Scholars know relatively little about the potential impact of women's movements on gender diversity in the corporate world. We aim to fill this gap in the literature by providing the first empirical analysis of the relationship between women's movements and female representation on boards of directors. Drawing on political process theory, we argue that the strength of a women's movement is positively associated with its ability to increase the number of women on corporate boards. Moreover, we posit that the (...) effect of women's movements on female board representation is moderated by corporate opportunity structures, that is, attributes of firms that make them more or less receptive to social movement activities. Three firm characteristics are particularly relevant in the context of boardroom gender diversity: reputation-seeking behavior, commitment to corporate social responsibility, and political orientation. Using firm-fixed effects models to analyze data on more than 2000 companies from 10 countries over a period of 10 years, we find support for three of our four hypotheses. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to argue the thesis that, 25 years after the fall of communism, with the exception of former Yugoslavia, there has been and still is, a lack of „women’s movements“ in the post-communist countries. The author also proposes some explanations as to why there are dozens of women’s organizations but no women’s movements. In order to support her thesis, Raynova emphasizes the difference between “women’s movements”, “feminist movements” and “social movements”, and (...) shows the weakness of some current definitions. Instead of a definition, she indicates the conditions for a women’s movement, which are: (1.) women’s oppression and discrimination as a prevalent situation, which motivates a movement when that situation is perceived as intolerable; (2.) ideas and concrete strategies on how to proceed in order to change this situation; (3.) some kind of organization or leading personalities, able to coordinate and unite women in a mass movement and to ensure continuity of action until the goals of the movement are achieved; and (4.) large masses of women who are motivated and ready to fight resolutely for changing their situation. The provided analyses show that these conditions have not been always given, but that the persisting problems of women’s problems can be resolved only if women engage more actively in civil society so as to enforce their claims. (shrink)

This paper attempts to describe the present situation in the women's movement in Serbia and Montenegro and to tackle questions about its future, on the basis of a sociological study of newly formed women's groups. In the past, the women's movement in these societies has surged several times, only to be completely annulled, and its proponents falling to oblivion. Now, for the first time ever, the seeds of the movement originating from the long gone period of the (...) socialist regime in Yugoslavia have survived the turmoil of disintegration and wars, and are germinating as women's groups and networks spring up alongside are being formed. The crucial task for the future will be strengthening this fragile and diffused network structure and laying down solid foundations for a movement with proper institutional mechanisms on a nation/state level. This investigation examined the prerequisites for this: firstly by examining the visibility and distinguishing features of women's groups and their activities in their current local environment; and secondly, by assessing activists’ clear acceptance of feminist (and their groups’) self-determination, which confront existing social attitudes towards feminist identities. In both respects, considerable advances towards a broader and clearer recognition of the aims and essence of women's groups’ activities are identified, in spite of the ever-present traditional and ideological resistance to this type of women's engagement. (shrink)

This article develops a framework for cross-national comparisons of contemporary women's movements. The article focuses on the international context and cross-national influences, the nature of the state, the absence or presence of other movements, the effects of conservative or liberal political environments, the effects of centralization or dispersion within the movement itself and on feminist involvement in political parties and elections. Because each of these factors shapes a particular movement, the article concludes that there cannot be one correct (...) feminism. (shrink)

This article compares the social movement mobilization that led to reforms in police and judicial handling of battering in the United States to the movement ideology, organization, and tactics that resulted in analogous policy reform in the processing of dowry burnings and beatings in India. Using field notes and secondary sources from both countries, the article examines how both movements redefined violence against women in families as a public issue, then looks at how movement demands affected policy (...) reform in each country. The analysis questions the current conceptualization of social movement success. Social movements theory assumes that entry into the polity of liberal, democratic states constitutes success in the sense of social change. Yet the cases analyzed suggest that assumptions about the gender neutrality of state response to movements prevents researchers from critically examining the outcomes of social movement mobilization. Moreover, institutionalization of women's movement demands and organization may diminish the capacity of such movements to control the social construction of domestic violence against women by providing protection without empowerment. (shrink)

