From April 16, 2001 -April 27, 2001 Hediana Utarti facilitated a discussion on the women and literacy listserv. Ms. Utarti is originally from Jakarta, Indonesia, and she spent the last 12 years of her adult life in Honolulu, HI. From 1992 -2000, she worked as the Co-Director of the Women's Center at the U. of Hawaii at Manoa. The Center is responsible for developing educational programs for women students on campus, referral services, supporting student programs and developing networking with community-based organizations. She has helped to establish and expand: self defense classes for women, health workshops, sexual assault prevention teams, relationship violence prevention education, and the Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Transgender Student Services office. Since 1998 she has also worked at the Family Peace Center, a domestic violence agency in Honolulu as support group facilitator. Presently (since June 2000) she is continuing her career in domestic violence work through her work at the Asian Women's Shelter in San Francisco where she serves as the Coordinator for the Volunteer Program and the Queer Asian Women's Services program.

The following represents various topics discussed by discussion list subscribers while Ms. Utarti facilitated the discussion. For complete postings go to the NIFL-WOMENLIT Archives and look at postings 1380-1425.

1. Culture and Orientation

1A. Here in SFO, my organization has been serving women from various Asian countries and some Latin American countries. In Honolulu, I have worked with international students, Asian and Pacific Islander-Americans. I would say, that most of them know that : THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG w/ their intimate relationship. When I talked more about how they feel and what they have experienced, then they started to name the many forms of abuse. In other words, at first, they couldn't really point out what was wrong. Later on in our consultation, they would reveal how they feel GUILTY (as if they caused the violence), shame, and scared. And at the same time they feel that they SHOULDN'T LEAVE THE RELATIONSHIP b/c their families (or society) told them once you chose your partner then you must stay w/ that person. Thus my feeling is these women knew that they deserve better, but for the sake of children, extended family, and other reasons such as culture and religion, they have a hard time prioritizing their very own well being. For me, this reminds me of the responsibilities that women take, from keeping family together to upholding our parents' prestige to producing an excellent new generation for the country and the list goes on.

1B. Behaviors are defined within a cultural context. Some cultures believe more in equality in relationships, others believe in less equality. These differences spill over into trust and respect. I think that these differences have major impacts, especially in the ESL adult literacy classroom.

1C. Relationship is such a core issue in our lives. Yet we never went to school to learn about that. We learn to read, write and do lots of research but not to relate to each other in a healthy way. So we're learning by doing or by imitating our parents...or TV shows...This issue seem to feel even more complicated in the LGBT communities where I feel that everyone wants to come up w/ some kind of a non-heterosexual traditional relationship but we don't quite know how it looks like.

1D. You know, I think in some ways, it's true that those of us teachers, students, administrators, etc. who are lesbian, gay, bi, transgender, have more to contend with in formulating our relationships- healthy ones- than say our straight colleagues- but I also think- from the heterosexual relationships I know of- friends, family and colleagues- that there's a lot of questioning and dissatisfaction and need for change that goes on there as well.

1E. I know when one's sexual orientation comes up in my classes or programs-- I've felt somewhat overwhelmed with how to deal with it, in addition to everything else that was always going on. So I try to refer them to the proper resources, but more than once, those students have needed so much support, and the in-house counselors haven't always been trained adequately to deal with homophobia, even.

1F. Providing support for our LGBT students and clients is one big thing my organization is working on these days. The situation is more complicated for them. If they are in relationship violence, who are they going to call? First they have to face possible homophobia in the service providers and in the law enforcement people. I heard that often the police don't take lesbian DV seriously and considering it as "roommate conflicts." Another report says that the police will arrest the one that looks larger than the other, darker, and more masculine. In SFO there are several organization that serve exclusively LGBT clients such as Community United Against Violence (CUAV). There are other services such as the one I am working at right now that also serve LBT clients. There is a national network for LGBT services that is based in NYC.

