Some practical suggestions for 'creating safe learning environments' included in a new Canadian Congress for Learning Opportunities for Women pamphlet (1995b) are:

• Examine your own attitudes which may prevent you from being an approachable and helpful support person for learners.
• Support the hiring of counsellors who are specifically trained to deal with abuse.
• Have a 'safe worker' available when dealing with issues of violence in the class, if at all possible. (A safe worker is someone trained to help women deal with the strong feelings that these discussions may bring up.)
• Make a clear statement that there will be no tolerance of violence in your learning place and be consistent. You are not responsible for the behaviour of others, but you can decide what is acceptable in your environment and enforce this both through written policies and orally in classes.
• Provide examples of strong women in your texts, through guest speakers, or through simple efforts like posters on your wall.
• Conduct a safety audit with others in your place of learning by asking women how the environment can be made safer. This way you can see what changes need to be made, and begin to make them.
• Oppose racism, sexism, ableism, heterosexism and other forms of discrimination and make them all part of anti-violence programs.(1995b:7-9)

These are just a few of the suggestions made. Canadian Congress for Learning Opportunities for Women (1995a) also has a teacher's checklist for safety including some of these points and many others. Perhaps your agency has similar guidelines, or you can create your own checklist to share with fellow students and other educators.

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Why is literacy work, women's work?

Finally, we consider issues of literacy and gender, which concern workers rather than learners. Literacy remains a largely women's area of work, both for paid workers and for volunteers. We need to ask why this is the case and what impact this has on literacy work and on women's experiences as learners, paid literacy workers and volunteers. The skills needed for literacy work are many of the skills traditionally regarded as 'natural' for women, and so not generally even recognised as skills. Garber et al. state:

The majority of literacy workers, by far, are women. Perhaps this is not surprising, as literacy work is part of the field of education and a 'caring' profession, areas of work which have traditionally been seen as women's work. Literacy work has traditionally been volunteer or part-time and is frequently poorly paid and low status. The multiple and complex skills needed to work with literacy learners _ who are often poor and face many issues in their lives [ _ ]are not made visible when literacy work is described. These skills include not only those to help them to improve their reading and writing, but also skills which engage with them in a dialogue about their lives, and support them in a process of becoming active members of the literacy community. As in so many areas, these 'women's skills' are not acknowledged as skills and are consequently awarded little pay or status. (1991: 6-7)