theory is important to recognize. How women read (decode the words) and are literate (in dominant culture) has much to do with how women learn and what they know. The process of reading keeps women involved in analytical and rational spaces while the content further deepens through immasculation our disassociation from our selves. What women read (content), especially those writings that reinforce misogynistic views, is reinforced and internalized by the process. A quote by Sally Kempton (citation unknown) hangs over my desk: "It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head."

Print-literacy is one way in which the minds and emotions of women are controlled. Meanwhile, our bodies are controlled through the regulation of sexuality (reproduction) and the sexual division of labor (Matthaei, 1997; Turner, 1990). To further complicate matters, women's literacy--the access to our intellect and heart--has deep connections to how women are physically controlled. In most cultures, sexuality confines women to roles as mothers and family nurturers.⁴³ In their critique of family literacy programs, Cuban & Hayes (1996) outline the ways in which mothers become conduits of literacy because these types of programs support woman's traditional role in the family. Traditional beliefs hold educating women necessarily means educating a family. The effects on women may be damaging as women pursue the needs of others rather than being the subject of their own learning; remain passive rather than active as a transmitters of skills with no power or authority as a knower; and continue to convey dominant cultural knowledge which supports rather than challenges the status quo.

Where family expectations are not enough to control women's bodies and sexuality, then threats and realities of physical, sexual, and emotional violence--by any number of male family members, bosses, or outside predators--also takes hold. As Jenny Horsman (1999) has demonstrated, women have been subject to many forms of trauma that are used to control, humiliate, debilitate, and silence women. Some of these violences have occurred in school settings as well as in homes and communities. These events make it hard for women to concentrate or stay present. Women then shut down to learning. Sometimes women have not been able to attend school-based learning settings because of their physical conditions or entrapment. Such trauma also debilitates women's self-esteem thus making it hard to set goals, vision a future, or feel able enough to achieve anything. In some cases, what happens in literacy programs (teacher surveillance, failure to learn, grade-school-like settings) can trigger memories of abusive situations.

In her work with immigrant Mexican women, Kathleen Rockhill (1987) noted the range of work opportunities for women (domestic, factory worker) without English skills is much narrower than it is for men. Women aspiring to be somebody must take on more education and attain better English literacy practices (beyond functional literacy) in order to qualify for more middle-class types of jobs--specifically becoming a secretary. This reinforces the notion of acceptable feminine work and gender stereotypes of acceptable work for women. Women--especially immigrant women--become trapped by gender, class and language, and race. The promise of literacy is clean, important and acceptable work while the threat of literacy becomes the power imbalance with the men in their families and communities and the dramatic change of their desires and lifestyle.

For women in poverty, women's sexuality and labor are especially controlled in insidious ways through national policies on welfare and workfare. These policies drive literacy programming by outlining what kind of (limited) education will count as work, placing limits on length of educational support or training, and specifying terms of accountability in order to receive funding (Hayes, 1999; Miranne, 1998).⁴⁴ For women who do manage to achieve some of the promise of literacy or education, their work and labor remains underpaid and exploited, and--in the home--unpaid.

Being functionally literate offers women a promise for a better life but only within systemic boundaries controlled through gender. Print literacy in the dominant functional paradigm reinforces the repressive place of women in dominant culture through materials or school-based texts reproducing stereotypes of class, race, sexuality and gender or silencing women's experiences with little mention of them at all. While critical literacy may encourage women to read the world (though it is patronizing to think they may not have already), it does so from a place of abstract rationalism neither centralizing relational and emotional aspects nor helping to understand the multiple identities women may have. Do women need to read "the world" or do they need to read themselves differently within that male-centered world?

Women's Literacy as Threat to Male Power

Several researchers have discussed the ways in which women's literacy is seen as a direct challenge and threat to male power (Campbell, 1992; Horsman, 1990; Rockhill, 1987). As more women become functionally literate, the threat of women's literacy power grows. As more women become critically literate, the harder it will be to control our sex and labor. I propose that the lack of women-centered literacy materials sustains the 'hidden curriculum' of the dominant literacy paradigm but also becomes another mechanism to maintain gender-oppression through controlling access to women's knowledge.

