The CR depended on the assumptions that women were the experts of their own experience and that feminist theory could only arise from the daily lives of women. I believe these are valid assumptions. A believe that a women must have had to personally experience something in order to fully understand it. During that time psychologist would only make suggestions on what they believed was best and often times these were men. When the women understood their own experiences they would become aware of the action that needed to be taken. I also believe that other social movements could benefit from these assumptions. By understanding ones own experiences social change can be brought about much easier because of the greater understanding ones experiences will bring to the societal movement.

The process of Consciousness-Raising allowed women to find themselves. Because they had been suppressed for so long, they had learned to accept their assumed inferiority, but CR enabled females to rise above the oppression. The idea that they could be liberated was exciting. Expressing their thoughts and emotions became an overwhelming passion. They found freedom through CR. Never before did women rebel, so this movement became an adrenaline rush to those involved. Their dedication to learning about each other led them to resent men for not enabling them to do this sort of soul-searching before. Their rage was sparked by the fact that they had never been offered this opportunity before. Women realized that they were perfectly able to take on a male-dominated world and succeed in doing so if given the chance. They were tired of playing the submissive, obedient wife; they were ready to live for themselves. CR was an essential part of female social evolution. Without this concept, women might have had more trouble identifying with each other. CR brought commonality into the picture. It permitted women to recognize their own struggles within each other’s experiences. CR bonded women in that it empowered them to think for themselves. Because CR opened women’s eyes for the first time, it was extremely powerful. The only problem was that now women wanted everything everywhere, now. They became impatient and unruly. They were no longer willing to sit idly by and wait for men to make decisions. CR sparked women’s’ desire for something more. It forever changed society.

Concsiousness-raising was the simple act of bringing up points about the nature of male/female gender roles. "Personal is political" is a slogan that challenges women to view their own personal lives and realize that they're being shafted of rights that men have. By raising this awareness about the lack of equality in both the workplace and home, the feminists who talked of such things wished to create an atmosphere that was conducive to change.

In this, the mantra was very important to the movement; it gave a rallying call, their very own "We will overcome." However, I'm not really sure that the personal is political, in the strictest sense. I agree that yes, women should be able to be paid equally in any career they choose, and that yes, they deserve equality and the like. But that which happens in the home, that which is decided upon by both the husband and wife, is simply personal. Surely gender roles are stereotypically defined by society, but that is a societal issue, not a political one.

In About My Consciousness Raising the author, Barbara Susan, did in fact say that her husband helped her out which the chores around the house but it didn't make her happy. If her husband is to "help her out" with the chores that there infers that her job IS doing the chores whether or not she also has an outside job or not. Back then the woman's first priority job was to take care of the household.
Today, people live very differently, some traditional and some not. I grew up in a single parent household with just my mom and I so I mainly saw my mother doing everything, both the man and woman's jobs. This is very common these days with the divorce rate so times have changed from one person having one set job to one person having all the jobs. But I did move in with my dad for the past two years of high school and lived there with him and my step mother. Boy did I see a change. Since I came into the family my step mother didn't work as much and my dad and her thought it'd be best for her to be a "stay home mom." She always did the chores, cleaned the house, and took care of everyone, needless to say she had a overcompulsive disorder with cleaning, but that was her job. Eventually she took a side job substituting at high schools for extra money, but this was only to keep her time occupied. My dad's time was occupied by work, constantly. He left at 5am or earlier in the morning and I didn't see him till 10pm at night. And when I did see him it was for the 30minutes he used to eat and watch TV. It was interesting for me to see how different I would have been brought up at my dad's house than my mom's.

The phrase “the personal is political”, first utilized by Carol Hanisch in 1968, became a slogan of the Women’s Liberation movement. This statement describes the idea that politics extend far beyond the realm of political life; in fact, they are present in things as personal as marriage, work, family, and even sex. Politics are defined as “the art of science of government or governing, especially the governing of a political entity”. I believe that Carl Hanisch’s statement applies to the realm of politics not covered by the word “especially” in that definition. In exploring how their personal lives had been shaped by power relations, women discovered that their personal problems and struggles were not so personal after all—a very important step in their beginning of a movement for social change. Women in the United States were able to see for the first time as a group that they were undergoing the same mistreatments, and that these mistreatments were not a result of their specific families, schools, husbands, jobs, or children but rather a result of their nation’s political and social structure as a whole. Only once that discovery, that fact, had been established could these women begin a properly aimed push for change. Consciousness-raising was a process by which women helped women see the facts and make this discovery, and consequently it was a very important part of beginning the women’s movement. Women needed to get together, see their common problem, and identify its cause if they wished to achieve any sort of results, and CR made this crucial step possible.