I feel that first of all (as an ex-instructor) I have to ensure safety in the classroom. For instance use gender-neutral language. Rather than saying girlfriend-boyfriend/husband-wife, we say, partners. Usually I use theirs rather than hers or his. This is give some kind of feeling to our students (especially the ones in the closet) that we acknowledge non-heterosexual lives. Among service providers, we are trained to ask clients (on the phone): " Are you living w/ your partner?" rather than saying" "Are you with your boyfriend?" Although there are many services available for LGBT, there are many, many cases of DV that still go unreported. What does this mean?

1G. I have encountered DV cases with lesbian couples that were clients/students. In Boston, Massachusetts we have a number of resources-the Lesbian Battering Network and many of the local, battering networks have Lesbian Support Groups and resources particular to Women in Lesbian Relationships. We also have a Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual and Transgender Health Clinic- the Fenway Community Health Clinic, and they have many resources for women who are in abusive relationships. But we here in Boston are unique- I imagine, most places in the country have so few resources that deal with women, as complete human beings, with all of our complicated and unique identities in tact and respected.

1H. Keeping spaces open so that students can identify with the ways they want to and feel safe to- oh so necessary! And in fact, there was a survey shared on this list a while back about tallying heterosexist bias in ESL and EFL textbooks and materials. A group of us in the TESOL Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Friends' Caucus drafted it, and our intention was to start researching our teaching material to see if, in fact, we are closing off the opportunity for lesbian, gay, bi and trans people to see their classrooms as safe places. If we teachers don't create safety for lesbian, gay people- our students will not feel safe enough to come out and to get support in the ways that they need it.

Also, there's some history, of course, to Boston having these kinds of DV resources- many out lesbians were involved in the beginnings of the Domestic Violence movement around here and, though I'm simplifying, I think it's particularly useful for women from the communities they come from to identify and define their own needs, and then work to get them met. Sometimes with the support from the larger movement and community, and sometimes, I think, and this is discouraging, with very little support. I know there is also an Asian Women's Battering Network here in Boston- and in part, that's because there were Asian women in positions of leadership in the second wave of the women's movement, and in the larger domestic violence movement here in Boston. Also, I know in NYC, and Jerusalem, that Orthodox Jewish women have been organizing themselves around domestic violence, and that there are support groups in a number of communities in both of those places.

1I. At an opening that I did for a recent conference, I mentioned that an example of a more welcoming use of language is to refer to partners generically as opposed to saying husband or wife. Someone who is heterosexual came up to me later and shared that she was offended by that statement. She pointed out that while I was trying to be welcoming of people who have partners (straight or not straight), I was being exclusionary of people who did have husbands and wives. She pointed out that I should be advocating for inclusion and that we don't have to negate one in order to support another. I am still thinking a lot about her comment and it made me realize how without wanting to, by being open to one group of people, we can be excluding another group.

1J. We need to learn from one another and our identities are very complex, and shift and sometimes overlap and other times can negate each other. I think too that context matters a lot- what are we trying to get done and who are we trying to include and empower. But one thing is for sure, if we don't take risks, make mistakes and learn from them, we will never learn how to be increasingly inclusive!

1K. I heard your opening statement at that conference, and it was the first time in 15 years as a professional in the field that my experience as a Lesbian was addressed in any kind of formal presentation. You can't imagine, how I automatically felt welcomed, included and ready to get work done. As I make attempts to include people, or groups of people, I have been trained to exclude or ignore, I keep in mind that we are not playing on a level field. But that I mean that inclusion and exclusion are important concept for us to think about and act from, but there's no getting around the issues of power: who has it, who doesn't and why. For instance, when to make sure that my women students feel represented in class, I may make the decision, in any kind of classroom, to use text or codes that just have women in them. Ideally this is, among other things, a great jumping-off point for discussion, but equally important, I can help hold up the mirror so that my women students, sometimes for the first time in a piece of writing can see themselves. This doesn't mean I have forgotten about men, just that I'm choosing to compensate for the power difference say for one class or one unit. When we try to include queer people (lesbian women, gay men, bi sexual and transgender people) into our discussions, vocabulary, zones of thinking, in short, our lives, we may, for one second exclude straight/heterosexual discourses and languages. But if folks want to and need to be our allies, they will enter our cultures (there are so many of them!) and listen to how we choose to use language. I would say that we don't need to worry too much about excluding the words "wife" and "husband" from our speech. I hear the words everywhere. I do wonder, though, when the legal institution itself will become inclusive of all us. And maybe even more importantly, I wonder how we can talk about all of us, even those of us who are not partnered or married, those of us who live with our cats or our friends as family, or in whatever configurations and communities we have invented for ourselves.