Dale Spender in The Writing or the Sex? (1989) does spend some chapters considering women's education. In her view, women are trained for literacy, that is, the mechanics of educational English. Women can do the literary housework but it is men who hold the top jobs in academe, publishing, literary criticism, journalism.

What if women are working at the precise occupations for which their education has fitted them? What if their "English education" has been to prepare them to be the handmaidens of literary men? Is it possible that women have been trained to excel in technical correctness so that they can do all the maintenance work on men's 'creative' contributions? (p. 99)

Lorri Neilson (1998) makes a similar point, "…the relations of ruling as we know them confine the majority of literate women to the office housework of society. In doing so, we as women remain outside or subordinate to the ruling apparatus and alienated from our own experiences" (p. 100). We might also consider, then, the control gained by male-dominated, whiteness, print culture. Maintaining a certain percentage of women undereducated, guaranteed to fail, and lacking in basic literacy keeps numbers of women more easily controlled and out of the central sources of power, knowledge, and governance currently mediated through print media.

As I have outlined earlier, the contemporary women's movement acknowledges one of the ways in which women's lives can be enriched, changed and improved is through access to the words and ideas of women in print. Women in Print not only published the words of women writers but also recorded in print media the conversations from consciousness-raising groups thus making them available to larger numbers of women. It was a strategy to build solidarity and to create actions for change. Many reading women with access to feminist and women's literature and print resources have found sustenance and strength in them (Corrigan, 1996; Seajay, 1992). Unfortunately, this movement inadvertently assumed the ability to read. Based on the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) of percentages below Level 3 competency skills (Kirsch, Junegblut, Jenkins, and Kolstad, 1993), this print movement for all women is inaccessible to about 45% of women.⁴⁵ Statistics from the organization Wider Opportunities for Women, as quoted by Laubach Literacy Action (1995) indicate that:

1. In the United States, an estimated 23% of all adult females have severely limited literacy skills, compared to 17% of males.
   
2. For female heads of households, 75% of them with less than a high school diploma live in poverty, compared to 34% of men in the same situation.
   
3. Young women with below-average skills and below-poverty incomes are five-and-one-half times more likely to become teen parents.
    
4. Nearly 40% of female single parents and 35% of displaced homemakers have an eighth-grade education or less.

This denies non-reading women access to the riches found in such materials and omits them from the political discourse. The assumptions of literacy devalues, thus silences, the experiences and life stories of women learners because they go unwritten. Their voices remain absent from the print-based discourse (S. Miller, 1992). Additionally, as Thompson (1983) points out:

The separation of different groups of women from each other prevents the identification of common grievances and the recognition of shared subordination which needs to be our priority if the social stranglehold of patriarchy is to be confronted and resisted. (p. 126)

Both Stephanie Miller (1992) and bell hooks (1989) have noted that women with limited reading skills are alienated from feminist discussion because so much of it happens in print. As Ellsworth (1989) points out, our task is to build "coalition among multiple, shifting, intersecting, and sometimes contradictory groups" (p. 317).

Controlling women's writing in the public arenas through (not) publishing women's words keeps women's voices and knowledges silenced, hidden, private. If the writings of literate women are not good enough to be published, then the writings of women with limited proficiencies have less opportunity. Women writers, women's studies academics, feminist publishers, women readers and print activists, in the attempt to prove to malestream power and hegemony the legitimacy of our words and writing, have embraced male-defined standards for good English or literary merit. In this way, literate women have negated the many forms of literacy practices and expressive communications (Foss & Foss, 1991) common to a wide diversity of women. To re-claim the breadth of women's literacies, we need to shift our gaze to each other. In response to immasculation, Schweickart (1986) suggests a feminist response would be to create a shift in emphasis to a paradigm cultivating women's culture and writing--a gynocentric canon of significant works by women complete with reading strategies consonant with women's experiences. This could be an emancipatory praxis--to create a body of print literature embracing multiple forms of writings and including a range of expressions and literacies.

Women not only want to read the world, they want to read themselves and each other. "It is difficult to expect women in general to secure significant lasting changes under patriarchy when they have so few spaces and opportunities to problematize the politics of gender in relation to their own lives" (Bee, 1993, p. 120). The relationality we have with each other is the source of our power and nurture. Women's literacy involves emotion as well as intellect, namely self-esteem, communication, self-knowledge, cooperation (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986; Cornes, 1994; Nonesuch, 1996; Street, 1994). Women's literacy and women's writing not only involves text, but also picture and symbol, speech and conversation. Women's reading depends on communication and community and cannot only be viewed as a solitary analytical act.