I think the phrase "the personal is political" came about to break down any personal-political barriers. Just like psychologists try not to "take work home" with them, many people are inclined to leave their business and political idealogies at the door. As such, gender roles and relations at home were cast in shadow devoid of any socio-political attention. This phrase, however, was an attempt to bring politics into the home; an attempt to bring new light to the power struggles, gender roles or duties that might be taken for granted by one side or the other.
This phrase raised questions like, "Why are men the 'bread-winners'?" "Why do we clean while they 'work'?" and other issues that had always existed without any real analysis as to why. The real problem was that the women were not going to able to challenge these issues without first convincing themselves that they were indeed legitimate concerns. Enter consciousness-raising. These small groups (and later publications, art and other forms of communication) brought up these issues to groups of women at a time to not only show that things of this nature were veritable concerns, but that they were also shared by other members of their gender. Once these realizations had come to fruition, women could unite and try to achieve their desired roles in society; if nothing else, to at least be able to choose how they wanted to end up in their respective lives.
So, the phrase "the personal is political" was the first drop of snow that would eventually raise concerns about historical gender roles, then consciousness-raising, then protests and finally the huge avalanche that would be the women's movement.

Until the Woman’s Rights Movement, woman throughout American History have been secluded by society. While they may have questioned their equality with men, they rarely gave signs of protest or objection. A majority of this reasoning is because America was generally a religious culture, and through time the religious influence has been dissolving. I think CR was absolutely necessary because it broke the boundary of the societal norms, and made woman realize the equality they deserved. For them, CR was like a healthy virus that changed mindsets rapidly, propelling an overpowering woman’s society that would inevitably gain freedom. I feel immediate action would not have been more effective because it would have been looked upon less seriously, with less people to back up the woman’s belief. Without CR, there never would have been enough firepower for the woman to proceed on. Without it, no movement in history could have become possible.
David Weibel

Consciousness-raising was a way for women to find out who they really were and how they were shaped by the political world. In many different CR groups, women realized they were not alone in how they felt. Their were other women out there sharing the same feelings of repression as they were. They allowed each others stories to show each other that something was wrong with their situation and that so many women felt this way. They took those feelings and changed it into anger to get something done. I think this was an effective way for women to analyze their position in society at that time. Obviously, women did not have the same opportunities we have now and so they had to find ways to all get together. Just leaving the kids with your husband to go to the meeting, I'm sure was not easy for many and even impossible for others. The CR groups gave women the support that they didn't receive elsewhere to support the feelings they had. It showed them the basic foundations of society that they all felt had to be changed- it gave them their agenda. Although CR I believe was effective to mobilze women. their were also limitations to it. If your town didn't have a leader to take the initiative and start the group, then this CR would never have happened to some women. CR gave women the support that they did not find in the home.

In the sections titled "Consciousness - Raising" tells the story of Carol Hanisch who coined the phrase "The personal is political." Carol was trying to communicate the idea that our private lives had political dimensions. She tried to show how women's lives were shaped and controlled by power relationsips and by what the society thought of women. This term, "the personal is political," descrbied the how women did most of the house cleaning, and became nurses and teachers, and dressed in the way they do. It explained how society has shaped women. This was beneficial because it challenged our society and men and women's roles. It was just accepted at the time that women should be house-wives and men should make the money. But because of conscious-raising, women and even society looked more at why we have the specific roles we do. Women really evaluated the positions in work, their roled in cleaning and care-taking, to see what is equal, and fair, and right. By looking at society and seeing how these "power relationships" have effected a great portion of the society, brought about many changed in our society.

