Building Feminist Movements and Organizations

Global Perspectives

Lydia Alpízar Durán, Noël D. Payne, Anahi Russo, Lydia Alpízar Durán, Noël D. Payne, Anahi Russo

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781848136199
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Feminism & Feminist Theory
• Index: Social Sciences

The struggle for the advancement of women's rights and gender equality globally is impossible without strong women's organizations and movements to provide leadership and momentum. But what does a strong women's organization look like? And what does it take to create effective and sustainable women's movements? This groundbreaking collection of essays by activists from all corners of the globe explores what it means to be an influential women's organization, and what it takes to build the kinds of movements needed to transform women's lives. From how to build successful participatory democratic processes and implement shared leadership models, to lessons on overcoming internal organizational divisions, the case studies in this collection focus not only on the "what" but also the "how" of movement building. Those concerned with how to effect sustainable change will find not only much food for thought, but also an abundance of creative ideas and innovative strategies - served up with a uniquely feminist twist.

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INTRODUCTION

Building Feminist Movements and Organizations

Learning from Experience

Lydia Alpízar Durán

Why do we still want to talk about building feminist movements and organizations when they have been around for several decades? The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) believes this to be an urgent task for feminist and women’s movements. The context in which we carry out our work, the enormous external challenges we currently face – increasing forms of fundamentalism, unilateralism and militarism, the pervasive violence against women, rising poverty and exclusion – as well as challenges relating to the internal organization and mobilization of movements, merit serious attention.

Contemporary women’s and feminist movements and organizations, like other social movements, have been through a variety of transformations over recent decades – sometimes in response to changes in context and specific historical moments, sometimes due to evolution in feminist thinking and a new understanding of how to make organizational change happen.

Worldwide, a rich diversity of processes and movements has emerged from the work of individuals, awareness-raising collectives and other groups, organizations and networks at a variety of levels. Evolving beyond ‘the personal is political’, feminist organizations have taken up highly complex struggles that have resulted in some of the most significant societal changes of the last century.

But women’s victories are usually hard-won and highly vulnerable. Rising fundamentalism, resistance from right-wing interest groups and forces, as well as increasing inequalities and forms of exclusion threaten not only past achievements but also our transformative agendas for women and girls all over the world. In order to continue our struggle we thus need to be more effective, to become stronger actors in diverse arenas and at different levels, to adapt to changes and to reinvent ourselves. And in this process, we need to ensure consistency with our values and principles.

In this introductory chapter, we address three main questions. Why do we see building feminist movements and stronger organizations as so important to social, economic and cultural change? What are the key issues and insights that have emerged while putting this book together? And how are we to move forward?

The importance of our task

In 2003, AWID launched its new Feminist Organizational Development programme, but subsequently decided to expand its scope to include feminist and women’s movements. It thus broadened its range beyond that of organizational development itself to include the movements out of which many of our organizations emerge. The change in name to Feminist Movements and Organizations Programme was not cosmetic. It arose from a strong belief in the need to apply this broader perspective to the agendas not only of feminist and women’s movements and organizations, but also to those of funding agencies. This is particularly important if we are to take advantage of the opportunities for change and respond effectively to the challenges we face. At a critical turning point for strengthening feminist movements, both creating spaces for discussion and developing tools that address organizational efforts and movements to build collective power are more urgent than ever before.

Many initiatives have already been taken ‘in the field’; discussions and debates among women in all regions have generated a rich store of knowledge and experience. Our task now is to share all these experiences in order to build stronger movements and organizations for the advancement of gender equality and women’s rights. We therefore wanted to complement all these initiatives in movement building and organizational strengthening by making a compilation of feminist thinking, knowledge, experience, projects, cases, methodologies, publications and tools from different regions. AWID’s Feminist Movements and Organizations Programme was thus built on what was already available and involves the identification of gaps and processes that require strategic responses and support. This book is the result of such a process. It presents a selection of the brilliant and provocative array of essays and case studies – 144 contributions from 42 different countries – that reached us from all over the world.¹ We think these contributions show how much is happening on the ground. As feminist and women’s movements, we need to build on our legacy and organizational capacity by learning from these valuable experiences.

We were surprised to find that some contributions took the form of reports to donor agencies. They tended to be descriptive of the work carried out, with little analysis of the experiences involved. They did not identify the key lessons learned or the insights gained from their initiatives. A variety of factors could have influenced this result: more experienced women may have been unable to find the time to document processes or carry out analyses; resources may have been lacking; or donor agencies may have exerted a strong influence on the way these feminist and women’s organizations chose to talk about work and experiences. ‘Where is the Money for Women’s Rights?’, an online survey carried out by AWID in 2006, revealed that 87 per cent of almost 1,000 women’s and feminist organizations who responded had been created within the last 16 years; and, of those, about 40 per cent had been created within the previous six years. If the results of this survey are representative, we can conclude that most active women’s and feminist organizations are relatively new and that institutional memory is being lost.

