it into social movements scholarship allows for new insights into the nature of inequality and social change. As we will see, gender inequality can be the start of a social movement, as well as shaping how people experience social movements. Third, as social movements seek to change society and gender norms are constantly in flux, the integration of gender and social movements captures the dynamic of how societies change over time. I address each of these – integrating scholarship, intersectionality, studying social change – in more detail.
Integrating scholarship
Over three decades ago, Judith Stacey and Barrie Thorne (1985) argued that gender was the “missing revolution” in sociology. Doug McAdam (1992) echoed their call, focusing on social movements and asking scholars to consider gender as a factor in movements. Since the 1990s, social movement studies have begun to answer that call with an increase in gender scholarship, particularly focusing on women in movements. Feminist scholars argued that all social movements, regardless of whether or not they agitate for gender equality, operate within gendered institutions and settings and are engaged in the social construction of gender. This scholarly progress has come in two waves, with the first focused on understanding women’s social movement activism (Whittier 2007). However, as gender scholars expanded their research beyond the study of women, the second wave began. It was then that scholars began to consider the topic of masculinity and intersectionality in all movements.
As a result, gender scholarship has expanded social movement theories. For example, Judith Gerson and Kathy Peiss (1985) detailed how a gendered identity is formed through the development of a gender consciousness, the negotiation of gender boundaries and the interaction with “the other.” Verta Taylor and Nancy Whittier (1992) drew on this scholarship to illustrate how activist identities are created within movement communities and how they are constantly being constructed as the external environment, and group norms, beliefs, and goals shift. Relatedly, scholars have drawn on the dynamics of women’s movements to advance theorizing on social movements in general (Reger and Taylor 2002; Taylor and Whittier 1995; Staggenborg and Taylor 2005; Taylor 1999). Studies of the U.S. women’s movement have shaped social movement theory in multiple ways. Investigations of feminist culture prompted new understandings of movement continuity and change. Scholars of feminism articulated important concepts for all social movements, such as the existence of multiple activist identities, distinctive movement cultures, and networks of activists not visible to mainstream society. All of these concepts moved the study of social movements away from a strictly structural and resource-focused analysis. This was brought in part by feminist activists studying the movement around them, a dynamic seen in other movements such as the student, anti-war, peace, and anti-nuclear movements. In studying the movements around them, feminist researchers could also see how a movement could shape society, and how, as gender issues shifted in movements, so did the focus and goals of movements. In sum, the study of a gendered social movement such as U.S. feminism has influenced the social movement theories and concepts that can be applied to all social movements.
Addressing inequality
In addition to integrating the study of gender and social movements, studying gender within social movements allows for an investigation of a system of inequality. Even when the movement is not specifically organized around gender, gender stratification is present in movements, shaping who has power and resources. Raewyn Connell refers to this structural inequality as “gender regimes” (1987: 120) built into an institution or organization. These regimes establish who has power and who does not. Verta Taylor calls the ideology underlying these regimes “gender logic” even when they do not draw specifically “on the language of femininity and masculinity or of gender contention” (1999: 21). Taylor offers the example of “beloved community” during the civil rights movements as an illustration of how a movement not focused specifically on gender used a language of care and concern in its understanding of the social movement community. These gender regimes and gendered logics reflect the larger society and by examining them we can learn about the society in which movements form and some of the ways in which gender inequality manifests itself.
Studying social change
Studying the relationship between gender and social movements is also an investigation of how social change occurs. When social movements focus on gendered issues, such as the men’s rights movement discussed in Chapter 1, gender norms and societal understandings of gender can shift. However, shifts in society, such as in the economy and labor market as well as social disruptions of war or global pandemics, can alter gender norms and spur social movement activism. For example, many African women’s movements started out as peace and anti-war movements and became gender-focused movements (Tripp 2017). Here we can see how the end of the wars often brought social reorganization and a call by activists for reforming society. In the course of pressing for reforms, women peace activists also experienced political openings that “helped foster new women’s activism, which sped up processes of women’s rights reform” (Tripp 2017: 46). There is a consistent pattern across time and place in which movements focused on non-gendered issues give birth to gender-focused movements.
Focusing on gender inequality and dynamics of social change leads us back to the example of the #MeToo movement. Gender norms and expectations, particularly around expressions of sexuality and expectations, can result in the identification of a problem, such as sexual harassment and assault, that spreads through society. Understanding these problems as more than individual issues but as inequality embedded in societal norms can lead to the formation of a social movement. This problem, or as social movement scholars call it a “grievance,” is articulated by social movement participants, diffuses into society and is embedded in activist networks. Sparked by an event, such as the highly publicized case of Harvey Weinstein, experiences are reexamined, stories are told, activists are organized, and a societal shift begins. In sum, in the #MeToo movement, a societal issue moves from being an accepted norm to a social problem and then a grievance articulated through a social movement. Through sustained attention by activists, combined with shifting social attitudes, we see that though the emergence of #MeToo can appear spontaneous and somewhat puzzling, it is instead an outcome of a movement that drew on and redefined what it means to experience sexual assault and harassment through an analysis of gender. In all, combining gender and social movements provides us with a lens to understand the world around us.
Organization of the Book
To investigate these dynamics, this volume moves from examining how the sex and gender of participants shapes a movement, to gender as an ideology or social logic shaping movements and ends by exploring reactions and responses coming from gendered movements. In doing so, Chapters 1 through 4 focus on how the gender and sex binaries – male/female, woman/man, feminine/masculine – influence movements and activists. Since these binaries are a primary “sorting” mechanism in society with the potential to position people in certain ways, movements often reflect these binaries. However, examining how movements align themselves to these binaries does not mean that only the identities of women and men and males and females have been involved in movements. On the contrary, reviewing social movements can illustrate how non-binary, gender fluid, transgender, and intersex people are present and influential in movements. In Chapter 5, I take up some of these histories to illustrate the diversity of gender and sex identities in movements and how as understandings of gender change, so do the focus and goals of movements. My goal in this text is not to center the focus on cisgender activists but to take a broader view of how gender as a social logic organizing our lives is incorporated into social movements.
Throughout the book, I also bring a focus to what an intersectional perspective can bring to our understanding of social dynamics. I do so to note how identities beyond gender such as race-ethnicity, age, social class, religion, nationality, and other social identities also act