Gender and social movements overview report

Across the world there is an active, mass-based demand for an end to gendered injustice in all domains of our social, economic, political and cultural lives. Social movements – led by feminist, women’s and gender justice activists and movements – have been pivotal in demanding, making and sustaining these changes. However, while women’s rights and gender justice are ‘on the agenda’ in many arenas, activists still encounter strong resistance to changing gendered politics and practices within movements and allied organisations.

This overview report, part of the BRIDGE Cutting Edge Pack on gender and social movements, makes the case for engaging with questions of women’s rights and transforming gender power relations across social movements committed to progressive visions of society. It draws on effective and promising strategies and reflects on challenges from existing movement practice. It incorporates both social movement theory and experience and analysis from social justice activists from across the world, who are engaged in supporting the advancement of women’s rights and gender justice as part of women’s movements and other social movements working towards development, human rights, justice, sustainability and peace.

 The report explores the following questions:

• What are social movements, and why do they need to engage more deeply on a women’s rights/gender justice agenda to achieve social justice goals?

• How have women’s and feminist movements worked over time to affect social change, including through alliances with other social movements?

• How have feminists and gender justice advocates worked within social movements to bring about gender justice?

• How have different social movement formations engaged with and incorporated women’s rights and gender justice into their own politics and practice?

• What are the challenges in fully integrating women’s rights and gender justice into the visions and practices of social movements across a range of issues and locations?

• What are the preconditions for constructing gender-justice social movements, across the full range of social justice concerns?

• What are effective routes to change in transforming social movement approaches, strategies and conceptual frameworks to fully integrate women’s rights and gender justice?

• What are the routes for movements to challenge their own internal discriminatory values and practices?

• How can women’s and feminist movements strengthen inclusion and intersectional approaches that take into account emerging constituencies demanding rights and justice?

• What are the emerging areas that future research and reflection should consider?

The report was written as part of a collaborative process involving over 150 activists and scholars from across global regions and social movements.