Given this reality, analysing and documenting our experience of organizing and movement building is key to ensuring the transfer of knowledge and experience. This can happen in a variety of ways, but it is clear that global feminist and women’s movements are likely to lose much accumulated experience – so jeopardizing the future – if we are unable to take advantage of institutional memory and to transfer experience and knowledge beyond our borders and to other social movements. Loss of memory also denies newcomers to our movements their sense of belonging to a historical transformation process that has been taking place for centuries, and of which we are all part.

We consider this book to be a valuable resource for feminist and women’s organizations, networks, campaigns, groups, collectives and individuals. We can assure you that, regardless of the direct relevance of each contribution to your work, and whether you agree or not with the author(s), each chapter will help you reflect on our central theme. The variety of contributions shows that there is neither one definition for movement building and organizational strengthening nor one single way to go about it. We recognize the need to promote spaces for reflection, debate and discussion of what we understand by movement building and how this is evolving, so that the movements and the organizations themselves are able to develop organically.

The very nature of our work as feminist and women’s advocates challenges the normative practices that diminish, erode or deny women’s rights and the kind of change processes we promote. As a result, building organizations and movements is imbued with power dynamics that frequently result in tensions and difficulties that are difficult to comprehend, identify or effectively challenge as we enhance our conceptualization of and practices in building movements and organizations. Several contributions present examples of how women’s organizations are struggling with these issues. They analyse their implications and come up with different ways to deal with them that are effective and consistent with feminist values.

Some key insights from work on this book

The different contributions to this book enable us to learn from women (and one man) who discuss movement building within feminist and women’s organizations and networks, all the way up through development institutions and even in traditional patriarchal structures such as unions and religious institutions. It is clear that all of the authors perceive their work and their experiences as related directly to movement building or organizational strengthening. Thus we discover that building a strong organization can, in itself, contribute to strengthening the movement. Under such circumstances we note how important it is to be clear on role of the organization and its contribution to the larger collective power building process if social change is to be achieved. Although it is easy to see how movement building is able to contribute to organizational strengthening, organizational strengthening does not necessarily lead to movement building. If we are to build collective power, it is indispensable that we consider how to go about developing an organizational strengthening model that includes movement building.

Feminist values and organizational practices

Many of the contributions raise issues of how feminist values are integrated in organizational practices and, for example, in work with coalitions. We see that ensuring participation through inclusive or democratic decision-making processes and mechanisms continues to be a major concern.

The fact that groups from feminist movements engage in such debates is a reflection of their commitment to dealing with these and other related issues. For example, the translation of these values into a feminist practice that ensures inclusion, participation and accountability, while at the same time producing results, is just one of the many challenges faced. It is also clear from some of the contributions that, although discussing processes and how we go about our work is important, it is not enough. We note that there are broadly institutionalized organizational practices in diverse women’s groups and NGOs that tend to replicate the same patriarchal structures and values we are trying to deconstruct. So, although values can orient us in the building of our organizations and movements, it is no good simply talking about how important they are or how much we believe in them. Clear principles, mechanisms, internal policies and resources need to be in place in order to make them a reality.

Grappling with power, leadership and empowerment

Closely linked with the concern for consistency with feminist values, issues of power, leadership, empowerment and decision making continue to be a major concern. Different contributors explore practices of leadership development, decision-making structures and leadership styles, and raise key questions on which to reflect and act.

For example, it is clear that there are different and highly nuanced positions on the best decision-making models for feminist organizations. Some organizations appear to support models of consensus building as being the most consistent with feminist values, while others acknowledge the limitations of the consensus model and opt for majority-vote decision-making mechanisms. However, several organizations point out that practice has taught them to use both, making a choice according to the processes and issues at stake. Themes that go beyond the discussion of decision making include those of representation, leadership change, and optimal organizational structures, as well as that of how to balance process with the achievement of goals.

Organizational structures were discussed in several of the contributions, within a discourse dating back to the 1960s and 1970s on how best to structure an organization in line with feminist values and how to advance alternative practices in handling power in non-patriarchal ways. The book demonstrates strong positions in favour of flat or horizontal models and includes a debate on hierarchical structures and how ‘feminist’ they can be. Some of the theses presented by Jo Freeman in her famous text of the 1970s, The Tyranny of Structurelessness,² emerge as still valid today. For example, her argument that apparently flat or non-hierarchical organizational (power) structures are not inherently democratic or inclusive finds support in some of our case studies. Although there have been different experiences with diverse results, women’s organizations continue grappling with questions of hierarchy, inclusion, participation, responsibility, ownership, representation, and so on. Are participatory democratic hierarchies possible? How are organizations larger than twenty people to be structured? Is co-responsibility an option in feminist organizations? Clearly the responses vary with the contexts, organizational characteristics and processes involved.