2. Power

2A. "Trouble" always revolves around power--who is in control of the house or kitchen. In a marriage this might intersect with who pays the rent, or taxes, or whatever. I do wonder about men and violence, and what they are thinking about in a good relationship. It's important to me to rise and shine in the morning, and I know that I could not live with a man who was grumpy in the morning. Just couldn't and wouldn't do it. Maybe it would be helpful for your students to figure out what they "couldn't live with" in someone else's behavior. Or what they really need in a relationship, like someone to shovel snow. I have arthritis in my wrists, so this is a physical limitation. I have tossed a lot of things into this post, all the generalities are based on specific relationship problems I have worked on, front and center, for years. I hope my experiences are useful for others. This is all leading up to the topic of Setting Limits in relationships. Having grown up in a violent household I didn't do this, I had to accept what was dished out. (This led me to stealing food--in my own home! This set me up for a lifetime of going around authority, which has sometimes worked well and sometimes not. ) As an adult who pays my own way I have learned a little about setting limits and the self-esteem that arises from doing this. For example, with telemarketers I just hang up the phone, don't talk, if even there is the slightest pause before somebody says "hello" I hang up--it's always a telemarketer. These are teeny victories, but maybe this would help your students. After all, what we are talking about is healthy relationships and the same issues arise time after time in all relationships.

2B. I too often see relationship as power relations. In abusive relationship, it is clear who 'determine the mood' of the relationship and who is afraid. Many students or clients that I have worked with simply didn't know that being afraid should not be part of the relationship; that excessive jealousy is unhealthy and that it is okay for each partner to have their own life w/ their friends. I guess this is where the boundary business is: what do I want and how we can negotiate and how we can respect each other's need/s? A lot of people that I know are still in the process of unraveling the very embedded model of what I would call "heterosexual-patriarchal-monogamy" model; where the man is the "boss" etc., etc. This model is so so intricate like capitalism itself that even though we are trying to get out of it there are so many implications that are still following us. Such as: the idea that we, women, should manage the household. Thus 'modern' families now have the husbands throw garbage, bring kids to school etc, but who actually do the managing of the household? Who keep track of stuff? I have seen quite a few of my gay women friends doing the same thing. Or is it just so that one partner should be more "wifely" than the other?

Another thing that often came out in my discussions with clients is: how we stop being so concerned about our partner's well being? In other words how we can let our partners be responsible for their own well-being? This is perhaps another boundary issue. I once dated someone who was not happy w/ my running b/c it gave me some injuries. The concern became so deep and heightened that every time I talked about running or exercise, I could feel tension in the room. It was a power struggle all right. But if we think about it: what is that tension for? Whose agenda is this? Can one be responsible for her own well being?

2C. Our relationships don't just function as private definitions of difference, but are actually rooted in power differences and that these power differences have names and causes. I think, still, as everyone has alluded to, it's difficult and sometimes unsafe to scrutinize our relationships- which are so about power- publicly. It's also important to discern when it's good for us, individually, or the communities that we locate ourselves in to bring out the specifics of our life/work/family relationships. I feel like we've created so few structures in which to safely analyze, reflect on and change how we relate to one another. Still, though it seems so basic to creating fundamental, long-term political change. Again, I have the feminist movement to thank for articulating that. This conversation has made me think about how I crave equal, healthy relationships in all aspects of my life, but often don't create the structure and support to name and work through all the power dynamics that those kind of relationships demand. Often, there's a lot of fear functioning too. Except in my most personal relationships- one on one, with great intent and hard work. So there, the fear and hurt and all that is there, certainly, but so is a kind of choice I feel. Something like, I get to decide who I want to work what out with.

