Building Feminist Movements Concepts and Pathways

1
Building Feminist Movements Concepts and
Pathways

• Evelyn Letiyo
• Senior Program Officer, Raising Voices
• Adapted with Permission and Thanks from
• Srilatha Batliwala
• Civil Society Research Fellow, Hauser Center for
  Nonprofit Organizations, Harvard University
• Scholar AssociateAWID

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Definition of Movements

• an organized set of constituents pursuing a
  common political agenda of change through
  collective action.

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Movement characteristics

• A clear political agenda common analysis, goals
  and targets
• A membership or constituency base consisting of
  the individuals or communities most vested in the
  change
• Some degree of formal or informal organization
  networks, organizations, member collectives, etc.

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Movement characteristics

• Leadership at multiple levels, including leaders
  arising from the membership base
• Collective or joint actions in pursuit of common
  goals with aspects of some continuity over time
• Activities that combine extra-institutional
  (marches, protests) and institutional (advocacy
  lobbying) forms i.e., visible political
  struggle.

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Feminist movements have

• Gendered political goals recognize gender
  inequalities and seek change that promotes
  womens interests and transforms social power
  relations
• Gendered strategies that build on womens own
  strategies and capacities, and involve women
  members at every stage of the process
• An agenda built from a gendered analysis of the
  problem or situation

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Feminist movements have

• Mainly women as the critical mass of the
  movements membership
• feminist values and ideology (gender equality,
  social and economic equality, the full body of
  human rights, tolerance, inclusion, peace,
  non-violence, etc.),
• centered on womens leadership at all levels
  i.e., women not treated instrumentally (as good
  for numbers and resistance, but without real
  decision-making or strategic power in the
  movement)

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Elements of Effective Feminist Movement Building

• Consciousness-raising / awareness-building on
  gendered power imbalances
• Organizing and building mass base
• Clear structural analysis and political agenda
• Spiraling growth through dynamic learning
  action-reflection-action-impact
• Focus on formal and substantive change
• Changing the practice of power internally and
  externally

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Targets of struggle

• Social institutions hierarchies or systems of
  discrimination, oppressive structures or
  practices that promote gender discrimination and
  violence like class, caste, ethnic, racial and
  sexual orientation
• Political structures processes elected
  councils, trade unions, peasant organizations,
  political parties, etc..

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What are organizations? How are they related to
movements?

• Organizations are
• Social structures created to accomplish
  particular ends.
• Organizations are sites from which movements are
  built, supported, serviced and governed.
• Spaces in which movement leaders and activists
  are located, trained, capacitated, protected and
  energized.

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Relationship of organizations to movements

• May be external to movements, or
• Created by movements
• The focus of organizations may be
• Building movements movement-building
  organizations
• Serving movements movement-serving
  organizations

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Relationship of organizations to movements

• Services to movement members (education, child
  care, health care, etc.)
• Strategic Support ideas, political and policy
  analysis, strategic advice, convening spaces
• Capacity-building leadership development,
  need-based training, organizational development,
  advocacy skills

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The Continuum of Movement Growth
Mature Movements
Emerging Movements
Movements in the Making
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Movements in the Making

• Mobilization, awareness and identity building
• Political consciousness and issue/s
  identification 
• Preliminary political agenda 
• Tentative actions for change 
• Nascent constituency-based leadership 
• Higher dependence on support from organizations.

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Emerging Movements

• Steady membership base 
• Higher political consciousness
• Evolving organizational structure 
• Longer-term political agenda / strategies 
• Internal leadership and decision-making
  structures and systems 
• Greater autonomy vis-à-vis support organization/s
   
• Increasing visible impacts on society -, policy,
  law, community, discourse, etc.
• Backlash / setbacks

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Mature Movements

• Strong / sustained membership base consciously
  identifying with the movement  (not organization)
• Strong autonomous organizational and governance
  structure  
• Extensive and deep layers of leadership  
• Sophisticated analysis, strategies
• Significant political experience / acumen 
• High measurable impact on formal and informal
  power structures - state and non-state actors,
  community, larger society

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Factors constraining movement formation

• NGO-ization / narrow issue- or service- focus /
  lack of broader political understanding or
  analysis.  
• non-profit organizations .. resisted a deep
  analysis of the political economic system that
  they were fighting to change, .. and were
  narrowly focused on issue-specific campaigns,
  rarely making connections with one another across
  communities and issue areas.

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Factors constraining movement formation

• Obstacles in resources
• cannot meet members demands for services or
  training
• Lack of donor support for hard-to-measure
  movement-building work
• Donor interference or control of organizations
  activities
• Co-option / repression hyper-alignment with
  other actors (unions, political parties)

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Factors constraining movement formation cont

• Occupation/ success based membership as opposed
  to common ideology
• Over reliance on personalities and specific
  individuals
• Power struggles
• Globalization and neo-liberalism
• Political intolerance

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Food for thought

• Do we have a GBV Prevention Movement in Africa
  or in the region?
• Who are the constituents?
• How can we create such a movement?
• What would be your role?