As new actors and contexts emerge, the way leadership is defined and understood, and the way women and feminist organizations construct leadership and imbed it in practice, are also changing. Several examples are to be found in the following chapters. These range from understanding leadership development with a focus on the individual – which has been a predominant vision in feminist movements – to understanding leadership as a more collective process, and seeing different forms of leadership as necessary for the advancement of the agendas that support women’s rights.

Discussions also cover changes in key leadership positions in organizations. The challenges posed by leaders who remain for many years in their organizations, and limit opportunities for continued growth, innovation and openness to different leadership styles, emerge in several of the contributions. Some questions that are both relevant and often painful relate to where older leaders of organizations and movements go, when they move on. In many cases, with very limited or no social benefits (such as pension funds and health insurances) many older women leaders have difficulty in moving out of organizations around which their lives have been built. How are we to respond to these important issues by creating spaces that honour, recognize and harness the knowledge and experience of these leaders and at the same time create spaces for the support and emergence of new leaders and the recognition of new leadership styles?

Other leadership-related issues involve prevailing leadership styles in organizations and movements. Questions are also raised as to how democratic and inclusive they really are. And is there an ability to foster and recognize different forms of activism and leadership – that go beyond the older models of activism based on negation of personal life and needs, and full commitment to the cause – while leaving space for the personal lives and needs of activists?

Building the base of support of our movements

More than a decade after the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing and other key conferences in the 1990s, we believe it is important to carry out a critical analysis of the impact these conferences and their follow-up processes have had on our organizations, agenda definition and priorities, and on the way in which we carry out our work.

Few people would deny the importance of the achievements that have resulted from the different conference processes: international organizing initiatives, the creation of new networks, inter-regional work, broader participation by women from different regions and traditionally marginalized sectors. And after all the effort, work and resources invested by women and feminist movements in these conferences, it was only logical that many follow-up efforts focused on the implementation of the international agreements at different levels. This resulted in many advocacy efforts to influence legislation and public policy development, and in the creation of government institutions – referred to today as ‘gender machinery’. But somehow, during the process, constituency building and work at the grassroots were left behind – the scenarios varied from country to country, and region to region. Clearly, however, constituency building and establishing the support base of our agendas and causes have not emerged as top priorities for thousands of women’s and feminist organizations.

The paradox is that many of those international and intergovernmental agreements will not gain the necessary footholds if there is no broad public support for our agendas and our demands. At AWID we firmly believe that in order to defend achievements to date and continue moving forward with our struggles, we need strong and bold women’s and feminist movements and organizations grounded in a broad and solid support base.

Political sustainability of our struggles and resource mobilization

A common reality of most feminist and women’s organizations and movements in different regions of the world is the difficulty they have in accessing funding. The online survey carried out by AWID in 2006, as part of its research-action initiative on funding for women’s rights organizations, showed us that approximately 33 per cent of all women’s organizations that responded had an annual (2005) income of less than US$10,000. We also noted that funding for women’s rights and gender equality has decreased over the last decade, and that funding for women’s organizations is very difficult to access and unevenly distributed.

It is clear that donors are responsible for the decrease in funding for women’s rights work, that women’s issues are no longer a priority, and that gender mainstreaming has not yet had the hoped-for positive impact in promoting real transformation in these institutions and the projects they fund. However, as feminist and women’s organizations we must also accept responsibility for our approach to money and funding, and for a necessary depoliticization in the funding of our agendas.

Women’s movements have attempted to respond to funding challenges in many ways, such as the creation of women’s funds to leverage local resources in the North and the South. But women’s funds alone will be insufficient to respond to the crises faced by our organizations. We need a radical transformation of how we relate to money. This relationship is affected in many ways by long-standing patriarchal beliefs and our sense of entitlement to funding (‘our causes are just and therefore worthy of resources to support them and turn them into a reality for all people of the world’). It has also been affected by our move away from practices of fundraising or resource mobilization that weakened our movements by encouraging competition, fragmentation and even confrontation among women and feminist organizations. Finally, there is a need to repoliticize the relationship with donors by creating spaces in which we can discuss funding priorities and align terms of engagement with support for a women’s rights agenda, and thus contribute to strengthening women’s and feminist movements throughout the world.

Importance of campaigning to build collective power

It is no coincidence that several of the following chapters are ca...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction Building Feminist Movements and Organizations
• Part 1 Challenging Power and Revisioning Leadership
• Part 2 Revisiting Organizational Practices
• Part 3 Building Organizational Capacity and Resources
• Part 4 Broadening the Support Base of Movements
• Part 5 Sustaining Work in Situations of Conflict
• Part 6 Campaigns as a Means for Movement Building 219
• Editors and contributors
• Index