Organizing women as women: hybridity and grassroots collective action in the 21st century

Goss, K. A. and Heaney, M. T. (2010) Organizing women as women: hybridity and grassroots collective action in the 21st century. Perspectives on Politics, 8(1), pp. 27-52. (doi: 10.1017/S1537592709992659)

Abstract

The Million Mom March (favoring gun control) and Code Pink: Women for Peace (focusing on foreign policy, especially the war in Iraq) are organizations that have mobilized women as women in an era when other women's groups struggled to maintain critical mass and turned away from non-gender-specific public issues. This article addresses how these organizations fostered collective consciousness among women, a large and diverse group, while confronting the echoes of backlash against previous mobilization efforts by women. We argue that the March and Code Pink achieved mobilization success by creating hybrid organizations that blended elements of three major collective action frames: maternalism, egalitarianism, and feminine expression. These innovative organizations invented hybrid forms that cut across movements, constituencies, and political institutions. Using surveys, interviews, and content analysis of organizational documents, this article explains how the March and Code Pink met the contemporary challenges facing women's collective action in similar yet distinct ways. It highlights the role of feminine expression and concerns about the intersectional marginalization of women in resolving the historic tensions between maternalism and egalitarianism. It demonstrates hybridity as a useful analytical lens to understand gendered organizing and other forms of grassroots collective action.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: Heaney acknowledges financial support from an APSA Congressional Fellowship and the Department of Political Science at the University of Florida, which jointly enabled his fieldwork on Code Pink during the 2007–2008 academic year.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Heaney, Dr Michael
• Authors: Goss, K. A., and Heaney, M. T.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences
• Journal Name: Perspectives on Politics
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• ISSN: 1537-5927
• ISSN (Online): 1541-0986