Despite the existence of distinctive female personalities and individual interventions on behalf of women, feminism – understood as a mass movement – remained a rarity in Spain until April 14, 1931; that is, until the proclamation of the Second Republic. For feminism to triumph, two things were necessary: first, the popularization of the ideas represented by the French Revolution, and second, the Industrial Revolution. Neither of these two prerequisites existed in Spain until the Second Republic and the country remained (...) in the grip of conservative Catholicism, without anything resembling the Industrial Revolution that was happening in the rest of Europe. (shrink)

This study primarily focuses on feminism and the women’s movement and howthey manifest in Macedonian society. The feminist ideology reflects various forms ofactivism, with the common goal of overcoming the subordinate status of women in societyand achieving equality between men and women. Hence, this study explores thefollowing questions: does feminist activism in Macedonian society contribute to the advancementof women’s rights, and can every women’s movement be situated within theframework of feminist theory? Consequently, through the analysis (...) of specific activities,actions, and movements in public discourse, the relationships of the women’s movementwith feminism will be explored, with an emphasis on their identification with the feministmovement. At the same time, this study will address questions of gender as a centralanalytical category in feminist discourse, as well as the discrepancy between equalityas a universal value, on the one hand, and entrenched patterns of domination regardinggender and sexual orientation, on the other hand. (shrink)

This work is a survey of the efforts through which women have changed their place in American society from the nation's founding to the present. Examining the historical struggle for suffrage, legal and property rights, and rights in the work place, the authors show how these experiences have shaped a contemporary movement for economic, political, and social equality that has become increasingly independent and less and less likely to place women's issues second to other national concerns. The authors recount (...) a history of women activists who repeatedly set aside their own issues in favor of others that seemed more pressing--from abolition and preserving the Union, to labor solidarity in the 1920s, and civil rights and the New Left in the 1960s and 1970s. Male domination of these movements and a lack of support for women's issues have been major factors in creating the contemporary feminist philosophy of going it alone. The book is divided into three topical sections, each of which offers a historical analysis and draws on a variety of sources such as legal statutes and judicial decisions, demographic information, public opinion polls, and biographies and other narrative accounts. It is a richly documented resource for courses and research in women's studies, sociology, politics, and U.S. legal and political history. (shrink)

Feminists have celebrated success in gendering security discourse and practice since the end of the Cold War. Scholars have adapted theories of contentious politics to analyze how transnational feminist networks achieved this. I argue that such theories would be enhanced by richer conceptualizations of how transnational feminist networks produce and disseminate new forms of global governmental knowledge and expertise. This article engages social movement theory with theories of global governmentality. Governmentality analysis typically focuses upon governmental power rather than political (...) contention or the collective agency of political outsiders. However, I argue that governmentality analysis contributes to an account of feminist influence on the fields of development and security within global politics. The governmentality lens views politics as a struggle over truth and expertise. Since experts have authority to speak the truth on a given issue, governmentality analysis seeks to uncover the social basis of expertise. Such analysis of expertise can illuminate important aspects of the power of movements. The power of transnational women’s movements lies in production and dissemination of knowledge about women within global knowledge networks. (shrink)

This comprehensive and important volume includes contributions by activists, journalists, lawyers and scholars from twenty-one countries. The essays map the directions the movement for women's rights is taking--and will take in the coming decades--and the concomittant transformation of prevailing notions of rights and issues. They address topics such as the rapes in former Yugoslavia and efforts to see that a War Crimes Tribunal responds; domestic violence; trafficking of women into the sex trade; the persecution of lesbians; female genital mutilation; (...) and reproductive rights. (shrink)

