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Sarachild delves into how women have been conditioned to be more visibly emotional than men and how they have used it to their advantage historically. She highlights the strategy that can be utilized through emotional intelligence. I think it felt very clinical the way she outlined what "resisting consciousness" looked like. At first glance it seemed like she was demonizing or shaming women for having these emotions but upon a closer look it's very clear she has put a great amount of thought into empathizing with these perspectives and attempting to uncover the root cause

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Consciousness raising is vital because the communal nature allowed everyone to be on somewhat equal footing. Ideally, it was a safe space for women to share their genuine feelings in community with others that can relate to. As Hansich says, "the personal is political," and I'd elaborate on that statement by saying, from my experience, organizing is incredibly personal. People show up to do movement work not only because they care about the end goal of what they're fighting for but also because they care about the people they are fighting with. Consciousness-raising sounds like it helped create an intimate bond amongst some women. However, the danger in consciousness raising is that if people become too focused on talk as opposed to action, nothing will get done. As Hansich noted, it's important to partake in meaningful action as opposed to action for action's sake but it's a fine line.

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Adding onto Baron's point, I think that the way he put the issue of tense is really key here. To be liberated is to think that the movement is over and there's no additional work to be done, whereas to be part of the women's liberation movement is to be actively fighting for liberation. In terms of men's perceptions to women's liberation, women who are "liberated" are more docile in certain ways since they are progressive but also don't see an issue with how things are. I think that Mainardi's ideas connect to Hanisch's ideas about how without a collective consciousness about current issues, it's easy to be blinded by the systems of oppression that surround us. That is, "liberated" women who think the fight for liberation is over are probably more inclined to fall into the trap of thinking their own struggles are personal rather than political.

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I do agree with Hanisch that consciousness raising is vital to the women's liberation movement, since, as she argues, the personal is political and consciousness raising is the only way for women to unite and see their common struggles as one. In the type of therapy group sessions that she would attend, it was a practice of listening to others and sharing about your own experience, but then drawing connections and seeing through lines in everyday oppression that women face. Problems of oppression down to smaller issues are still part of a much larger system that you need to be tuned into to see.

I was especially struck by her comment that "the bad things that are said about us as women are either myths (women are stupid), tactics women use to struggle individually (women are bitches), or are actually things we want to carry into the new society and want men to share too (women are sensitive, emotional)" (77). This comment, I think, sums up how when women are better able to identify comments that they make such as these, they are thinking about much larger issues than just wanting their husband to be more empathetic, for example. Additionally, in terms of the tactics women use to struggle individually line, the female isolation and female competition with other women is a tactic not only to deal with issues on our own, but also to isolate women to help feed patriarchal ends. To be conscious of these issues better allows women to fight against their own oppression which they can sometimes participate in themselves.

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I agree that consciousness was vital to the movement. I think the history of women being shamed for their emotions makes it crucial for them to be able to destigmatize their own emotions in a safe environment. I also think these women needed to come together and realize that their struggles were not just their own, that other women were struggling with the same things. They needed to recognize the systemic issues in order to figure out how to fight them. These consciousness-raising groups seemed to allow women a safe space to connect better with themselves and each other in order to take the next steps in overcoming the systems of oppression working against them.

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Sarachild argues that women's emotionality is a strength rather than a weakness. She explains that male culture views feelings as something one must push down and since women are let their feelings control them, they too must be pushed down. Sara rebuts this idea by saying that women are in touch with their emotions rather than controlled by them and that this connection with emotion is their greatest weapon against the emotionally repressed men who oppose them.
I think Sarachild does create a welcoming space within the description of the group sessions. She writes, "Our feelings will lead us to our theory, our theory to our action, and our feelings about that action to new theory and then to new action" (78). This effectively explains how being connected to one's emotions is an important tool to create change in the world. The outline Sarachild gives for how the consciousness-raising program works shows how talking about one's feelings and sharing experiences with others can help identify problems and solutions. For a group of people who have historically been ridiculed for being "hysterical" and taught that their emotions made them weak, I imagine being learning how their emotions can help them lead a revolution felt very empowering to women.

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Sarachild emphasizes the importance of emotions within the movement. She makes the powerful comment that, "women have all along been generally in touch with their feelings (rather than underneath them) and that their being in touch with their feelings has been their greatest strength, historically and for the future." Culture has put forth the notion that to be powerful and create change, one must take control of their emotions and not let their emotions guide them. Sarachild disagrees. She says, "Our feelings will lead us to our theory, our theory to our action, our feelings about that action to new theory and then to new action." Her point is that emotions tell us if there is something wrong, and they tell us how to respond to a situation.

