Program workers have to learn ways to create a space that names the presence of violence in many women's lives (instructors as well as students). This may mean focusing less on violence and more on creating a space for joy, for building strength to learn, for exploring "healing arts" as processes to support learning and supporting students in learning to resist being controlled and violated. Yet workers still question how to most usefully open a recognition of the presence of violence without pushing women to speak when they would prefer not to and without becoming complicit in silences that leave women isolated and ashamed.

Can of worms

The comment that probably haunts me most is the phrase, "it's a can of worms" which I have heard so often as the response to talk about issues of violence. The clarity that the issue is huge, contributes to silence about the entire area. Don't go there, it's wiser, safer, better left unsaid. The image of breaking silence as opening something far too complex, too messy, too nasty to deal with, that might spill over, is a compelling one - telling us that it is simply not wise to open up the can. Katy Chaffee, a literacy worker in New England, said that every time she mentions violence she feels listeners think immediately of domestic violence and then say, "Oh my god, don't take me there."

Connected to this sense of something unmanageable were repeated comments about it being "too big," too specialized an area, too technical. Frequently this leads to comments like "You would need training to address it." The development of training will be an enormously important aspect if the literacy field is to be able to take on issues of violence with a sense of competence and capacity. I am reminded of one literacy worker in my earlier research who talked about what it was like to feel she did not know what to do. She said she worried about "the build up of feeling inept at your job" and said she did not want to continue to teach adult basic education without "some counselling skills, some training" (Chapter 7, Horsman, 1999/2000) Yet as I listened to workers say that the area is too specialized, it often felt less a demand for training and more a way to say this is not something we should do. Which leads me to question the discourses that tell us what belongs in education.