Believe it or not- that's fairly new to me, and I know from many kinds of conversations with adult students, many of them don't yet feel like, or maybe even, don't perceive themselves to have that kind of basic choice. As I get a little older, I have been thinking a lot about patience and gentleness too- with myself and those who I'm in relationship with. Now for me, that's a change!

2D. I remember teaching American Literacy, years ago, in an English Department in a mostly white suburb of Boston and choosing to include mostly writers of color, for lack of a better phrase in the syllabus. I wanted to expand my students' understanding of American literature and culture- to bring other voices into the cannon, to give them access to writers who they may or may not have heard about before. Some of the students were really angry and expressed it freely to me; some went to my department head to complain that I was not giving them the classic literature, and a few were really happy with my decision. We spoke a lot about power during that semester- mine as the teacher, and our varying relationships to the material. Granted I got a few really bad student evaluations, and that was tough on my young teaching ego, but I know too, that I helped open some doors.

3. Access to Support

3A. I was just thinking of a few support group classes curriculum I learned in HI that may be useful. The first one, is we go around and ask each participant what's their name, why are they given that name by their moms/dads and what does that name mean for them today. This exercise gets people to talk a little bit about themselves and how they feel today. The second one, is a bit 'heavy'. You can decide if the group is ready for it. The name of this exercise is 'silently naming the abuse.' Here, you post butcher papers on the wall. And ask students to write what they have experienced. Give them various colors of markers. Do this for 10 minutes or so till everyone gets to share. And then gather them together and discuss how do they feel especially knowing that all of them have similar experiences. This part can be heavy and sad so prepare lots of tissue and break time to debrief. Then you can try to lift the atmosphere up again by going around and ask each how "we can support each other."

3B. The Asian women's Shelter that I am with right now is a domestic violence shelter. So the shelter serves victims of DV, mostly immigrant women, simply b/c we target victims whose access to resources are the most limited. Most of our clients barely speak English (so we have a pool of language advocates), and they are afraid to access services because they don't know how and often their partners/abusers don't let them get near to the phone or talk to people other than the ones the partners know. We serve all women, not homeless women only. Our clients often come from middle class as well. We usually take someone in the most dangerous situation, and then get them settle in the shelter, get the kids to new school and new after school program, and then get mom to connect with family lawyers and of course INS. Yes, once these stuff are all in place, we encourage them to go to literacy programs in nearby district. So maybe within a week or two depending on each case, a client will start going to English class as they call it. Sometimes these women have to miss classes when they have to go to hearing after hearing on child custody (it is gruesome!). Part of my job here is to train volunteers and intern to do many things, one of which is to accompany women to legal appointments (including Submitting police reports) and others. We provide our clients with clothing, food, monies for transportation, for legal costs… Basically everything if they don't have any monies.

3C. The women that I work with have to deal with many obstacles while they are also trying to deal with domestic violence: immigrant status; limited English oral and written skills; non heterosexual orientations; limited understanding of the legal system of this country. The reason why they barely speak English is, usually, b/c they are new in the US AND their spouses/batterers do not let them go out to literacy or any English classes available. We had a client who has been in CA for 4 years and only knew how to get to market and to her in-laws houses a couple blocks away. The spouses didn't give them monies to leave house (even $1 for bus). If they go out to places such as movies or family visit or parks, they will have to go w/ their husbands. As a result of this, they don't know anything and are afraid to access services. This is what we call Isolation Technique. As I mentioned in my earlier email, batterers often don't file their wives' green card application or if they do they don't tell their wives. Again, another isolation method, if not simple power, and control based on information acquisition. These women got hold of us thru their friends, their nurses sometimes, or the owners of the stores they frequent or the police (when things go so badly that the neighbors call police). The difference btw these women and the Asian -Americans or Latin-Americans is that, the latter being born and raised in the US, at least, have language capacity or comfort to call shelters. And most shelters don't have non-English speaking staff or support system (language advocates). In other words it is easier for these women to get help as compared to the newly immigrants.

