Dorothy E. McBride

Politics, Gender, and Concepts: Women's movements, feminism, and feminist movements

“Womens movement” is a term widely used by journalists, activists, politicians, scholars, and citizens alike; most people have a general idea of the concepts meaning. Despite the widespread attention to the term since the 1970s, social science is in the early stages of conceptualization (Beckwith 2005a). A quick glance at scholarly work on womens movements indicates there is agreement on neither a general definition nor how the concept should be used in empirical research. In fact, researchers seldom give an explicit definition of the term. Can we be sure that womens movement scholars are talking about the same thing? If not, studies and theories of womens movements risk being inaccurate and perhaps even unintentionally misleading. Our own research on womens movements and womens policy agencies reveals a debate among scholars that has left unanswered many questions about how to use womens movements as a concept for good research. The more notable ones include: How can movement characteristics be measured? How can movement impact be measured? What distinguishes women participants in government and politics from the movement? Can men be in womens movements? Is “womens movement” a singular or collective noun, or are there many movements? Are womens movements defined by their mobilization of women exclusively, or by their goals, or both? For example, are womens peace movements womens movements? The absence of a consensus about the conceptual use of “womens movement” is quite similar for the related concept “feminist movement/feminism,” but with a controversial twist.

State Feminism since the 1980s: From Loose Notion to Operationalized Concept

We argue that since the term state feminism first appeared in the 1980s, it has gone through three stages of development, becoming a formal concept useful in cross-national analysis in the last stage. Scholars first used the term loosely to describe a range of state activities with a gender/womens issues focus. Next, the concept became associated with the study of womens policy agencies. Most recently, a group of comparative gender and policy scholars—the Research Network on Gender Politics and the State (RNGS)—has developed systematic nominal and operational definitions of state feminism to study if, how, and why womens policy agencies make alliances with womens movements within the state to achieve feminist outcomes.

Comparative strength of women's movements over time: conceptual, empirical, and theoretical innovations

ABSTRACT Womens movements in Western democracies have a long history, yet there are few conclusions we can draw with confidence about their trajectories over the decades. In recent years, scholars have begun to use conceptual tools that allow for more valid and reliable comparison across a variety of temporal, sectoral, and cultural contexts. Such efforts are necessary to construct sound theory about womens movements, their characteristics, and their impacts. This article contributes to these ongoing efforts by further developing the concept of movement strength in terms of mobilization and institutionalization as a more promising way to compare variations in womens movement change. The analysis begins with current scholarship on womens movements as well as the concepts developed by the Research Network on Gender Politics and the State (RNGS) project to offer a new and arguably more reliable and valid way of studying changes in movement strength. Using RNGS data on movements in 13 Western democracies, from the 1970s to the early 2000s, the article tracks degrees and patterns of mobilization and institutionalization and illustrates how this approach can add to the project of theorizing about womens movements as drivers and outcomes cross-nationally and over time.

The Gender of Constitutional Jurisprudence

The Gender of Constitutional Jurisprudence. Edited by Beverley Baines and Ruth Rubio-Marin. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 356p.

The politics of state feminism : innovation in comparative research

75.00 cloth,

The Politics of State Feminism

34.99 paper. Comparative law remains a small and relatively isolated area of inquiry. There are two barriers to development of the field. First, with the exception of taxation law and, possibly, divorce, comparative analysis of law is of little use to practicing lawyers. Second, as I discovered in a project on comparative rape law, it is difficult to gain access to the primary data sources, especially outside North America and Western Europe. In addition, there are few opportunities for interdisciplinary study—despite the attention of the Law and Society Association. Those who are not legal scholars need guides to the technical aspects of legal research to make the work of specialists more accessible.