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. 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 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 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 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.