Essays On Gender And Governance - United Nations Development ...

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Gender and Governance : Concepts and Contexts Women’s activism within religious movements often displays an affirmation of their traditional gendered identities. 7 For example, the Muslim Sisters in Egypt justify their activism by reference to Islamic principles. Aisha Abd al-Rahman, a well known Koranic scholar, argues that “the right path is the one that combines modesty, responsibility and integration into public life with the Koranic and naturally enjoined distinctions between the sexes” (Hoffman-Ladd, 1987:37). Muslim women were active in the “turban movement” in Turkey, which opposed the legal prohibition of the Islamic head scarf for women students. This movement played a vital role in radicalising the Islamic cause (Toprak, 1994:301). A striking feature of women’s participation in the activities of the BJP women’s organization is women’s re-enactment of conventional sex roles in the public arena. If women’s activism within movements has a significant impact on institutions, what implications does it have for movements? The de-radicalization of social movements and the co-optation of activists is one important possibility. An important debate among social movement scholars is whether working within the state undermines or enhances women’s power. The dominant tendency of social movement scholars in the past was captured by Frances Piven’s and Richard Cloward’s argument that states undermine protest when they concede to its demands, thereby reducing the longevity and radicalism of social movements. (Piven and Cloward,1979). However, other scholars have argued that far from being domesticated, social movements have developed the capacity to circumvent state regulation. David Meyer and Sidney Tarrow speak of a “social movement society” in which more diverse constituencies employ protest tactics to make a wider range of claims than before at the same time that social movements are becoming professionalized and institutionalised (Meyer and Tarrow, 1998:4). Writing of women’s participation within dominant institutions, Mary Katzenstein argues that women’s activism has 7 There are many parallels between Hindu women’s activism in “communal” mobilization and the activities of women in the Nazi movement in Germany. See Valentine M. Moghadam (1994), Claudia Koonz (1987), and Renate Bridenthal, Atina Grossman and Marion Kaplan (1984). There are also some striking parallels with women’s participation in the Ku Klux Klan (see Blee, 1991) and right wing women in the U.S. (see Klatch, 1987). 24
Gender and Governance : Concepts and Contexts not disappeared but moved into institutional spaces. (Katzenstein, 1998). The concept of gendered institutions calls for attention to a constellation of institutional traits rather than simply the people who occupy them. 8 An analysis of gender includes an account of men and masculinity as well as women and femininity. Normative beliefs are often gendered as are institutions. Thus it is impossible to understand women’s access or lack of access to power without exploring the gendering of ideologies, states and power itself. In general, the more powerful the institution, the less likely that women and women’s interests will be well represented. Women have been disadvantaged in state institutions which have traditionally been associated with men and masculinity. It follows that the fewer women within dominant institutions, the more apt they are to behave like men when they get there. Nicos Poulantzas’ argument that the more the working classes come to inhabit particular state agencies, the more power gravitates away from these agencies and the weaker they become, applies well to the gendering of institutions (Poulantzas, 1978). Each location of power (local, national and global) is differently gendered and thus calls for different strategies of change. A subsidiary question that this section explores concerns the impact of women’s participation in both movements and institutions on democratic processes. Although some scholars dismiss the importance of social movements when strong enough institutional channels exist, I contend that women’s activism in social movements (including but not limited to feminist movements) is a vital ingredient of the strength and vitality of democracy. Women’s movement activism seeks greater women’s participation in governing institutions and women’s increased access to those resources which are necessary to bringing about gender equality. Both objectives are vital to democratic processes. However activists need not join institutions in order to 8 How an institution acquires a gendered character is a complicated question. Institutions are shaped by the character of the groups that inhabit them. The longer either men or women inhabit an institution, the smaller the proportion of people of the opposite sex, the more that institution is likely to reflect the values of the dominant group. The gendered character of institutions is also determined by their distributional policies which may have unequal consequences for women and men. 25
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