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37-421: Hera Gallery was created in 1974, the year that the alternative gallery movement burst beyond major cities and into more remote locations, like Wakefield, Rhode Island. It was conceived from a consciousness-raising group consisting mostly of artists, and often associated with the nearby University of Rhode Island , that started meeting in 1969. One of the common topics to discuss were the difficulties of balancing

74-412: A certain positive ideal are often known as causes. A particular cause may be very expansive in nature — for instance, increasing liberty or fixing a broken political system. For instance in 2008, U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama utilized such a meaning when he said, "this was the moment when we tore down barriers that have divided us for too long; when we rallied people of all parties and ages to

111-662: A common cause." Change.org and Causes are two popular websites that allow people to organize around a common cause. Topics upon which there is universal agreement that they need to be solved include, for example, human trafficking , poverty , water and sanitation as a human right . "Social issues" as referred to in the United States also include topics (also known as "causes") intended by their advocates to advance certain ideals (such as equality ) include: civil rights , LGBT rights , women's rights , environmentalism , and veganism . Advocates and advocacy groups represent

148-409: A consciousness-raising tactic by consciousness-raising groups. Activist and writer Audre Lorde was noted to have been one of many scholars who wrote of poetry as a means of communication for women of color activist and resistance groups. This focus has also been studied by other feminist scholars as a new approach to women's literary writing experience, and the usage of critical consciousness through

185-515: A consensus on this latter type of issues, but intense advocacy is likely to remain. In the United States , any issue of widespread debate and deeply divided opinion can be referred to as a social issue. The Library of Congress has assembled an extensive list of social issues in the United States, ranging from vast ones like abortion to same-sex marriage to smaller ones like hacking and academic cheating . Topics that appear to involve advancing

222-490: A form of therapy", but that it was, in fact, in its time and context, "the primary method of understanding women's condition" and constituted "the movement's most successful organizing tool." At the same time, she saw the lack of theory and emphasis on personal experience as concealing "prior political and philosophical assumptions". However, some in the feminist movement criticised consciousness raising groups as "trivial" and apolitical . Historically, poetry has been used as

259-511: A means of raising awareness in the wider society. In The God Delusion , anti-religion activist Richard Dawkins uses the term "consciousness raising" for several other things, explicitly describing these as analogous to the feminist case. These include replacing references to children as Catholic, Muslim, etc. with references to children of the adults who are members of these religions (which he compares to our using non-sexist terminology) and Darwin as "raising our consciousness" in biology to

296-478: A space dedicated to showing experimental, multi-media, and installation art. Authority control Consciousness-raising Consciousness raising (also called awareness raising ) is a form of activism popularized by United States feminists in the late 1960s. It often takes the form of a group of people attempting to focus the attention of a wider group on some cause or condition. Common issues include diseases (e.g. breast cancer , AIDS ), conflicts (e.g.

333-439: A sympathetic URI professor who kept the rent low for them. After his recent demise, the family put the land on the market but waited for a buyer whose plan included preserving the gallery. In September 2007 it was announced that a buyer plans on demolishing the existing building to create a mixed-use development including residential condominiums and inclusion of the gallery. In 2022 the gallery opened their BackSpace Gallery,

370-512: A vision of a just society as promoted by social justice advocates. For them, advocacy represents the series of actions taken and issues highlighted to change the "what is" into a "what should be", considering that this "what should be" is a more decent and a more just society Those actions, which vary with the political, economic and social environment in which they are conducted, have several points in common. For instance, they: Other forms of advocacy include: Different contexts in which advocacy

407-438: A wide range of categories and support several issues as listed on worldadvocacy.com. The Advocacy Institute, a US-based global organization, is dedicated to strengthening the capacity of political, social, and economic justice advocates to influence and change public policy. The phenomenon of globalization draws a special attention to advocacy beyond countries’ borders. The core existence of networks such as World Advocacy or

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444-466: A woman? I need to hear it to raise my own consciousness.' Kathie was sitting behind me and the words rang in her mind. From then on she sort of made it an institution and called it consciousness-raising. On Thanksgiving 1968, Kathie Sarachild presented A Program for Feminist Consciousness Raising , at the First National Women's Liberation Conference near Chicago, Illinois, in which she explained

481-640: Is used: Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink have observed four types of advocacy tactics: These tactics have been also observed within advocacy organizations outside the USA. Groups involved in advocacy work have been using the Internet to accomplish organizational goals. It has been argued that the Internet helps to increase the speed, reach and effectiveness of advocacy-related communication as well as mobilization efforts, suggesting that social media are beneficial to