I think Sarachild was able to create a welcoming space. She wanted people to express what they were feeling, explaining, "Let's let ourselves go and see where our feelings lead us. Our feelings will lead us to ideas and then to actions." This is very inviting because she is asking people to express their emotion, in whatever form, and that is what will guide the movement. This motivation can be seen through the structure of the "bitch session." Before organizing or determining actionable steps for change, a large portion of time was spent sharing experiences and connecting with each other. They could then find the commonalities between their stories and see the roots of their oppression.

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At first, these definitions put forth by Mainardi confused me. It seems that liberated women defined by man's wants and desires. Women who have sex before marriage and are more interesting than the standard American housewife would be considered liberated women. They have hobbies and careers, but these do not take so much time that they cannot get their household chores done. However, Women's Liberation actually takes into account housework. Women's Liberation requires men to be responsible for a share of that work because both men and women now have careers. I go back and forth on if the definition of Women's Liberation is radical. As we defined in class, radical means that it requires change or action relating to the fundamental nature of something. My first thoughts were that this idea is not radical. It does not address the root problem of the power indifference between men and women. I thought of it as "trivial," which is how Mainardi said people reacted when they first heard this argument. However, to some extent, I do see it as the embodiment of the fundamental problem. Something that stood out to me was one of the last points she made regard men's accomplishments. They have typically happened with women doing work behind them to aid their success, such as taking care of the house and children. Her interpretation of this is, "Oppression is built into the system and I, as the white American male, receive the benefits of this system. I don't want to give them up." If men had to start doing the housework to the level that women did, they would not accomplish as much, and women would begin to accomplish more. In order for women to be an equal part of the career force or be in positions of power, they would need the household work to be completed by someone else. So, as mentioned before, this does address the fundamental problem (for the white women's movement)  to a certain extent, and therefore is arguably radical. Oppositely, in terms of the entire women's movement, it does not necessarily address the experiences of women of color and other minorities. Because of this, I have not fully decided if I think it's radical or not.

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Emotions and Effectiveness of the Program

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Emotions and Effectiveness of the Program

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Sarachild outlined how emotions and sensitivity is suppressed under the male culture, and by stressing the importance of individual experience and emotions, women can empower themselves and turn what was viewed as disadvantageous into their strength. She stated, “male culture assumed that people should be on top of and puts women down for being led by their feelings (being underneath them).” (78). Here, Sarachild depicted how the male culture perceives being emotionally sensitive as a weakness instead of strength, which links to the idea that women are incapable of leading because they are easily emotionally manipulated/too volatile/“underneath emotions.” This dismissal of the importance of emotions, Sarachild argued, is “both our undoing and our only possible weapon of self-defense and self-assertion(aggression).” (78). Women’s emotions are weapons in the sense that individual experiences are often gateways to seeing a greater pattern of oppression, and the summation of individual feelings leads to the formation of theories and suggest a course of actions, which then forms a benign cycle in which ideas and practices stimulate each other. From her description of the consciousness-raising program, I think Sarachild successfully outlined the necessary components for a welcoming space. Notably, apart from sharing personal feelings, the program guides people to think about oppression from the individual level to the bigger picture. In part I B, the author mentioned several forms of “classic forms of resisting consciousness,” such as “excusing the oppressor,” “romantic fantasies,” and “self-blame.” (79). Furthermore, the program addresses possible sources of hesitancy that might prevent group members from confiding in their experience, and, notably, reflection on privileges white women have-“the white-skin privilege, the education, and citizenship of a big-power (imperialist) nation privilege, and seeing how this help to perpetuate our oppression as women, workers.” (80) Nonetheless, the program as it is outlined might differ from actual practices. It remains unclear from the reading how these practices, in effect, help women understand oppression and join women’s liberation.

