Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Italy among political activists of the LGBTIQ movement and the traditionalist movement during the “anti-gender” campaign, this book provides a dynamic picture of their sustained interactions. Through an analysis of the contentious strategies, discourses, and performances of both the LGBTIQ and the traditionalist movements from a strategic interactionist perspective, it considers the key actors involved in this struggle over normative and social change, showing how activists on both sides are confronted with different dilemmas, influencing each other’s choices, practices and identities at the individual and collective levels. Approaching social movements as interactive processes, the author deploys the concepts of social performance and gender performativity to illustrate the ways in which activists interact with and within gender norms, and how they reproduce or contest gender hierarchies as they protest, thus revealing the centrality of gender to the analysis of processes of recruitment and mobilization, strategies, frames and forms of organization. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and political science with interests in social movements and gender.

This book brings together conceptual debates on the impact of youth-hood and gender on state building in Africa. It offers contemporary and interdisciplinary analyses on the role of protests as an alternative route for citizens to challenge the ballot box as the only legitimate means of ensuring freedom. Drawing on case studies from seven African countries, the contributors focus on specific political moments in their respective countries to offer insights into how the state/society social contract is contested through informal channels, and how political power functions to counteract citizen’s voices. These contributions offer a different way of thinking about state-building and structural change that goes beyond the system-based approaches that dominate scholarship on democratization and political structures. In effect, it provides a basis for organizers and social movements to consider how to build solidarity beyond influencing government institutions. Chapters 3, 5, and 6 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Publisher Description

Bringing together eighteen thought-provoking articles--most of them written especially for this volume--Women and Social Protest addresses a long-neglected area in social history and politics, showing how in recent years feminist social scientists have begun to reexamine women's involvement in social protest, the innovative forms this protest takes, and the impact of activism on women's lives. This timely and comprehensive anthology provides a much-needed forum for discussion of these topics, and shows how the sociological and political literature has long ignored, masked, or distorted the political activities of women, thus creating the stereotype of the "apolitical woman."Drawing on the work of sociologists, political scientists, historians, and experts in women's studies, Women and Social Protest explores four types of social protest--economic; racial, ethnic, and nationalistic; social nurturing and humanistic; and women's rights--considering a wealth of data from different eras and case studies from around the world. An introductory chapter provides a theoretical framework for the essays and helpful introductions to each section identify and elaborate general themes. In addition, a comprehensive bibliography offers the most extensive, up-to-date list of readings available. One of the first books to examine this important topic in detail, Women and Social Protest is a valuable contribution to the expanding field of social political theory.

In the process of balancing ideals of race and gender equality with competing notions of colorblindness and meritocracy, they even borrowed the language of the civil rights era to make far-reaching claims about equality, justice, and citizenship in their anti-affirmative action rhetoric. Deslippe traces this conflict through compelling case studies of real people and real jobs. He asks what the introduction of affirmative action meant to the careers and livelihoods of Seattle steelworkers, New York asbestos handlers, St. Louis firemen, Detroit policemen, City University of New York academics, and admissions councilors at the University of Washington Law School. Through their experiences, Deslippe examines the diverse reactions to affirmative action, concluding that workers had legitimate grievances against its hiring and promotion practices.

After decades of steady progress in terms of gender and sexual rights, several parts of Europe are facing new waves of resistance to a so-called ‘gender ideology’ or ‘gender theory’. Opposition to progressive gender equality is manifested in challenges to marriage equality, abortion, reproductive technologies, gender mainstreaming, sex education, sexual liberalism, transgender rights, antidiscrimination policies and even to the notion of gender itself. This book examines how an academic concept of gender, when translated by religious organizations such as the Roman Catholic Church, can become a mobilizing tool for, and the target of, social movements. How can we explain religious discourses about sex difference turning intro massive street demonstrations? How do forms of organization and protest travel across borders? Who are the actors behind these movements? This collection is a transnational and comparative attempt to better understand anti-gender mobilizations in Europe. It focuses on national manifestations in eleven European countries, including Russia, from massive street protests to forms of resistance such as email bombarding and street vigils. It examines the intersection of religious politics with rising populism and nationalistic anxieties in contemporary Europe.