Advocating for Women-Centered Literacy Materials

When I first started on this project, the limited number of authentic women-centered literacy materials both puzzled and troubled me. I have found only passing references to this problem. Susan Collard and Joyce Stalker (1991) note the absence of women and women's concerns in adult education and "feminist literature that might provide a basis from which women learners could begin to articulate, present, and theorize about their experiences" (p. 76). To the detriment of women, they note the prevalence of male-centered curriculum generalized to all learners. From their work with women, Elaine Gaber-Katz and Jenny Horsman (1988) assert the dire need for creative reading materials addressing women's concerns. As Elizabeth Tisdell (1993) points out, women of all races are either absent from literacy materials or presented to reinforce their subservience both in education and society. There exists insufficient teaching materials specifically designed for a female public (Chlebowska, 1992).

If curriculum expresses and reflects what we consider worth knowing (Collard and Stalker, 1991), why are there so few women-centered literacy materials? Educators who advocate for feminist or learner-centered pedagogies make a case for women-positive curriculum (Carmack, 1992; Collard & Stalker, 1991; Nonesuch, 1996; Tisdell, 1998). Others argue that women, as relational learners, need women-centered content so that their knowledges and experiences can be acknowledged (Horsman, 1994; MacKeracher, 1993 and 1994). Using relevant materials fosters cultural awareness as well (Martin, 1990). There exists a general lack of women-centered, women-positive literacy materials at appropriate basic-reading levels focusing on a wide group of issues and topics concerning women. Literacy workers notice this gap, desire more of these materials and, as a result, create their own materials in a variety of ways (Gillespie, 1991; Miller, 2000a). Given some of the literature on adult learning theory and pedagogical practices, both in general and also specifically to women, it would seem that the place of women-centered literacy materials should be more strongly emphasized.

There actually have been some specific calls for women-centered literacy materials. Lalita Ramdas (1994) urges literacy programs internationally to drastically revise their content and materials. As she draws on the work of Nellie Stromquist, Ramdas makes it clear doing this will help programs become "consciously 'emancipatory' as opposed to propagating a 'status quo' approach..." (1994, p. 21). In its set of recommendations for how to address the literacy needs of women, By Women, For Women includes, "Develop gender-sensitive instructional materials specifically for women…. Publishers of adult basic education materials need to develop products that reflect women's diverse needs and interests" (Laubach Literacy Action, 1995, p. 10).

One something in my mind has been how to deal with a central contradiction. How do I, on the one hand, try to recognize and honor the strength and validity of multi-languages, oral traditions, movement, emotion, touch, art and all the multiple ways of coming to knowledge and forming expression--without othering them--while at the same time promoting the value of women improving both their functional proficiencies and critical literacy practices? Similarly, how do I work in the hegemonic literacy/educational system while I try to vision, act and practice something else? Do I use the master's tools (Lorde, 1984a)? If so, how and if not, why not, and what do I use instead? As Jenny Horsman (2000) has put it,

the basic contradiction of much adult literacy work involves the desire to question the categories and privileging of literacy, and particular forms of literacy in society, while also working within these categories to offer critical literacy practices that seek to offer possibilities for change. (p. 20)

One of my clues to this dilemma comes from Dorothy MacKeracher (1994) who suggests the focus need not be on literacy directly. She suggests we generate the issues relevant to women for public discussion and further action which then addresses skills and literacy. Gloria Anzaldúa (1999) recommends flexibility--learning to tolerate the contradictions by being willing to live with ambiguity. Perhaps this is what Freire (1970) means by reflection/action. I assert the development of women-centered literacy materials may be a place to start. As Audre Lorde beautifully articulates:

I speak here of poetry as a revelatory distillation of experience….For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our experience. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives….The white father told us: I think, therefore I am. The Black mother within each of us - the poet - whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free. Poetry coins the language to express and charter this revolutionary demand, the implementation of that freedom. (Lorde, 1984b, pp. 37-38)

