About the Author
Margaret Schuler Ed.D.
My background is not in law. I came to the work of Women, Law and Development with several years’ experience working with community organizations in Chile and with post graduate degrees in education with a focus on adult learning and organization development.
I went to live in Chile after college where I had the privilege of meeting and learning from the Brazilian educator, Paolo Freire. I did not know who he was at first. A colleague of mine who was working with him at Instituto de Capacitación e Investigación en Reforma Agraria ICIRA, introduced us. At a dinner at his home in 1967, he permitted me, a young, inexperienced but energetic social activist, begin a dialog that would continue to inspire me and inform my life’s work. Over the next two years, through personal conversations and in workshop settings, I was introduced to the concept of “praxis,” reflection and action directed at structures to be transformed, and the belief that people, in his words, have the “ontological vocation to be creative.” Later, the publication of his works, Education as the Practice of Freedom and Pedagogy of the Oppressed, helped solidify my interest and focus on how to engage people in the process of reflection linked to action to achieve social change.
When Salvador Allende was elected President of Chile in 1970, I was working in a squatter camp in Santiago that started as a land invasion of poor people demanding government action about their dire housing situation. I was a member of the Maryknoll Sisters religious community at the time and the people of the camp welcomed my presence. I lived as everyone there did, in a makeshift, temporary wooden shack with dirt floors. Illegal tapping into the electrical grid gave us light, but community outhouses served as our only plumbing. In these circumstances, women in the camp, most with small children, faced enormous problems. The rains in the winter brought mud and dampness and illness. We worked to relieve some of these problems by organizing the women to start a cooperative daycare space and nutrition education projects. In the process, they developed the will and self-confidence needed to engage camp authorities, articulate their needs and require a response to their demands. But this was a politically volatile period and partisan groups grew antagonistic and violent.
After I was physically attacked in the camp by one of the party leaders active there, it became all too clear that it was dangerous for me to stay. I was devastated and unable to share my experience with anyone fearing that it would be used for political propaganda. So, I left the camp--and the religious community--and returned to school, studying for a licentiate in sociology at the University of Chile. That endeavor was also interrupted, this time by the violent military coup of September 11, 1973, an event that changed my life forever. I returned, as in exile, to the US six weeks later.
After a period of adjustment from culture shock--I had never lived in the United States as an independent adult and I was 34 years old--I once again returned to university studies. This time, I knew I wanted to deepen the concepts that I had learned in Chile from Paolo Freire and my own experiences working with women and communities. I earned masters and doctoral degrees in education from George Washington University with a focus on adult learning and awareness raising processes, developing effective organizations, and participatory research and action.
When I was hired by the Overseas Education Fund to work on a women's legal project in Central America, I came to the task not just with book learning, but with my own experience of women's oppression, lack of support and violence so many women experience throughout the world. I believe both my academic credentials and my personal experience served me well in the work of supporting Women Law, and Development over the years. They are also the reason I am writing this story, which I do with passion and profound respect and affection for the women who have forged a global movement to promote and defend women's rights.
I went to live in Chile after college where I had the privilege of meeting and learning from the Brazilian educator, Paolo Freire. I did not know who he was at first. A colleague of mine who was working with him at Instituto de Capacitación e Investigación en Reforma Agraria ICIRA, introduced us. At a dinner at his home in 1967, he permitted me, a young, inexperienced but energetic social activist, begin a dialog that would continue to inspire me and inform my life’s work. Over the next two years, through personal conversations and in workshop settings, I was introduced to the concept of “praxis,” reflection and action directed at structures to be transformed, and the belief that people, in his words, have the “ontological vocation to be creative.” Later, the publication of his works, Education as the Practice of Freedom and Pedagogy of the Oppressed, helped solidify my interest and focus on how to engage people in the process of reflection linked to action to achieve social change.
When Salvador Allende was elected President of Chile in 1970, I was working in a squatter camp in Santiago that started as a land invasion of poor people demanding government action about their dire housing situation. I was a member of the Maryknoll Sisters religious community at the time and the people of the camp welcomed my presence. I lived as everyone there did, in a makeshift, temporary wooden shack with dirt floors. Illegal tapping into the electrical grid gave us light, but community outhouses served as our only plumbing. In these circumstances, women in the camp, most with small children, faced enormous problems. The rains in the winter brought mud and dampness and illness. We worked to relieve some of these problems by organizing the women to start a cooperative daycare space and nutrition education projects. In the process, they developed the will and self-confidence needed to engage camp authorities, articulate their needs and require a response to their demands. But this was a politically volatile period and partisan groups grew antagonistic and violent.
After I was physically attacked in the camp by one of the party leaders active there, it became all too clear that it was dangerous for me to stay. I was devastated and unable to share my experience with anyone fearing that it would be used for political propaganda. So, I left the camp--and the religious community--and returned to school, studying for a licentiate in sociology at the University of Chile. That endeavor was also interrupted, this time by the violent military coup of September 11, 1973, an event that changed my life forever. I returned, as in exile, to the US six weeks later.
After a period of adjustment from culture shock--I had never lived in the United States as an independent adult and I was 34 years old--I once again returned to university studies. This time, I knew I wanted to deepen the concepts that I had learned in Chile from Paolo Freire and my own experiences working with women and communities. I earned masters and doctoral degrees in education from George Washington University with a focus on adult learning and awareness raising processes, developing effective organizations, and participatory research and action.
When I was hired by the Overseas Education Fund to work on a women's legal project in Central America, I came to the task not just with book learning, but with my own experience of women's oppression, lack of support and violence so many women experience throughout the world. I believe both my academic credentials and my personal experience served me well in the work of supporting Women Law, and Development over the years. They are also the reason I am writing this story, which I do with passion and profound respect and affection for the women who have forged a global movement to promote and defend women's rights.