Mourning, especially melancholic mourning, has recently emerged as a significant site of expressing and addressing loss in feminism. While feminism’s hard-won successes in achieving institutional power globally have brought exuberance over achievement, they have also come with an acute sense of despondency and loss; one that is not easily mourned or relinquished. The institutionalization of feminism in governmental, non-governmental and academic sites has precipitated this sense of loss in India, wherein the discussion of this article is located. In exploring the (...) politics of loss in contemporary feminist discourse in India, feminist melancholia is seen to condition a fetishized attachment to the past, and to past modes of knowledge, action and consciousness in ways that demand the generational reproduction of feminism rather than its renewal in times of perceived crisis. Present-day anxieties over the ‘co-option’ and resultant depoliticization of the Indian women’s movement constitute a narrative of loss in which a politically more ‘authentic’ past functions as a normative standard for feminist politics in the present, and as a prescriptive model of feminism’s future. Advancements in Women’s Studies and activist (now ‘NGOized’) practice that are seen to be deviating from the redemption of such an idealized past are thus deemed apolitical. In interrogating contemporary anxieties about feminism’s present and impending future (that resonate beyond the bounds of India), the article demonstrates how melancholic loss can inform a potentially conservative politics that seeks to contain feminism in a once loved but now lost ‘home’. (shrink)

This article addresses the Egyptian women's movement of the 1950s–1970s through a recent film entitled Four Women of Egypt, which focuses on the lives of four prominent Egyptian women active in the movement during that period. Using the concept of political memory, the article traces some of the major debates within the women's movement throughout this era. By focusing on the ways in which these women conceptualize the geopolitical, I show that the twin concepts of imperialism and (...) capitalism were central to the ways in which they understood gender. The result was a complex understanding of how gender intersected with Egypt's position within a broader global system of imperial capitalism. Following the transition in the 1970s to an open-market economy, the women's movement shifted away from critiques of imperialism and capitalism. This shift can be understood Primarily in terms of geopolitics, specifically the rise of neoliberalism in Egypt. New neoliberal policies had dramatic effects on the women's movement, showing why both the rise and fall of the movement must be contextualized geopolitically and transnationally. (shrink)

Women’s movements in Western Europe are not dead, but they have altered their strategies in ways that require adaptation of investigative repertoires. Recent research highlights women’s movements’ pathways into institutions as well as the transnationalisation of activism. This article focuses on the shifting public communication repertoire associated with these developments. Communication and movement outreach across Europe are increasingly constituted online. The authors investigate the degree to which women’s networks in Germany and the UK mobilise constituencies via (...) online means. Utilising network mapping tools as well as original data from women’s NGOs, they analyse the density and distribution of relationships in German and UK networks, as well as their interactive communication repertoires as indicators of their capacity to engage constituents. The findings show that information-focused means of communication are more prevalent than interactive mobilisation tools. Women’s NGOs in the UK utilise more public engagement features than those in Germany. The authors relate these findings to second-, third- and fourth-wave feminisms, focusing on their distinct mobilisation strategies. (shrink)

Legal mobilization in the courts and in political discourse has emerged as an increasingly important strategy of social movements that complements other political approaches. This is true also for women’s movements in post-socialist countries, but most research on strategic litigation has focused so far on common law countries and on supranational litigation in Europe. Using the case of Poland as an example, this article asks why references to the law are so attractive in post-socialist contexts and what can be (...) gained by this with respect to actual rights, justice and social change. It focuses thereby on strategic litigation as the most sophisticated strategy that results from other sustained movement activities connected with the law. It draws on field research, interviews with activists and analyses of primary as well as secondary sources. The article explores the reasons for using the law as the ‘master frame’ by analysing the traditions of gender and law in state socialism and during democratic consolidation. Two examples of strategic litigation, the Tysiąc case for reproductive rights and the ‘Biedronka’ cases for employment rights, are analysed and situated in the context of other legal mobilization activities. These cases set the agenda for crucial social problems and resulted in binding decisions by the courts. A broad and predominantly supportive media discourse was conducive to cultivating public opinion. These analyses support the conclusion that legal mobilization tends to directly influence law and legal practices. It has a socializing effect on the population and their legal consciousness. In aiming at both state and society, these legal strategies of the women’s movement are a modest but crucial success for democratic consolidation. (shrink)

Increasingly, feminist scholars examine how the stability of racial hierarchies is maintained through discourse. This article explores the importance of race discourse in the construction of white women's accounts explaining their race politics. Specifically, the author examines the connections between race discourse and politics as they emerged in interviews with white women involved in a local women's movement between 1972 and 1999. The interviews revealed five discursive strategies women used to talk about race and the movement's antiracist practices. (...) In addition, one of the most important contributions of this study is the evidence it provides of the relationship between the discursive construction of an “invisible white self” and the broader structure of power relations. (shrink)

