The authors explore the ways women learn and how that differs from the dominant thought about learning and knowing in our culture. The progression of knowing and learning that they found in women they interviewed encompasses four basic steps:

Received knowledge
These women look outside themselves and their friends for guidance, answers to questions, for the "right" way to do things. An example given in the book was about a woman who did not know how to take care of her children. She depended on the staff at the children's health center to do things for her and to tell her the "right" way to take care of her children.

Subjective knowledge

At this step, a woman encounters her inner voice and begins to listen and act on what she hears inside her. She moves from being passive to action based on her own inside knowledge instead of depending on people outside herself. The authors told a story of a woman who was reared in a home that told the females that they are to be silent and serve the men. She married a man that continued this way of thinking . She came to a point in her life where she realized that she was not dumb and a know-nothing. She began to tune in to her inner self to decide what was right for her.

Procedural knowledge

Not all women move onto this step. In this step, the woman move into the area of reconciling the difference between her inner voice and the outside authorities. The woman begins to understand the "authorities" viewpoints instead of rejecting these views. This type of knowledge is connected knowledge because it is founded on understanding and relationships.

Separate knowledge is the knowledge gained from "considering others as it wishes to be considered". These women are oriented toward impersonal rules, such as "What standards are being used to evaluate this paper? What techniques shall I use to write it?"

The women at this step spoke from either the separate knowing voice or the connected knowing voice. They might move from one to the other. But the two voices were separate and distinct.

Constructed knowledge

It was at this step that the women in the study began to integrate the two voices of connected knowing and separate knowing. She begins to "find a place for reason and tuition and the expertise of others." This woman begins the task of integrating "knowledge they felt intuitively was personally important with the knowledge they had learned from others". They appreciate the "experts" but decide for themselves the validity that knowledge for them. Becoming aware of the workings of their mind is vital to these women.

The authors felt that understanding how women learn best would usher in a new design for educating women - a design that is both more communal and less adversarial with the women fully engaged with the material. The professor would guide and challenge the student without reducing her self-esteem. Ideas, thoughts, and experiential knowledge would flow throughout the discussion, with each student being listened to on her own terms.

A woman who wants to more fully understand the impact of our culture on her learning and knowing would benefit from the material in this book to better understand her journey. A man who is willing to question and ponder his views of the world and is willing to "step into another's shoes" would encounter the struggle and passage of the women in his world, and may yield some insights into his own ways of knowing.