Tisdell (2000) reminds us that feminist pedagogies are about stories. They give us context, touch our hearts, and put a human factor on the rationality of ideas. Creating women-centered literacy materials means developing a polyrhythmic reality (Sheared, 1994), and simultaneously including the creativity of women's writing located in the concrete experiences of our lives with all its intersections of historical, sexual, racial, social, spiritual, political, economic context. Print-based women's writings and materials can NOT become an exploitable commodity but needs to break with standardization to allow us to talk through and bridge-over our diversities in order to create an emancipatory place. Knowledges come for women in many different ways and they are based in ethnic, race, class and gender specific natures of women's experiences. They are developed, expanded and re-understood through various forms of talk, dialog, voice, movement, art, picture, music, interaction and touch. Women's writings can be read in solitary reflection and/or with communal support. Community acknowledges not only the intellect and analytical ability but allows room and development for emotional and physical response. These community contexts could include (but not be limited to) all the places where women gather--including but not limited to kitchen tables, play groups, social groups, classrooms, laundromats, church basements, coffee shops, women's bookstores, beauty parlors, social service or medical waiting rooms. Sheared (1994) reminds us that women proceed through several stages from silence to knowledge--dialog helps this. Within these multifaceted meeting places, the reading and discussing of women's writings develop deeper meaning and provide opportunity for action. "This power lies not in the materials themselves but in the wider relations their use engenders, in the assumptions they promote, in the meanings they fashion, and in the actions they encourage" (Walsh, 1991, p. 11).

Pat Campbell (1992) wonders how such community-published works move beyond the personal to the political. In an important reflection on attaching women's words to theoretical frames Lorrie Neilsen (1998) suggests "…our work can have an emancipatory effect simply by creating experiences for women as women to tell their stories" (pp. 108-109). Similar to Lalita Ramdas (1994), I would say we need to make a distinction between addressing practical gender interests (short term immediate needs) and strategic gender issues (overarching issues such as sexual division of labor, institutionalized forms of gender discrimination, etc.). Women-centered literacy materials could be viewed as the practical building of coalition and community providing the basis for reading our world and leading to actions and strategiesaddressing those overarching issues. The Women in Print movement has exampled how this could work, women--feminists, womanists, mujeristas, humanists--just need to review and re-adjust the goals of our print-based organizing.

The final "Something in My Mind" then affirms the three guiding principle assumptions of this dissertation project:

1. Literacy learners and literacy workers need women-centered, women-positive basic-level English literacy / reading materials and women-centered literacy curriculum.

    

2. Such materials must be created in a participatory process involving adult women learners as contributors--advisors and leaders--in naming the areas and genres and formats of the reading materials to be developed.

    

3. Adult women learners will gain positive benefit from creative, accessible, and meaningful basic literacy materials that address women's issues. These materials with relevant content and context will give visibility to their experiences, foster their on-going desire to learn, encourage critical thinking, provide the support and information women learners could use to change their current situations, involve them more directly in the development of theory and action related to women's political movements, and provide a catalyst to transform women's lives.

1. "deconstruct" if you prefer

2. Amazon Bookstore Cooperative (http://www.amazonbookstorecoop.com), founded in 1970, is the oldest continuously existing feminist women's bookstore in North America. Located in Minneapolis, it is owned by a worker cooperative. I have been a worker-owner there since 1993. It has NO connections to amazon.com.

3. NCSALL (http://hugse1.harvard.edu/~ncsall/); NIFL (http://literacy.nifl.gov/); NCAL (http://litserver.literacy.upenn.edu/index.html)

4. This may be obvious, but in a U.S. context, I also need to point out that I mean literacy primarily in the English language.

5. Some may prefer to call it democratic socialism

6. "…to enhance the literacy and basic skills of adults, to ensure that all adults in the United States acquire the basic skills necessary to function effectively and achieve the greatest possible opportunity in their work and in their lives, and to strengthen and coordinate adult literacy programs." (Kirsch, 1993, p. xi)

7. For more information go to: http://www.nifl.gov/lincs/collections/policy/wia.html

8. arguably hegemonic

9. Soft-skills include workplace etiquette like how to dress, phone in if you will be sick or late, answer the phones, interact with coworkers, timeliness, etc.

