Inland, Dreaming of Waves

Group Dynamics

I feel stirred up. I just got back from another NARAL Colorado meeting in Denver, and it was fun! We had about 25 women packed together in the upstairs room at the Oh My Goddess coffeehouse, and at one point we broke into 4 groups and started discussing upcoming plans. My job was to get women to talk about their reproductive choices, and in the first two groups I started things off by telling them about my abortion in 1981. The first group was full of energy. Finally I just had to move on to the other group and leave them talking. The second group was a little more hesitant, and when the women were talking about their experiences, the only man at the meeting was silent. Then he asked them if any of them had children and what they wanted to do to ensure their kids had the same or better choices.

The next two groups I went to were more analytical. They talked alot about how hesitant some people were about discussing such personal experiences in public. They did come up with the good idea of holding an open mike--instead of poetry, people would talk about abortion and contraception and such--but people could write down their stories and have somebody else read them if they felt shy.

I decided that if you let people be hesitant, they'll take the opportunity. Better to just dive in and hope they follow.

posted by Price of Silence @ 10:05 PM