518-536: The Advocacy Institute demonstrates the increasing importance of transnational advocacy and international advocacy. Transnational advocacy networks are more likely to emerge around issues where external influence is necessary to ease the communication between internal groups and their own government. Groups of advocates willing to further their mission also tend to promote networks and to meet with their internal counterparts to exchange ideas. Transnational advocacy

555-569: The Darfur genocide , global warming ), movements (e.g. Greenpeace , PETA , Earth Hour ) and political parties or politicians. Since informing the populace of a public concern is often regarded as the first step to changing how the institutions handle it, raising awareness is often the first activity in which any advocacy group engages. However, in practice, raising awareness is often combined with other activities, such as fundraising , membership drives or advocacy , in order to harness and/or sustain

592-424: The closet among welcoming, tolerant individuals and share personal stories about coming out. The idea of coming out as a tool of consciousness-raising had been preceded by even earlier opinions from German theorists such as Magnus Hirschfeld , Iwan Bloch and Karl Heinrich Ulrichs , all of whom saw self-disclosure as a means of self-emancipation, the raising of consciousness among fellow un-closeted individuals and

629-593: The motivation of new supporters which may be at its highest just after they have learned and digested the new information. The term awareness raising is used in the Yogyakarta Principles against discriminatory attitudes and LGBT stereotypes as well as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to combat stereotypes , prejudices and harmful practices toward people with disabilities . Until

666-450: The Board of Directors. It serves the surrounding community by “encouraging ethnic and cultural diversity in both audience and program development. ” Since its inception, Hera Gallery has resided in a building that was a garage in the 1920s, then a laundromat, and later a flea market, before finally being outfitted by the founding artists and their loved ones. Its landlord throughout this time was

703-434: The United States and Canada are using social media to facilitate civic engagement and collective action. There are several forms of advocacy, each representing a different approach in a way to initiate changes in the society. One of the most popular forms is social justice advocacy. Cohen, de la Vega, and Watson (2001) state that this definition does not encompass the notions of power relations, people's participation, and

740-439: The advocacy community. Advocacy activities may include conducting an exit poll or the filing of an amicus brief . People advocate for a large number and variety of topics. Some of these are clear-cut social issues that are universally agreed to be problematic and worth solving, such as human trafficking . Others—such as abortion —are much more divisive and inspire strongly held opinions on both sides. There may never be

777-435: The creation of art as a liberatory praxis. Art as a liberatory praxis has also been explored through a radical queer lens through a number of publications and journals such as Sinister Wisdom and Conditions , online publications with an emphasis on lesbian writing. In the 1960s, consciousness-raising caught on with gay liberation activists, who formed the first "coming-out groups" which helped participants come out of

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814-524: The domestic responsibilities of being wife and mother with a professional artistic career. The women discussed the difficulty in having their work represented in Manhattan galleries, where apparent sexism from gallery owners caused their work to be disregarded. Hera Gallery was thus created in order to foster a professional community of women artists, in the vein of other recently established women-run artist cooperatives, such as New York City's A.I.R. Gallery . At

851-665: The early-17th century, English speakers used the word "consciousness" in the sense of "moral knowledge of right or wrong"—a concept today referred to as " conscience ". Consciousness raising groups were formed by New York Radical Women , an early Women's Liberation group in New York City, and quickly spread throughout the United States. In November 1967, a group including Shulamith Firestone , Anne Koedt , Kathie Sarachild (originally Kathie Amatniek), and Carol Hanisch began meeting in Koedt's apartment. Meetings often involved "going around

888-506: The gallery ran the program The Green Stitch: Knitting Community Together, in which Hera Gallery, The Rhode Island Natural History Survey, and Save the Bay RI hosted monthly environmentalist presentations and corresponding craft activities. Initially the organization of Hera Gallery consisted of non-hierarchical egalitarian committees, influenced by feminist ideals. As the gallery grew, its board of directors, once only represented by artist-members,

925-457: The media, and messaging to educate government officials and the public. Advocacy can include many activities that a person or organization undertakes, including media campaigns , public speaking , commissioning and publishing research. Lobbying (often by lobby groups ) is a form of advocacy where a direct approach is made to legislators on a specific issue or specific piece of legislation. Research has started to address how advocacy groups in

962-439: The movement's most successful form of female bonding , and the source of most of its creative thinking. Some of the small groups stayed together for more than a decade". "In 1973, probably the height of CR, 100,000 women in the United States belonged to CR groups." Early mid-century feminists argued that women were isolated from each other, and as a result many problems in women's lives were misunderstood as "personal," or as