This article demonstrates how class and racial dynamics generate different styles of activism among women's movement organizations. Based on a comparative study of two feminist organizations—one composed of lower-class women of color and another of upper-class white women—it charts the formation of divergent types of gender politics. First, it explores how differences in the class and racial backgrounds of the memberships create distinct organizational needs; second, how these divergent political interests motivate contrasting organizational ideologies, activities, and structures; and finally (...) how they motivate different approaches to the wider women's movement. At the conclusion, implications are drawn for cross-class/race alliances among grassroots women's organizations. (shrink)

This paper discusses the work of Ismat Chughtai (1911–1991), a controversial writer whose long literary career extending over four decades roughly corresponds to the formative stages of the Indian women's movement. It interprets Chughtai's novella The Heart Breaks Free (1966) to forward an anti-teleological enquiry of the women's movement in India. This progressive teleology often suggested by a discussion of the ‘waves’, ‘stages’ or ‘phases’ of the Euro-American women's movement and adopted to postcolonial women's movements, such as (...) those in India, Jamaica and South Africa, is belied by the piecemeal legislative gains won by activist efforts. Some of the questions governing my enquiry are: What lessons can a questioning of teleology teach us about the gains and losses of postcolonial women's movements? If the alternative to teleology is, as I suggest, a genealogy, then what constitutes a genealogical enquiry into the women's movement in India? In face of apparent and self-acknowledged losses and ineffectiveness in recent times, would the movement's apparent unity across religious differences be a way of initiating such an inquiry or is another mode of analysis required? The paper directs attention to the Indian women's movement's attempts at bringing together women of different religious persuasions, legislative, and religious edicts related to Muslim women's right to co-habitation and divorce, and ‘cases’ that serve as testing points of the movement's struggle against religious and state authority. It also points to the neglected factor of economic security for women as a way in which a genealogical inquiry can proceed so as to strengthen the legislation and the movement itself. (shrink)

The historical analysis of the complex and often contradictory views of Florence Nightingale regarding the rights of women is explored in this paper. Feminism and nursing are often viewed as contradictory and antithetical. The relationship between the two is examined through the link between Florence Nightingale and her contemporary, Barbara Leigh‐Smith Bodichon. Leigh‐Smith was founder and primary financier of The English Women's Journal that provided a public platform for the major feminist writings of the period. Its offices in Langham Place (...) formed the administrative centre of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women. Bodichon and her colleagues were often referred to as the ‘Langham Place Group’. Unexplored prior to this study was the fact that Leigh‐Smith and Nightingale were first cousins. Utilizing techniques of internal and external criticism, primary and secondary sources were surveyed relating to Nightingale and Leigh‐Smith. The views of both women on the subjects of the rights of women, women's suffrage, the employment status of women, and the societal place of women are compared and contrasted. The legacy of both Leigh‐Smith and Nightingale to twentieth century feminism, the status of women, and the profession of nursing is then elaborated. The exploration of the views of both Nightingale and Leigh‐Smith is important to gain a clearer understanding of the existing relationship between nursing and feminism. In keeping with the aims of feminist inquiry, women's experiences, specifically those of Nightingale and Leigh‐Smith, are the major ‘objects’ of investigation. The concluding interpretation provides a synthesis that is emancipatory as well as knowledge generative. (shrink)

This work considers current models for understanding tactical interaction among social movement actors and finds them insufficient for making sense of the tactical work required of the Irish women's movement. Analysis of Irish feminist efforts to expand reproductive freedom calls into question the idea that tactical innovations are solely responses to countermovements or state repression. In this case, feminist activists spent considerable energy avoiding co-optation by sympathetic men and class-based movements and competing with economic and nationalist dilemmas that (...) capture the lion's share of public attention. “Friendly fire” refers to the process by which nonoppositional groups within and around, but not of, a movement threaten movement aims. Observational work focused on feminist campaign meetings and political theater yields significant insights concerning the effects of friendly fire and, specifically, the role of men in women's movements. (shrink)