This is a sad story. But let me tell you that once a woman get to a shelter like ours, get their connection with legal services, go to their English classes and have their kids in school etc etc. In a few months they become new person and have more confidence and start looking for jobs. It's just amazing to watch the power they have.

3D. As far as I know the 3 battered women shelters in SF are accessible for wheelchairs. You know we just had a training (held by Riley Cntr) on how to make our services accessible for deaf women in dv. And that is another story: how to use TTY, do we have close caption TV? Do we have lights to indicate something is ringing? Or do we have sign language advocate? It was quite an eye opener I know of 2 in Boston who are wheel chair accessible and who have TTY equipment. There may be more.

3E. The shelter I worked in rural central North Carolina was also accessible. Many nonprofits I've been involved in have been discussing how to make their buildings more accessible for several reasons, including: that it's a justice issue, they want to comply with access laws, and they want to become eligible for funding that will require compliance within the next few years. Just make sure can you open a door from a wheelchair or crutches. I have been on/on both, and people often forget about the doors even when they put in the ramps.

3F. How do we provide equal access, safe environments, welcoming atmospheres, etc., etc. to ALL of our learners-regardless of differences in abilities, cultures, sexual orientations? and the list goes on and on….
Some of my personal experiences regarding these issues:

1. Buildings can be "officially" accessible to people in wheel chairs, but they realistically are not. For example, in my university, although every bathroom has a stall designed for supposedly easy wheelchair access, in reality, the way some of them are positioned next to the other stalls, it is impossible to navigate a wheelchair into the stall that is accessible!
2. Recently, an advocate for the visually impaired came to my Center very irritated. She was furious that the local adult literacy programs are turning away her visually impaired clients. She stated that if K-12 are mandated to serve the visually impaired, adult literacy programs should also be required to have materials in Braille and/or large print available.
3. At a recent workshop that I ran, a deaf participant was in my session. I was just about to ask people to read something out loud, when I realized that if I did that, I would be excluding her from the activity. So I skipped that activity. Later when I shared that with her, she explained that I could have done the activity-she would have signed, and her interpreter would have interpreted her signed speech into oral speech.

4. Definitions of a Healthy Relationship

4A. A few years back, I taught in a secure treatment facility for young men who were identified as violent offenders. Their treatment demanded that they think about healthy relationships- but still there were very few opportunities for them to talk with ease and kindness about their relationships. With these classes of young men-- I had to move very slowly-- taking the cues from them. We started to look at healthy/unhealthy relationships by analyzing their use of the phrase: "I'm the man." What did that mean, I asked. Then I started using the phrase: "I'm the man." Slowly, we looked at the associations with the word "man" and "woman" with these uses. Whenever it came up, I asked them to slow it down and to analyze it. Did I change how they treated women in our eight months together? Probably not- but at least they started thinking about it. There's one more point I want to make, that leads to another question: The one of invisibility or when ours or our students' healthy relationships aren't even on the radar screens of what a relationship is. When I first started to enter these kinds of conversations with students, I thought that I held all the answers. They taught me otherwise-- that every time I investigated different ideas in a classroom (community of thinkers)-- my ideas and bodies of knowledge and definitions themselves would change. I found it more difficult to say: "this is healthy" "This is not"- at least not without the voices of my students- and their cultures and communities defining these terms. This is not to say that it's fine for a woman to be hurt in any context. It's always wrong. But these kinds of discussion with my students have led us to come up with new kinds of definitions- or at least new ways of practicing healthy relationships both within the house and within work and school and public life. For instance, when is non-monogamy healthy? When is it not healthy? And for whom? That's just one whole line of questioning that I think we often don't touch because it's charged, and because many of us have already decided where it falls in the healthy/non-healthy paradigm. Then, I found myself in the awkward position where my students wanted to share about their personal lives all the time, and kept asking me about why I wasn't sharing the "important stuff about my life like was I married and did I have a boyfriend." This was awkward because I felt scared to share my personal life with them since my partner was another woman- since I am a Lesbian. Over the years, I have learned to come out. But I wonder how we begin to systematically address this whole other side of the personal, healthy relationship conversation.

