Women's Literacy: Not a Given

Off Our Backs, Nov/Dec 2003 by Miller, Mev

When I first read the outline for a special off our backs issue on women and education and saw the list of questions, I was once again reminded of a population continuously ignored in discussions of women and education. The call primarily suggested questions about academic women's studies, gender and lgbtq studies, and traditional institutions of schooling. However, the need and support for adult literacy and basic education for women remains largely invisible and marginalized in discussions of women and education. Feminist activists tend to make assumptions about women's basic functional literacy. Feminist activisms located in print and higher education continue to be inaccessible to large numbers of women with limited or pre-basic reading proficiencies. How can we claim to be activists in a political movement seeking justice for all women when the liberatory resources and publications, calls for action, and writings of academics and movement feminists assume levels of literacy that don't exist?

The oob call for writings on women and education asked two interesting questions: What has women's studies done for feminism? How much do academic women's studies programs help real women in the real world? I would answer that for women with limited literacy proficiencies, the answer might be "not much," especially given how marginalized or non-existent these issues are in women's studies texts. I have looked through many Women's Studies textbooks-of the introductory or survey format. In these texts, discussion of education (if addressed at all) largely focuses on gender inequities (such as in science or math), history and women's right to education, dropout rates, and problems of sexual harassment by teachers or peers. Though discussions of poverty, work, addiction and incarceration may make passing reference to women's lack of education, little connection is drawn between these issues and the on-going struggles faced by women who have limited reading proficiencies or education.

Who benefits from the assumptions of literacy and participates in this largely print-based and academy-centric feminist movement? Who is being silenced and ignored? What are the issues that get raised and what gets prioritized for discussion and, ultimately, focused on for action? What language gets used and is it accessible? What can be learned from women for whom print literacy presents challenges and who continue to be marginalized by educational systems? Much of our discourse is inaccessible because of elitist language and our focus on print-based media. This not only makes feminist theories inaccessible to those women with limited reading proficiencies, but also supports topics or theories largely removed from many women's everyday lives and realities. Women who may be non-readers, educationally disadvantaged, "illiterate," learning disabled, and those who choose not to read become isolated from the conversation, silenced, ignored and further marginalized from a women's liberation movement-assuming, of course, that feminism is still about liberation! (The irony of my own writing here has not escaped me!)

So who are these women affected by limited literacy or educational experiences? In 1992, the National Center for Educational Statistics, measured literacy along three dimensions-prose literacy, document literacy and quantitative literacy-describing ordered sets of information processing skills and strategies to accomplish literacy tasks in five different levels.

This National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) reported over 50% of women in the U.S. have literacy proficiencies lower than an average high school graduate (Level 3 proficiency). There are some additional statistics from the organization Wider Opportunities for Women (1994). For example, in the United States, an estimated 23% of all adult females have severely limited literacy skills, compared to 17% of males. Nearly 40% of female single parents and 35% of displaced homemakers have an eighth-grade education or less. In my own experience, when I discuss this research and statistics with feminist activists or academic feminists, the most frequent response I get is a raised incredulous eyebrow and the surprised utterance of "Really?" So-called "illiterate" women remain invisible to even those concerned about women's lives and issues. These statistics also signify what should be strong gender-based concerns for feminists concerned about educational systems. While feminist have advocated for girls' education and higher education, why have we not also strongly advocated for women's literacy and basic education as adults? What might we learn from the creative energies and survival strategies of women who "manage" the day-to-day on the edges of social power? What do they have to teach us about multiple languages and coding systems and critical thinking skills, and literacies that are not print-based? While print materials allow for larger access to individual ideas, what social interactions and opportunities for community building are lost due to the prevalence of print-based discussions?