Barbara Susan believed that by a man saying he was ‘helping out’ with housework, he was “reinforcing the idea that it was [a woman’s] job” (488). She viewed housework as something that should be shared between a husband and wife, not as a job automatically placed upon the woman.

It is hard to classify what the division of labor within the home is today, because the working situation of married couples varies greatly. In my viewpoint, if both partners work, then housework should be shared between them. If the woman stays at home to care for the kids and the husband works outside the home (or vice versa), I still think the housework should be shared between them because raising a child is a job in itself. However, if one partner works and the other chooses not to work and to simply live off the other’s income, I believe that housework should be their job. In this situation, I personally see nothing wrong with the working spouse saying they are “helping out” the other with the housework. Many people these days do consider being a homemaker to be an occupation. However, I wouldn’t necessarily classify this as “woman’s work” because the man could easily be the one depending on his wife’s income.

I think the main issue during the 1960’s was the lack of respect and appreciation the wife received from her husband for doing the housework. Woman during that era did not have as much freedom to work outside the home as we do today, and their husbands simply expected to have a pristine home and dinner on the table every night. By men saying they were “helping” their wives with the housework, it reminded the women that they had a ‘job’ they most likely did not choose to have. These days, women undoubtedly have much more of a choice. Some women choose to work outside the home, and some do not. The division of housework today is no longer based on stereotypical gender roles and instead on what works for each particular couple.

In "About My Cosciousness Raising", the author's critique of the idea of men "helping" with houswork is that it meant that men were helping the women with their jobs. And when a man helped with the house work, the woman would often say 'thank you', and by doing so, that was enforcing the idea that house work was a woman's job. This really isn't the case today. Very often, you will see men doing housework, and even going as far as to be a stay at home dad. I think that times have changed since the women's rights movement. Women aren't expected to be stay at home moms and housekeepers in all cases. It is now socailly acceptable for men to do the housework, and for women to work and keep the family financially stable. In "About My Consciousness Raising", Susan talks about when men help with the household chores, it is "only a matter of helping when it came to doing things that he [men] didn't like to do. I think that that has changed also with the times. Men now, in some cases, are expected to help out with the chores, and they aren't helping because they don't like to do it, but more so that they want to help out their partners.

CR is a term that was used during the women's movement which raised awareness of how women were treated unfairly. Women began to speak openly and publicly about the sexist ways of men. The women used the word "pig" to describe men during this time period. By educating other women on how they were being treated unfairly, more and more women began to speak out. CR invoked many responses from the women. While some responses were negative from women, many of them were all for feminism and changing the sexism that was happening in their own households. Many women began to hate men due to the books and demonstrations that went on during this CR. After women began to read the books, which went against men and their sexist nature, many women began to change in their own homes and act differently toward their husbands. I believe this was an effective way for women to analyze their situations in society, because it compared their everyday lives with those of men. By doing this, many women began to realize that they have to do just as much as men do but do not get nearly the credit the men recieve. So many women were used to their positions in society and thought that the way they were treated was how it was supposed to be. By informing these women of the discrimination and sexism that was present, the women began to understand that this way of life was not normal. Some of the limitations that might come out of CR would be the bias views of the situations. Since women were the ones doing most of the CR, their opinions were the only ones being heard publicly. Most women who were against the movement did not speak out or give their opinions publicly, which leads to a bias view of the situation. Overall, i believe that CR helpes inform many women of the sexism and discrimination that was being inflicted upon women in the 1960's.

The phrase "the personal is political" first took hold in the 1960s women's movement, but its signifance is evident in almost any situation. The phrase arose when women realized their feelings and experiences were not unique. Rather, the use of consciousness-raising groups taught them that many other women had the same views and treatment on topics regarding marriage, sex, employment, child raising, etc. When they knew their difficulties were parallel with the problems of other women, they were able to categorize them differently. Instead of personal suffering, in which the women could have cast the blame on themselves, they were able to identify issues like sexism and prejudice, and focus their efforts on reprimanding those resposible and banding together to improve their role in society. In other words, the experiences and feelings in their lives was not confined solely to themselves, but could also be defined in a wider political and social setting. Consciousness raising was more than important, it may have been the most vital factor in the womens' movement. Responses to the movement were partially critical, some believed that a concentration of only women could create bias or even hate. This may have create some limits, but it set up more progress than road blocks. Whether they agreed or disagreed with the CR method, one should also recognize that the presence of criticism was evidence that CR was, in the least, doing someting. In hindsight, it's a fair assumption that, without CR, the activists might have never found allies or even become self-aware.

