• procedural knowledge, a position in which women are invested in learning and applying objective procedures for obtaining and communicating knowledge; and
• constructed knowledge, a position in which women view all knowledge as contextual, experience themselves as creators of knowledge, and value both subjective and objective strategies for knowing. (1986:15)

Their first category, the women they describe as 'silent' are of special interest.

They do not identify these women as illiterate, but they do say that: they 'had little formal schooling or had found school to be a place of chronic failure.' And they argue that they are silent because of limited experiences of exchanging ideas with others:

In order for reflection to occur, the oral and written forms of language must pass back and forth between persons who both speak and listen or read and write - sharing, expanding, and reflecting on each other's experiences. Such interchanges lead to ways of knowing that enable individuals to enter into the social and intellectual life of their community. Without them, individuals remain isolated from others; and without tools for representing their experiences, people also remain isolated from the self (Ibid.:26).

Their conclusion that these women lack a voice because they are 'isolated from the self' fails to consider the possible impact of other factors. Although they identify that these women had 'demeaning,' violent and isolated childhoods, they do not appear to recognise that these women could have been silenced by the power of others. Belenky et al describe them as 'worried that they would be punished just for using words, any words' (p.24) but they do not conclude that their silence may have been learnt because they have been punished for using any words. The potential of the study is that we may at last begin to ask what conditions will help women, especially those who have been denied a voice, to learn and recognise their own value. The danger is that we may be inclined to see illiterate women as simply 'silent', and not consider that they are possibly 'silenced'. We may blame the women and see them as inferior, with an inadequate 'way of knowing'.

There are similar potential dangers in the use of the five 'epistemological perspectives'. While the authors do not claim that these categories are stages, they do present them as a hierarchy, and speak of women developing from one perspective to the next. If we see the categories as a hierarchy and think that those at the 'bottom' need to learn to be more like those at the 'top' we are in danger of diminishing those at the 'bottom.' In particular their first category seems to be less than human.

The authors are cautious about these categories, especially their category of silence, since few women fit in that category. However, they draw conclusions from the model about teaching approaches, for instance a 'connected' approach to learning in which the teacher is a 'midwife', which they consider would help women to learn:

We believe that connected knowing comes more easily to many women than

does separate knowing. We have argued in this book that educators can help women develop their own authentic voices if they emphasize connection over separation, understanding and acceptance over assessment, and collaboration over debate; if they accord respect to and allow time for the knowledge that emerges from firsthand experience; if instead of imposing their own expectations and arbitrary requirements, they encourage students to evolve their own patterns of work based on the problems they are pursuing. These are lessons we have learned in listening to women's voices. (p.229)