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"Liberated Women" and "Women's Liberation"

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"Liberated Women" and "Women's Liberation"

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Mainardi intentionally separated the “liberated women” from “women’s liberation” to display the hypocrisy of some men who accept the benefits of women’s liberation but object to anything that breaks their privileged status. The participle “liberated” takes past tense, suggesting that they think the liberation is complete (so that actual work needs not to be done but rewards can be exploited). To men, the first terms come with more sex, better housekeeping routines, and satisfaction from the idea that he is somehow more progressive because he had a “liberated women” as a partner. Whereas the second term, “women’s liberation,” according to Mainardi, is a direct reference to an ongoing movement, and men find the part about actual work-especially housework, plausible but refuse to take real actions, for the reasons to be outlined in later elaborations. Mainardi talked about the “Old Commodity”(objectification) and the “New Commodity” and pictured how men view the “liberated women” as a superior thing for their comfort, yet they still expect women, in addition to the "liberated" roles, to take on housework and assume subordination. In my opinion, this differentiation is radical in that it not only points out but addresses in-depth how men might agree on housework distributions superficially yet fail to do their part because of normalized oppression, the view that men should only take on significant tasks, or that women are better at housework so they should do it (evident from a series of dialogues with MEANING analyzed afterward).

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Sarachild argues that women have a better grasp of their feelings than men do, allowing women to have power in society: “women have all along been generally in touch with their feelings … and that … has been their greatest strength historically and in the future” (78).  Women being in tune with their feelings has allowed them to be able to manipulate situations to their advantage over the years.  Women did not have any rights or power, leading them to turn to what they had, “hysterics, whining, bitching,” to get their point across (78).  While men criticized women for being too emotional, men had other means of power, but women did not.  Therefore, men should not have the right to police how women choose to take back their power.

I do think that Sarachild creates a welcoming atmosphere in her outline.  I especially appreciated that she mentions that “fear of personal exposure (fear of being thought stupid, immoral, weak, self-defstructive, etc. by the group)” could be a source of hesitancy for women to speak up in groups (80).  Women felt the pressure of potential judgment, but if the group leader was aware of women’s fears of judgment, then the leader could monitor the group interactions, ensuring that no one makes anyone feel uncomfortable.  Everyone should be understanding, welcoming, and accepting, instead of judging others.  Everyone had a right to their own opinions and perspectives because everyone had different experiences in life.

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Consciousness-raising was vital to the movement because consciousness-raising allowed women to see that the issues that they struggle with are issues that other women also experience.  Therefore, each struggle is not an isolated incident.  Because many women are experiencing the same problems, the main issue is systemic.  The problem is not the individual people, it is the institution and history of man dominance as a whole.  Consciousness-raising also helps to get “rid of self-blame” (76).  Women blamed themselves for their problems, but consciousness-raising shows the women that they are not to blame, helping to empower them by saying that they can take back power.  Consciousness-raising also helps women realize that “there are only good and bad things about each bad situation.  There is no ‘more liberated’ way; there are just bad alternatives” (77).  Some women might have felt that other women were better off and more liberated than themselves, but consciousness-raising allows women to understand that no woman's life is perfect; every woman’s life has flaws.  Consciousness-raising allowed women to become aware of the broader struggles, leading them to want to fight for all women, not just to fight for themselves.  Women  also realize that male dominance needs to be toppled because it is hurting and oppressing all women, not just themselves or a small group.

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Concepts you don't understand? Issues you want to talk about?

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Concepts you don't understand? Issues you want to talk about?

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Lastly, where do we see contemporary displays of these consciousness raising groups and how are they recepted by the public? How is this different or similar to their reception during the Second Wave?

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Lastly, where do we see contemporary displays of these consciousness raising groups and how are they recepted by the public? How is this different or similar to their reception during the Second Wave?

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In Sarachild's reading, she speaks of connecting with our emotions and speaking to them--how does she take negative associations that women are 'too emotional' and use this narrative to create change? Does Sarachild effectively create a welcoming space within the descriptions of what will go on within these group sessions? If not, what can she improve on? 

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In Sarachild's reading, she speaks of connecting with our emotions and speaking to them--how does she take negative associations that women are 'too emotional' and use this narrative to create change? Does Sarachild effectively create a welcoming space within the descriptions of what will go on within these group sessions? If not, what can she improve on? 

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At the beginning of the piece, Mainardi differentiates between “liberated women” and “women’s liberation.” In your own words, define these terms and state what makes them different from one another. In your opinion, are these concepts “radical?”

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At the beginning of the piece, Mainardi differentiates between “liberated women” and “women’s liberation.” In your own words, define these terms and state what makes them different from one another. In your opinion, are these concepts “radical?”

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As stated, many debate the usefulness of consciousness-raising. Do you agree with Hanisch that consciousness-raising was vital to the movement and why? If not, why not?

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As stated, many debate the usefulness of consciousness-raising. Do you agree with Hanisch that consciousness-raising was vital to the movement and why? If not, why not?