raise someone's consciousness

raise someone's consciousness

English

Verb

raise someone's consciousness

1. To increase a person's awareness of, and often sympathy for, an issue, cause, or condition.
   • 1982, Laurence I. Barrett, "The White House Sensitivity Gap," Time, 1 Feb.:

     But part of Reagan's self-imposed mandate is to show that his conservatism has a broad reach. That would be easier for Reagan to do if he were accustomed to working closely with blacks, women and others who might raise his consciousness on sensitive issues.

   • 1983, Neil Amdur, "The toll conditioning can take on athletes," New York Times, 6 March:

     But assorted pressures, some self-imposed and others societal, raised her consciousness about counting calories.

   • 2005, Jean Fagan Yellin, Harriet Jacobs: A Life, →ISBN, p. xv:

     Raised in an Old Left family, I was taught about male chauvinism and thought I knew something about it, but at the beginning of feminism's "Second Wave" in the 1970's, I concluded that I needed to raise my consciousness.

Related terms

• consciousness raising