This “well-researched, nuanced” study of the rise of social media activism explores how marginalized groups use Twitter to advance counter-narratives, preempt political spin, and build diverse networks of dissent (Ms.) The power of hashtag activism became clear in 2011, when #IranElection served as an organizing tool for Iranians protesting a disputed election and offered a global audience a front-row seat to a nascent revolution. Since then, activists have used a variety of hashtags, including #JusticeForTrayvon, #BlackLivesMatter, #YesAllWomen, and #MeToo to advocate, mobilize, and communicate. In this book, Sarah Jackson, Moya Bailey, and Brooke Foucault Welles explore how and why Twitter has become an important platform for historically disenfranchised populations, including Black Americans, women, and transgender people. They show how marginalized groups, long excluded from elite media spaces, have used Twitter hashtags to advance counternarratives, preempt political spin, and build diverse networks of dissent. The authors describe how such hashtags as #MeToo, #SurvivorPrivilege, and #WhyIStayed have challenged the conventional understanding of gendered violence; examine the voices and narratives of Black feminism enabled by #FastTailedGirls, #YouOKSis, and #SayHerName; and explore the creation and use of #GirlsLikeUs, a network of transgender women. They investigate the digital signatures of the “new civil rights movement”—the online activism, storytelling, and strategy-building that set the stage for #BlackLivesMatter—and recount the spread of racial justice hashtags after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and other high-profile incidents of killings by police. Finally, they consider hashtag created by allies, including #AllMenCan and #CrimingWhileWhite.

"Explores protesting as an act of faith . . . How to Read a Protest argues that the women's marches of 2017 didn't just help shape and fuel a moment—they actually created one."—Masha Gessen, The New Yorker O, the Oprah Magazine’s “14 Best Political Books to Read Before the 2018 Midterm Election” "A fascinating and detailed history of American mass demonstrations."—Publishers Weekly When millions of people took to the streets for the 2017 Women’s Marches, there was an unmistakable air of uprising, a sense that these marches were launching a powerful new movement to resist a dangerous presidency. But the work that protests do often can’t be seen in the moment. It feels empowering to march, and record numbers of Americans have joined anti-Trump demonstrations, but when and why does marching matter? What exactly do protests do, and how do they help movements win? In this original and richly illustrated account, organizer and journalist L.A. Kauffman delves into the history of America’s major demonstrations, beginning with the legendary 1963 March on Washington, to reveal the ways protests work and how their character has shifted over time. Using the signs that demonstrators carry as clues to how protests are organized, Kauffman explores the nuanced relationship between the way movements are made and the impact they have. How to Read a Protest sheds new light on the catalytic power of collective action and the decentralized, bottom-up, women-led model for organizing that has transformed what movements look like and what they can accomplish.

This is an open access book. The start of the 21st century has seen the world shaken by protests, from the Arab Spring to the Yellow Vests, from the Occupy movement to the social uprisings in Latin America. There are periods in history when large numbers of people have rebelled against the way things are, demanding change, such as in 1848, 1917, and 1968. Today we are living in another time of outrage and discontent, a time that has already produced some of the largest protests in world history. This book analyzes almost three thousand protests that occurred between 2006 and 2020 in 101 countries covering over 93 per cent of the world population. The study focuses on the major demands driving world protests, such as those for real democracy, jobs, public services, social protection, civil rights, global justice, and those against austerity and corruption. It also analyzes who was demonstrating in each protest; what protest methods they used; who the protestors opposed; what was achieved; whether protests were repressed; and trends such as inequality and the rise of women’s and radical right protests. The book concludes that the demands of protestors in most of the protests surveyed are in full accordance with human rights and internationally agreed-upon UN development goals. The book calls for policy-makers to listen and act on these demands.

"A must-read for scholars across a broad sweep of disciplines. Laurel Weldon weaves together skillfully the theoretical strands of gender equality policy, intersectionality, social movements, and representation in a multimethod/level comparative study that unequivocally places women's movements at the center of our understanding of democracy and social change." ---Amy G. Mazur, Washington State University "Laurel Weldon's When Protest Makes Policy expands and enriches our understanding of representation by stressing social movements as a primary avenue for the representation of marginalized groups. With powerful theory backed by persuasive analysis, it is a must-read for anyone interested in democracy and the representation of marginalized groups." ---Pamela Paxton, University of Texas at Austin "This is a bold and exciting book. There are many fine scholars who look at women's movements, political theorists who make claims about democracy, and policy analysts who do longitudinal treatments or cross-sectional evaluations of various policies. I know of no one, aside from Weldon, who is comfortable with all three of these roles." ---David Meyer, University of California, Irvine What role do social movements play in a democracy? Political theorist S. Laurel Weldon demonstrates that social movements provide a hitherto unrecognized form of democratic representation, and thus offer a significant potential for deepening democracy and overcoming social conflict. Through a series of case studies of movements conducted by women, women of color, and workers in the United States and other member nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Weldon examines processes of representation at the local, state, and national levels. She concludes that, for systematically disadvantaged groups, social movements can be as important---sometimes more important---for the effective articulation of a group perspective as political parties, interest groups, or the physical presence of group members in legislatures. When Protest Makes Policy contributes to the emerging scholarship on civil society as well as the traditional scholarship on representation. It will be of interest to anyone concerned with advancing social cohesion and deepening democracy and inclusion as well as those concerned with advancing equality for women, ethnic and racial minorities, the working class, and poor people. S. Laurel Weldon is Professor of Political Science at Purdue University.