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Consciousness-Raising

Consciousness-raising is the term used by second-wave feminists for their efforts to develop a heightened understanding of the difficulties facing them as women. Their primary method was to meet as a group— in the absence of men and with various ground rules (e.g., no interrupting). In these groups, they discussed jobs, parenthood, and other topics relevant to their lives. The goal was to produce new knowledge about women's lives as a basis for activism. This knowledge was to be based on their personal experiences. Consciousness-raising techniques became very specialized and methodical, and the knowledge generated has been very influential on feminist thought, research, and practice. Although one does not hear about consciousness-raising groups as much today, they had a profound influence upon radical feminist theorizing at the time, and many of the works produced by group participants (e.g., The Dialectic of Sex, by Shulamith Firestone) are still very well-known.

Origins

At one point in the film Malcolm X, Malcolm is in prison, reading a dictionary with a fellow inmate. The inmate points out to Malcolm that the dictionary associates positive ideas with the word white but negative ideas with the word black. Malcolm notes that the dictionary was written by white people, and this is an important incident in his move toward a Black nationalist ideology. Many advocates of oppressed groups have held the idea that people in these groups (and other groups) are unconscious, or falsely conscious, about social reality and the need to gain a true consciousness.

This notion of “false consciousness” is most famous among Marxists, who believe that the working classes exist in this state. Georg Lukacs was concerned about the class consciousness of the proletariat and the effects of bourgeois ideology on this class of individuals. According to Luk´cs, bourgeois ideology was a form of false consciousness inasmuch as it concealed the “true” nature of social relations for the proletariat, and true consciousness would come to the proletariat as this class moved through history. Louis Althusser proposed that society was composed of “Ideological State Apparatus” and the “Repressive State Apparatus.” The Ideological State Apparatuses included institutions such as religion, education, and government, which promoted beliefs and ideas supportive of the status quo and even dictated people's very identities to an extent. For Althusser, science was an alternative to ideology. Finally, Paulo Freire believed that oppressed persons are often subjected to ideas that cause them to see their oppression through the eyes of the oppressors— or as something ordained by God. Many second-wave feminists developed their own political consciousness through participation in these debates over ideology and false consciousness.

Practice and Method

According to Kathie Sarachild, consciousness-raising began among radical feminist women who wanted to develop a greater understanding of the social status and oppression of women. However, they did not want to depend on formal research and literature because they believed better information could come from the everyday lives and experiences of women themselves. This information could then be applied to their activism and political activity as had been done in other movements. This is similar to the Marxist idea of praxis: an interplay of theory and practice in everyday life. Some women felt that men's objections to consciousness-raising activities were indicative of their political potential. Men often dismissed the choice of discussion topics as “personal” and “not political.” These groups formed the basis for much theory and activism for second-wave radical feminists.

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