Gender Issues Learning Practice through Community Youth Activities: From Women's Experience in the 1970s and 1980s

Abstract

 When people begin to question and develop critical gender perspectives on the status of their family relations, workplaces, communities, and other aspects in their daily lives, they are often confronted with the issue of isolation. Overcoming isolation is a serious issue. This study examines the relationship between involvement in a problematic situation and development of an understanding of experience through various local community youth activities in the 1970s and 1980s. Compared to school education, the learning activities of young women living in regional communities have not received much attention, and few previous studies have taken the viewpoint of young women as subjects of learning. However, there were unique structures and learning challenges in the activities of these young women that took place in the context of their relationships with men and other adults in the local community. This study, therefore, is based on records written by the youth at the time, examining the situation faced by learning and activities and the trial and error involved from a more micro perspective.

 Although young women's community activities have been carried out through various initiatives, in the first place, it was difficult for young women to go outside their homes to engage in these activities. As the women became more aware and critical of their daily lives from a gender perspective, friction and conflict arose in their personal and professional relationships. Three things can be pointed out as to how these unsavory conditions were overcome. First, they dared to engage in a wide variety of activities, in order to sustain relationships and avoid decisive ruptures and splits within society, so as to continue living amicably in the same village in the future. Thus, they avoided radical change and preferred incremental changes. Second, a small safe space was established to allow for frank dialogue among young women, which was the starting point. Although not completely open to public, this safe space was a part of the local youth activities. Third, there was the presence of women from the preceding generation, a network of women who supported and encouraged one another. Supported thereby, women's activism was a deliberate and conscious effort to work on their own lives; as seen in labor issues in the workplace, it also led to the evocation of change.

 The learning practice involved with gender issues was thus extremely constrained and difficult to understand. It did not lead directly to a fundamental change in the situation or to a definitive solution to the problem. However, from a long-term perspective, it encompasses the possibility of gradual change.