4B. I believe that there are universal standards that apply to relationships such as trust and respect. The way that these behaviors get defined is what needs to be raised in the public arena. By public I mean "community". If my relationship with my partner is hurtful to me, and the only way I get to process that hurt is with my partner, I would be fortunate if he/she could understand my feelings, and subsequently change the behavior. This is especially true where being socialized in a gender specific way prohibits egalitarian ways of relating. People need to come together in community to discuss the ways in which they define trust, respect etc. Men especially need to undergo a resocialization process to begin to understand the power and control issues in relationships. The private sphere may be the starting point in which people can begin to discuss their relationship issues but raising these issues in a public way allows for more accountability.

4C. Sometimes, I think it's the "non-traditional" relationships-- that I learn the most from- at least about health. I have friends, for instance- who have been happily together for 18 years (they just celebrated their Chai' (Life) Anniversary- 18 has mystical implications in traditional Judaism), and they sleep in different rooms 1/2 the week. But then, I know that I also have learned a lot about healthy relationships from my parents- who in many ways, looked and acted quite traditionally within the Orthodox Jewish community I grew up in. That's not to say that all was good but one thing I learned from them was something about the art of playfulness, and also to argue vehemently and yet not personally for what you believe and to watch how you're thinking can change as the conversation, itself, teaches you something.

I too wonder if any one has used this kind of content material with their students, especially since so many of us are working with health issues.

5. Approaching Issues in the Classroom

5A. Once we, as literacy teachers and administrator's, recognize or suspect that a female student is being abused, are there differences in the ways we should approach the topic, depending on the culture of the learner? Yes, and this is the tricky part. And this has a lot to do with shame and most importantly, fear (b/c if the abuser knows that someone knows about the abuse, the abuser will try to isolate the victim even more).Let me just tell you a short story. When I did education on this issue on campus in HI, my team approached this issue by discussing: what do you do if you have a friend who is in relationship violence? The response was very good and there were lots of discussion in the classroom. Often the ones who asked question came to me after the discussion and shared w/ me that it was her herself that she was discussing. So I think, we need to make sure our conversation with that particular student is absolutely private and CONFIDENTIAL. And maybe it is helpful to let them know that we talk to them b/c we are concerned of their safety. I have been very careful w/ my questions. For instance rather than asking: "Are you okay?" maybe we want to say: "I have been thinking about you and I notice that you have been sick a lot, is there anything I can do to support you?" I just want to say that you can see and feel what's the best way to approach the student you are concerned about, depending on your understanding of her culture and how she is as a person and your relationship with her.(I think the same caution should be used if the possible victim is a man).

5B. It is interesting yet depressing to introduce unhealthy relationship concepts to students. Depressing b/c in the end we (presenters and audience) cannot come up w/ a real strong model of what healthy relationship is; in other words, there is no recipe. Unhealthy or violent relationship is so common and I am sorry to say, sometimes glorified in movies and popular culture (from Titanic to Fatal Attraction to Eminem). Some are about unrealistic romance and codependency and the other are just about power and control and violence. One main thing that I often throw to the class to start a discussion on healthy relationship is : using I statements and be clear of what I want/feel. So if we are not happy w/ what our partners say or do, rather than saying: "You are so mean or so bad...", we can say: "I feel hurt when you said that." It is a way to own up to your own feelings w/out blaming the other person yet telling them that their behavior affect us in not so nice a way. It is like informing the other person how we feel without being offensive (that usually make the other person defensive, thus make us defensive and the mumbo jumbo starts). I often notice that it is difficult for many of us to articulate how we feel without getting all worked up.

5C. Healthy relationships: I too have spent a lot of time thinking about this topic and its' political ramifications and why and how to introduce it into literacy classrooms and settings. I was thinking that it was feminism that first articulated the notion the "personal is political"-- and that in a couple of instances, I've been able to introduce the notion of a healthy relationship by introducing some of the premises of feminism- as I know it. From there my class of all women and I were able to think about all the different kinds of feminisms and what indeed, did it mean. Inevitably, the definitions and redefinitions of healthy relationships came up in the classroom when we studied and questioned various feminist movements.