Some feminists assert that the "experience and expectations driven by gender are fundamental. Gender norms are embedded in language, culture, and experience, and are thus subtly communicated and internalized from the moment of birth" (Avis, p. 226, in FSI Study Guide, p. 390). As with any normative-based standards, the problem with gender norms is: Who defines the norms? The question then becomes how are the norms perpetuated and how do we change the paradigm?

The feminist movement arose in response to "norms" that subjugated women. It was a means to challenge the power relations between women and men and was a political movement that reacted against a male-dominated paradigm. Weedon (1987, p. 1) writes, "Feminism is a politics. It is a politics directed at changing existing power relations between men and women in society."

From a reactive stance of knowing who we are not, we begin to define who we are. We can discover and create the concept of feminism and feminist and consider if, indeed, these are terms we want to keep. As women, my hope is that our varied perspectives will contribute to questioning and creating new concepts and ideas, remembering that knowledge is contextual. Aldous Huxley (1956, p. 1, cited in Wurzel, 1988, p. 2), upon his return from his first trip around the world, spoke about accepting as inevitable the contradictions in everything we know:

So the journey is over and I am back again, richer by much experience and poorer by many exploded convictions, many perished certainties.â? I had my views on every activity of life. Now, on my return, I find myself without any of these pleasing certaintiesâ?|. The better you understand the significance of any question, the more difficult it becomes to answer it. When one is traveling, convictions are mislaid as easily as spectacles, but unlike spectacles, they are not easily replaced.

Multicultural education has taught me to be humble towards the nature of knowledge. It teaches one to be tolerant of the ambiguities of knowledge and open to variation and differences. Some questions to begin our journey follow.

Core Questions:

• What would our world be like if women had greater power and influence on world events?
• What do we mean by diverse feminist communication styles? Are there common values across these styles?
• How does feminist communication impact leadership?

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