Gender and Social Movements

By (author) Bahati M. Kuumba

Publication date:

05 September 2001

Length of book:

208 pages

Publisher

AltaMira Press

ISBN-13: 9780759101876

Do men and women experience participation in social movements differently? Are gender roles reproduced or undermined during a struggle for liberation? In this brief text examining gender roles in social movements, M. Bahati Kuumba shows how liberation struggles are viewed through women's eyes and how gender affects women's mobilization, strategies, and outcomes in social movement organizations. Using two well-known examples, the American civil rights movement and the South African national liberation movement, Kuumba documents the circumscribed roles of women, the unheralded role of movement leaders such as Ella Baker and Frances Baard, and how gender affected movement activities and results. Gender and Social Movements is the ideal text to introduce a sophisticated view of race and gender into social movement courses.

Chapter 1 1. The Social Movement as Gendered Terrain
Chapter 2 2. Background and History: The Case Studies in Comparative Gender Perspective
Chapter 3 3. Theorizing Gender in Social Movements
Chapter 4 4. "Getting Fired Up": Gendered Factors in Movement Mobilization
Chapter 5 5. Social Resistance Strategies: The Myth of Gender Neutrality
Chapter 6 6. Repercussions: Gendered Interests and Social Movement Outcomes
Chapter 7 References
Chapter 8 Appendixes
Chapter 9 Index
Chapter 10 About the Author

M. Bahati Kuumba's contribution to The Gender Lens Series, Gender and Social Movements, is an interesting and useful primer on the gendering of social movements....Kuumba should be congratulated for making it clear that social movements scholars can no longer proceed as if their theories are gender-neutral or as if insurgency is not gendered. As well, she provides an insightful map of the gendered terrain of movements and contemporary research on this topic, replete with helpful theoretical and empirical examples from the [American Civil Rights movement] and [South African National Liberation movement].