10. Workforce Investment Act (PL 105-220)

11. The NALS descriptors call these prose, document, and quantitative literacies (Kirsch et.al, 1993).

12. In 1983, Ben Bagdikian identified 50 corporations dominating the media. In 2000, that number is now SIX! Details about the media Big Six can be found on the Internet: Solomon, N. (2000, June). The media Big Six. Z Magazine. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Media_control_propaganda/MediaBigSix.html.

13. A short yet detailed article about the history of corporate consolidation can be found on the Internet: Petrocelli, W. (1999, May). Book-Busters: Corporate consolidation in book publishing and selling and the decline of diversity. Multinational Monitor. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Media_control_propaganda/Book_busters.html.

14. I must stress that though separated for the purpose of discussion here, each issue necessarily depends and affects the others.

15. My references to publishing here does NOT include academic and university presses nor does it include textbook publishers. I have tried to make clear when I am referring to small, independent presses.

16. Cultural tie-ins: Movie, video, TV, book, magazines, poster art, music, advertising, clothing, toys, food, and innumerable consumer items

17. Thanks to Ilene Alexander for reminding me of this point.

18. As exampled by trade publishing seeming interest in women's books, queer titles, writings by authors of color. These independent press books do moderately well, selling steadily and respectably from small to great numbers. Small presses assume the risk and prove their legitimacy while conglomerate publishers make the profit. Trade publishing has only shown interest in such books AFTER independent presses demonstrated a demand for them.

19. It is beyond the scope of this essay, but a study of the history of public education in the 20th century held alongside a history of published books might hold some illumination about the rise and development of popular literature and writing.

20. Todd Gitlin (1997) provides an interesting piece of research to comment on the way sentence structure and language complexity has changed in popular taste between 1936 and 1996.

21. Both ABE (Adult Basic Ed) and ESL (English as Second Language)

22. We could perhaps add writers and editors to this list as well.

23. Often I hear people say that it is good to use children's literature for adults who can't read. Though for parents and some adults this may be a helpful supplementary tactic, I believe primarily using children's literature continues to infantilize life-experienced adults. Children's literature is exactly that. Though readable and enjoyable - it IS intended for children. There still needs to be high-interest, low-readability books on a wide range of adult topics.

24. This is a comprehensive resource for people interested in the ways small press publishing can respond to many concerns related to textbook publishing.

25. One notable exception is the three volume Words on the Page, The World in Your Hands series edited by Catherine Lipkin and Virginia Solotaroff and published by Harper & Row in 1990. All three books are now out-of-print, no longer available.

26. However, it has become increasingly popular to talk about "literacies"&emdash;numeric, computer, cultural, science, media, emotional, and so on in addition to educational distinctions of functional, critical, workplace, liberatory, etc.

27. "If all literacy programs had the same goals and content, the biggest winners would probably be the commercial interests in the field such as book and test publishers" (p.53).

28. According to my quick hand count through the catalog

29. Small and independent press exceptions include Seal Press and Morning Glory Press

30. Tuchman, G, & Fortin, N. (1980, Winter). Edging women out: Some suggestions about the structure of opportunities and the Victorian novel. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 6 (2), 308-25.

31. Obviously, there are some class and race reflections to be made here but these, overall, perhaps strengthen her point rather than weaken it.

32. Lynne Spender (1983) suggests that because print often works to legitimize the knowledge and truth, we sometimes unconsciously "accept print as their creator." (p. 15)

33. Barbato's article provides a good general history about the roots, successes, and struggles of small presses.

34. For a detailed history of women's presses, see Out of the World: Feminist Presses and Feminist Politics by Kayann Short, forthcoming from the Univ. of Michigan Press.

35. "From 1997 to 2000, one-third of the country's feminist bookstores closed for good" (Norman, 2001, p. 30). Rose Norman also goes on to quote practices as outlined in André Schffrin's (2000) book. Chain superstores have used their influence to demand large discounts from publishers allowing them to discount books and making it impossible for independents to financially compete. These practices "have driven some 2000 independent booksellers out of business since the early 1990s" (Norman, 2001, p. 30). Another aggressive action includes the ways in which chain superstores plan their store locations in close proximity to successful independent booksellers. Independent booksellers who maintained their stores for years and learned savvy business practices, did not have the capital necessary to keep their close-to-the-margin businesses afloat next to highly capitalized chain stores. Customer loyalty was hard to maintain against deep discounting.

36. "The fact that women in general, and more