This article asks how interracial sex and/or sexual attraction might be an integral part of cross-racial feminist work. Focusing on the work of black lesbian feminist poet Audre Lorde, I argue that for some black women sex and intimate relationships with white women during the Women’s Movement were an important part of their survival and their feminist and anti-racist praxis. Drawing on recent black feminist scholarship, I read Lorde’s work against the grain of the anti-pornography feminist movement (...) contemporaneous with her career and suggest that sex with white women was often a productive, enriching and necessary experience for her as she worked to build cross-racial political alliances. (shrink)

There is a diversity of views among feminists who have been debating whether or not a women's movement exists in Britain today. In part this is due to the lack of a clear working definition of social movement. This article uses social movement theory to discuss the ambiguous signs that are taken to indicate either the movement's continuing existence or its disappearance: the growth of mainstream political organizations; a focus on `women' in cultural production; the `micro-politics' (...) of everyday life. The article looks at the history of second-wave feminism in England using the two main schools of social movement theory: the `contentious politics' model focusing on organizations and formal political structures; and the `submerged networks' theory that takes solidarity, conflict and challenging dominant cultural codes to be central to social movements. (shrink)

This article goes beyond the debate over whether culture competes with politics in the women's movement to explore the complex relationship between cultural and political action. A case study of the local women's movement in Bloomington, Indiana, provides little evidence that cultural feminism led to a decline in political activity in the women's movement. Rather, the attractiveness of cultural and political activities changes with shifts in political opportunities. During periods of opportunity or threat that stimulate extensive action, (...) activists are energized for both cultural and political projects. During “slow” periods when there are few opportunities to make political gains, cultural projects are particularly attractive to feminists and may compete with political activities. However, cultural activities also help to maintain a feminist collective identity and provide networks to political groups. Ongoing political action is provoked by countermovement actions and other critical events and supported by “outsiders” who bring new ideas to a local community, national feminist organizations, and feminists within local institutions. (shrink)

This article documents the increasing participation of poor women in social movements in Latin America, focusing on movements centered around human rights and collective consumption issues, such as the cost of living or the provision of public services. It analyzes the factors that have contributed to the increased participation of poor Latin American women in social movements and why they have chosen the state rather than the workplace as the principal arena of confrontation. Although these movements are undertaken in defense (...) of women's traditional domestic role, collective action appears to be contributing to a greater consciousness of gender subordination among Latin American women and to their greater legitimacy in the public sphere. (shrink)

Anti-caste movements in India have a long history. Cultural heritage became and remains a site of political contestation by excluded communities searching for identity and equality, and gender remains at the core of their engagements. The meanings underlying the more homogenous term of ‘Dalit’ used today are part of a historical process of self-definition. Moreover, diverse Dalit countercultures suggest varied social domains in which Dalit communities are located. South Asian historiographies have been critiqued as denying histories and historical agency to (...) Dalits. Yet Dalit studies have developed epistemologies, bringing articulations and ideas from the margins to the centre of writings on history, leading to debates around caste that have transformed notions of politics. This paper draws from one such trajectory through a nonlinear narrative, juxtaposing the intergenerational contexts of engagements: my mother Dakshayani's political and life experiences, as narrated in her autobiography (1912–1978), and my own experience in the Dalit women's and other movements in the 1980s and 1990s. While my experience saw the onset of liberalisation and the emergence and growth of ‘new social movements’, the context of Dakshayani's narrations is the Pulaya (agrestic slave caste) community in the early 1900s in Cochin, a community in the process of transforming itself. Both narratives highlight how radical traditions within the Dalit women's movement over time have consciously and critically addressed anti-caste movements, social reform, the state, peoples’ movements and the nation within a conceptual framework of equality, liberty and non-discrimination. (shrink)