“About my Consciousness Raising”:

The author felt that the men helping with the housework characterized the job of housework as the women’s job and the men were there to help them out if they were not to busy. The job of the house was left to the women so the men could tend to the lawn, the car, or other more masculine items. In today’s society, with the two income households these divisions do not seem to be as great as they were in the 60’s. However, I do feel that they still exist and can be a cause of marital problems if internal communications do not exists in the expectations of tasks and working together to accomplish these tasks.

Personal is political is the relationship between a woman and her life and how she is viewed in the world. It is the relationship with her spouse, her friends and her job or social standing. It is how she wants to see herself and how she wants others to see her. Written and unwritten laws have long enforced the roles of women. The military has laws against women in combat, the laws of a sinking ship state that women and children are to be the first removed. These laws though probably outdated, were put into place, not to hold women back but to assure their safety. Still the biggest area of concern in society today against women is the auto industry. I do not feel that they directly discriminate against women, in buying or repairing a vehicle, there seems to be a great area of vulnerability in which women tend to be taken advantage.

The "personal is political" could mean that what is personal in someones mind is political to other groups not associated with that type of mind set. For example, in the particular situation of the women's revolution, women started to follow a pattern where they all felt the same about their given "duties" in life. They were told by men and doctors, therapists to be exact, that they needed to deal with their OWN problems and figure out what was wrong with them not with the situation as a whole. This makes womens' personal feelings political because they realized that they all felt the same way about the same situations and made it political in order to do something about it. These consciousness raising groups were benefitial to women for several reasons. First, they were finally able to go do something for themselves without men there. They were also able to explore their feelings with other women who shared the same sense of frustration. They could share their stories with a group of diverse women and figure out a common ground on which to grow on and try and solve these sexist issues. Consciousness Raising I think was an extremely important activity because it brought women of different ethnic backgrounds together in order to change their steriotypical duties and social situations. Without it, women might not have known that other women were in the same boat and it would have been much harder for them to accomplish the act of standing up for their rights against the public.

Vivian Gornick passionately compared consciousness-raising to falling in love, saying “the excitement, the energy, the sheer voluptuous sweep of the feminist ideology [was] almost erotic in its power to sway [her]” (199). In reality, many women shared this opinion. Even Flo Kennedy, a lawyer and activist who devoted her life to social change, called the women’s moment the “apex of her political life”, agreeing that it was just like falling in love (200). There was euphoric and paradisiacal excitement associated with consciousness-raising, as women finally realized the injustices they endured. Even in meetings, “people were getting it, right there, in that meeting” (200). By allowing women to discuss the political aspects of personal life in a small group setting, this vibrant scene for change aided women to strengthen their voice. It would take strong women to make changes happen, and for the first time, women were allowing themselves to be strong. Consciousness-raising sparked these passionate responses because of how revolutionary an idea it was that personal life is directly influenced by the politics of society. Women finally had the freedom to question social norms and why restrictions were placed on their capabilities. Consciousness-raising meant a lot of things, but, to summarize eloquently, it meant “looking at your life through your own eyes, reflecting on the choices you had made, realizing who had encouraged and discouraged your decisions, and recognizing the many obstacles and constraints that had little to do with individual temperament or talent” (197).

It is indubitable that consciousness-raising had an intense effect on history. Without it, I don’t think our society would look the same. I am able to make my own decision s and view life through my own eyes because my generation knows the equality that these women dreamed for me. Certainly an effective way for women to analyze their position in society, this openness in expression also facilitated the movement simply by establishing a form of communication. Opening up a line of communication for women is what allowed change to spread. The ideas would get nowhere without heated debate and a plan of action. Small group discussion allowed women to break down a huge mountain, and jump each hurdle as they arrived at it.

