Social movements
Feminist Leadership for Social Transformation: Clearing the conceptual cloud
Authors:
S Batliwala
Publisher:
CREA, 2011
How can feminist leadership development equip women and men to lead differently, and transform the architecture of power both within their own organisations and movements, and the wider world? In order to consider this question, this paper sets out some existing definitions and concepts of leadership, looking at them through a feminist lens. It then looks in greater depth at concepts around feminist leadership, and ‘unpacks’ it into four areas: power, principles and values, politics and purpose, and practices. The paper goes on to consider the sites of feminist leadership (for example the family, the state, the market and civil society), and finally, asks ‘what does it look like?’ with some practical examples to ground the discussion. CREA commissioned the paper as part of its broader work on leadership development strategies. The aim is to generate new thinking and action on transformative feminist leadership, in order to advance social justice in ways that other forms of leadership cannot, and ultimately, build feminist leadership capacity in a much wider group of women and men than those who would identify as feminist themselves.