L’article reconsidère le mouvement des femmes en Albanie dans l’entre-deux-guerres en partant de ses racines ottomanes et en l’examinant à travers la presse féministe de l’époque. En prenant en compte l’ensemble des activités des militantes protestantes formées par les Américains, les bureaucrates post-ottomans et les féministes de la région, j’interprète le mouvement des femmes comme un aspect de la modernité ottomane tardive et comme une initiative marquée par des circulations globales qui ont eu un impact dans la construction de la (...) nation dans l’entre-deux-guerres. En commençant par une synthèse des activités des protestants dans la période tardive ottomane, l’article interroge ensuite la relation entre la bureaucratie post-ottomane et le mouvement des femmes de l’entre-deux-guerres. Enfin, il se termine par l’étude du magazine familial Shqiptarja (La femme albanaise). Soutenu par l’État, le magazine montre l’émergence d’un féminisme local conscient des enjeux globaux. Le féminisme en Albanie dans ces années se révèle ainsi bien plus riche et complexe que dans les travaux nationalistes existant. L’Albanie apparaît comme un espace post-ottoman qui se modernise selon ses propres enjeux avec des féministes capables de s’approprier de manière sélective les messages venant de l’extérieur. (shrink)

In this article the authors would like to present a history of the Turkish feminist movement. The roots of the feminist movement go back to the last decades of Ottoman Empire in Turkey when westernisation had started to take place. During the firts decade of the Republic many steps were taken to enable women to get involved in public, political and professional life and to encourage more equality in family matters. Women’s emancipation became a significant symbol of (...) modernity. Kemalist reforms attemted to create a new woman who could take place in public sphere with the men. During the 1970’s the movement of women almost disappeared in nationalist and socialist movements. After the military intervention in 1980 new female actors started to present new demands and change the nature of feminist movement in Turkey. (shrink)

Ackelsberg investigates women’s activist participation in the National Congress of Neighborhood Women, a Brooklyn association established in 1974–75, which she treats as a model of democratic civic engagement that incorporated differences while avoiding the exclusions of the past. The NCNW assisted poor and working class women in organizing to better meet their needs and those of their communities. It arose in response to the ways women were either ignored or belittled when they attempted to engage in political work both (...) in their communities and beyond. In working with each other, the women found that they needed to address issues of diversity. The programs they created to help build bridges across differences that helped facilitate their successful activism while, simultaneously, broadening their understanding of what constitutes “politics.”. (shrink)

Feminist philosophy is now an established subdiscipline, but it began as an effort to transform the profession. Academics and activists worked together to make the new courses, and feminist theory was tested in the streets. As time passed, the "second wave" receded, but core elements of feminist theory were preserved in the academy. How can feminist philosophers today continue the early efforts of changing profession and the society, hand in hand with women outside the academy.

In this paper I explore the emergence of women's organizations and feminist consciousness in the twentieth century in the English-speaking (Commonwealth) Caribbean. The global ideas concerning women's equality from the 1960s onwards clearly informed the initiatives taken by both women and states of the Caribbean. None the less, the paper illustrates, by use of examples, the interlocked nature of women's struggles with the economic, social and political issues which preoccupy the region's population. I examine in greater detail two case studies (...) of women's activism and mobilization around the impact of structural adjustment policies in the two territories of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. By tracing the connections between and among the organizations and initiatives of women in the region, the paper situates the feminist movement in the English-speaking Caribbean as a continuously evolving one, fusing episodic struggles in different territories, engaging women of different classes and groups, and continuously building on past experience. (shrink)

This paper examines migrant women’s labour and the location of poor and racialised working women in the context of the contemporary care crisis. In the first part, I briefly reconstruct, the feminist critiques of the Marxist capitalist social (re)production theory and, the Decolonial and Postcolonial feminist criticisms of the Marxist universal model of the capitalist mode of (re)production and its conceptualisation of marginalised and excluded subjects. This analysis sets the ground for understanding the debts and innovations of Marx’s political (...) economy operated by the contemporary theory of care. In the second part, I focus on the embodied and affective experiences of poor, black, brown, and indigenous women to identify concrete mechanisms and relations of exploitation, oppression, and violence produced in the migration process to maintain global care chains. I base my analysis on a review of case studies of Mexican, Indian, and Filipina migrant women. Finally, I highlight the inherent ambivalences of global care chains as a process of both neo-colonial feminisation of migration and reproduction of neoliberal capitalism and as a shared context of struggle and resistance grounded in embodied and affective experiences. Keywords: feminisation of migration, reproductive labour, global care chains, racialized working women. (shrink)