WWK

1
WWK

• The Heinz Dilemma
• The Porcupine and the Ground Hogs
• Conflicts highlight how we think. Appendix A
  (Again) Section E Real Life Moral Dilemmas
  (Gilligan) respond in pairs. P. 233.
• Constructed Knowing discussion of readings from
  Without a Net and Colonize This!
• Time for IGs to get ready for next week.

2
Womens Ways of Knowing

• Silence
• Received knowledge
• Subjective knowledge
• -- The Inner Voice
• -- The Quest for Self
• Procedural knowledge
• -- The Voice of Reason
• -- Separate and Connected Knowing
• Constructed knowledge

3
Womens ways of knowing

• Silence
• deaf and dumb
• Words as violence
• No one listens
• Passive and dependent
• Sex role stereotypes
• Growing up in isolation
• Describing the self is difficult

4
Womens ways of knowing

• Received knowledge (listening to the voices of
  others)
• Words are central to the knowing process
• Dualistic, right or wrong, one right answer,
  either/or
• Little confidence in own ability to speak
• Peer knowledge confirms own experience
• Truth comes from others (experts, authority)
• Recipients of knowledge
• authority-right-they
• The self described through others views

5
Womens ways of knowing

• Subjective knowledge
• -- The Inner Voice
• from passivity to action
• From silence to a protesting inner voice
• Listening to the voice within (own feelings, what
  works for me)
• Infallible gut
• Truth as personal, private, subjectively known,
  intuited
• Remnants of dichotomous thinking, absolutism
• Truth now resides within the person (not
  external authority) but this is still a dichotomy
• 16 - 60 year women spoke of this way of knowing
• Crisis of trust with failed male authority
  coupled with confirming experience of self
  walk away from the past
• Truth is grounded in first hand experience of
  others like oneself

6
Womens ways of knowing

• Subjective knowledge
• -- The Quest for Self
• Choice between self and other central
• Acting on behalf of self as opposed to denying
  the self for others
• Getting out of negative relationships with men
• Relationships feel unstable
• Propelled into action, break from past future
  appears foggy
• Instability and flux due to lack of enduring
  self-concept without the old relationships
  (negative images)
• Difficult to describe themselves clearly
• Birth of new self, everchanging self, hear
  yourself think
• Going it alone
• Learn best by observing the self and observing
  others
• Good listeners
• Gaining a voice

7
Womens ways of knowing

• Procedural knowledge
• -- The Voice of Reason
• college educated, privileged, grads of womens
  college
• in a small room one tends to speak softly
• humbler voice
• Old ways of knowing challenged
• Authority benign and knowledgeable
• intuition may deceive
• no ones gut feeling is infallible
• Truth can be shared
• Expertise can be respected
• Obtaining procedures, skills, techniques for
  knowing what is true
• Increasing sense of control through using reason
• Knowledge as a process ways of looking, what and
  how people think
• More objective than subjective knowledge
• Practical, pragmatic problem solvers

8
Womens ways of knowing

• Procedural knowledge
• -- Separate and Connected Knowing
• Separate impersonal rules to understand truth,
  justice (justice orientation)
• Critical thinking the doubting game
• Tough minded
• Everyone may be wrong (including oneself)
• Argument feels less risky but still difficult to
  give voice
• Keep self out of the argument
• Connected approach to truth which seeks to
  connect with others to understand their
  experience (care orientation)
• Build on subjectivist most trustworthy
  knowledge comes from self
• requires patience because of listening to others
  and caring about what they say
• the believing game

9
Womens ways of knowing

• Constructed Knowledge
• all knowledge is constructed and the knower is
• an intimate part of the known. Situation and
  context are central.
• An integration of voice, reason, intuition, and
  expertise of others.
• Not troubled by ambiguity, enticed by complexity
• Passionate knower never ending search for
  truth, the journey is the key.
• Opening the heart, mind, to embrace the world
• Very self-aware of how they think
• Attentive caring to feel related to another
  despite enormous differences
• really talking listening and speaking
• Responded to the Heinz Dilemma with further
  questions
• Aspire to work that contributes to empowerment
  and improvement of others as well as themselves.