999-668: The next few years, small-group consciousness raising spread rapidly in cities and suburbs throughout the United States. By 1971, the Chicago Women's Liberation Union , which had already organized several consciousness raising groups in Chicago, described small consciousness raising groups as "the backbone of the Women's Liberation Movement ". Susan Brownmiller , a member of the West Village would later write that small-group consciousness raising "was

1036-423: The original sources, both historic and personal, going to people—women themselves, and going to experience for theory and strategy". However, most consciousness raising groups did follow a similar pattern for meeting and discussion. Meetings would usually be held about once a week, with a small group of women, often in the living room of one of the members. Meetings were women-only , and usually involved going around

1073-637: The possibility of explaining complexity naturalistically and, in principle, raising our consciousness to the possibility of doing such things elsewhere (especially in physics). Earlier in the book, he uses the term (without explicitly referring to feminism) to refer to making people aware that leaving their parents' faith is an option. Advocacy Advocacy is an activity by an individual or group that aims to influence decisions within political, economic, and social institutions. Advocacy includes activities and publications to influence public policy, laws and budgets by using facts, their relationships,

1110-719: The principles behind consciousness-raising and outlined a program for the process that the New York groups had developed over the past year. Groups founded by former members of New York Radical Women—in particular Redstockings , founded out of the breakup of the NYRW in 1969, and New York Radical Feminists —promoted consciousness raising and distributed mimeographed sheets of suggesting topics for consciousness raising group meetings. New York Radical Feminists organized neighborhood-based c.r. groups in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, involving as many as four hundred women in c.r. groups at its peak. Over

1147-439: The results of conflicts between the personalities of individual men and women, rather than systematic forms of oppression. Raising consciousness meant helping oneself and helping others to become politically conscious . Consciousness raising groups aimed to get a better understanding of women's oppression by bringing women together to discuss and analyze their lives, without interference from the presence of men. While explaining

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1184-490: The room and talking" about issues in their own lives. The phrase "consciousness raising" was coined to describe the process when Kathie Sarachild took up the phrase from Anne Forer: In the Old Left , they used to say that the workers don't know they're oppressed, so we have to raise their consciousness. One night at a meeting I said, 'Would everybody please give me an example from their own life on how they experienced oppression as

1221-432: The room for each woman to talk about a predetermined subject—for example, "When you think about having a child, would you rather have a boy or a girl?" —speaking from her own experience, with no formal leader for the discussion and few rules for directing or limiting discussion. (Some c.r. groups did implement rules designed to give every woman a chance to speak, to prevent interruptions, etc.) Speaking from personal experience

1258-401: The theory behind consciousness raising in a 1973 talk, Kathie Sarachild remarked that "From the beginning of consciousness-raising ... there has been no one method of raising consciousness. What really counts in consciousness-raising are not methods, but results. The only 'methods' of consciousness raising are essentially principles. They are the basic radical political principles of going to

1295-538: The time, a Providence Journal writer commented that "...a women's art center named after a bitchy Greek goddess and housed in a barn that used to be a laundry is New England's only art gallery completely owned and controlled by women..." The gallery continues to host topical exhibitions. Their 2022 exhibition, "Erosion," highlighted artist's emotional responses to the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court Case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization . The gallery also hosts community outreach programs; from September 2020 to June 2021

1332-604: Was appended with a community Advisory Board from 1986–2000, according to the gallery's unpublished “Addendum to the History of Hera”. Furthermore, when the Advisory Board was discontinued in 2000, the Board of Directors began including external community members (Addendum). Since 1992 (Addendum) there has also been a Gallery Director part-time paid position. Hera Gallery offers its members an annual solo exhibition, inclusion in group exhibitions, curatorial opportunities, and positions on

1369-1114: Was used as a basis for further discussion and analysis based on the first-hand knowledge that was shared. Some feminist advocates of consciousness raising argued that the process allowed women to analyze the conditions of their own lives, and to discover ways in which what had seemed like isolated, individual problems (such as needing an abortion , surviving rape , conflicts between husbands and wives over housework, etc.) actually reflected common conditions faced by all women. As Sarachild wrote in 1969, "We assume that our feelings are telling us something from which we can learn... that our feelings mean something worth analyzing... that our feelings are saying something political , something reflecting fear that something bad will happen to us or hope, desire, knowledge that something good will happen to us. ... In our groups, let's share our feelings and pool them. Let's let ourselves go and see where our feelings lead us. Our feelings will lead us to ideas and then to actions". Ellen Willis wrote in 1984 that consciousness raising has often been "misunderstood and disparaged as

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