Barbara Susan acknowledged that yes, her husband helped her with chores- but that made her fume. He doesn't help with doing things he enjoys- he shares in those cases. If Susan's husband was to merely "help" her with house tasks like cooking and cleaning, then it is implied that house work is her job and that he is merely doing her a favor. Also, Susan added that this case is regardless of whether or not the women had an outside job. It was still considered the women's task to make sure the house was kept.
Although I cannot make a generalization on whether or not this division of labor is still constant in America today, I can make an inference based on my own experiences: my own family. My mom is an ESL teacher. She works 5 days a week from about 7:30- 4. There has never in my entire life been an instance where she has not either made me dinner or bought me dinner. On weekends she cleans the house and goes grocery shopping.
On the other hand, my Dad does work, but mostly from home if he is not traveling. By working at home I mean he maybe makes 2-5 business calls and then swims, naps, or plays the guitar. He has never once made dinner and I do not think he even knows where the vaccum cleaner is in our house. He rarely even helps my mother unload the grocerys.
Maybe you could blame it on my mother's quiet submission or on my father being the "bread-winner", but there is really no way around it: my mother does all of the house work. I do not even think you could say that my father shares! It is her job, my mother embraces it, and my father does little about it.
I guess you can say I have a very traditional family, and in my life the divisions of labor has not changed much from the 60's, although I am sure that in other people's lives it has.

During the Women’s Rights Movement of the 1960s, Kathie Sarachild would introduce the term “consciousness-raising” that would cause radical changes in women’s attitudes about their society. Previously many women had come to accept their subordinate status not because they enjoyed it, but because they actually were unaware that more women than themselves experienced these problems. This new process of holding meetings where women could discuss their domestic and societal problems created an unprecedented surge in women’s confidence.
One of the direct responses was a much clearer understanding for women on their roles in society. They now knew that all women were being treated as subordinates and that all women should not be treated that way. With a large group of supporters, these women gained the confidence they needed in order to go out into society and try to make a difference. No longer were they forced to believe that it was an individual problem. Consciousness-raising also radically changed the way many women viewed men. It became increasingly harder for women to understand or sympathize with men who publicly opposed the Women’s Rights Movement. Prior to these meetings, they couldn’t even see their own lives for themselves, much less the life of all society. These responses were sparked by the wave of energy that spread through all the women once their eyes were opened to the world. With a new vision on life, these women sought immediate changes since they had sat in the dark for so long. They know knew the problem was one that was deeply embedded in society and they know had the participation and the followers to do something about it. This all led them to see that their time to act was now.
This process proved highly effective in analyzing the status of women in society. The women of the 1960s needed to see for themselves that their problems were not just their own. These meetings gave the women a chance to see the world from the eyes of other women and observe how nearly all households seemed to hold the same inferior view of women. Without the success of these small meetings and gatherings, the movement may have never pulled in as many followers as it did, and thus may never have been as successful as it was. The only drawback to this process was the intense rage and anger that came about as a result of the meetings. Since these meetings consisted almost entirely of stories about how women had been degraded, discriminated against, or insulted by men, many of the women built up a large amount of aggression that may have actually constrained the movement. The success of the women’s movement had a lot to do with their peaceful protests and use of rhetoric. If some of this rage had gotten lose, the movement may have easily been squashed by society in order to avoid another civil rights movement or counter-culture disaster.

The author's critique of the idea of men "helping" with housework is that by them doing so it "was reinforcing the idea that it was [a woman's] job" to do housework. Men helping with housework meant that the woman would have to acknowledge that it was her duty to keep the house tidy and not a man's because she would have to thank him for his assistance. The author believed that "it was only a matter of helping when it came to doing things that [a man] didn't like to do" because everything else that a man and a woman did together was "sharing".
I don't think that this idea characterizes the division of housework today because many men and women don't feel that it's a certain person's job to clean the house. The only thing that's important is that the work gets done no matter who does it. In many homes now men are the ones who do all the housework or a majority of it instead of the woman. I think that in today's society the distribution of housework is characterized by whoever has the most spare time to do it. Since many women now days have such very demanding and prestigious careers it's left up to the husband to do the work because the women simply don't have the time anymore.