Contemporary State and Prospects of Female Protest Development: from Deprivation to Mobilization

Abstract

Introduction. The article presents the analysis of the сontemporary state and prospects for the development of women’s protest in a global perspective. The research focuses on the study of the causes and nature of mass women’s protest in the context of the formation of a new system of relations between the authorities and society represented by certain social groups. The relevance of the problem is determined by the need for a political science analysis of modern practices, causes and forms of women’s protest, making a forecast of the prospects for the development of women’s social movements. Methods and methodology. The methodological basis of the research is the synthesis of the relative deprivation theory by T.R. Gurr and the resource mobilization theory by Ch. Tilly, which makes it possible to present women’s protest through the prism of both psychological (deprivation) and institutional determinants. The empirical basis of the work is the data (338 cases) of the quantitative study “The Women in Resistance (WiRe)”, that is available for secondary analysis in the Harvard Dataverse Repository. Analysis. Women’s protests represent an institutional and non-institutional form of changing the “political field”. A common peripheral role of women in the political space serves as a basis for the formation of a common identity among them. A high degree of consolidation, as well as an active role of women in protest, correlates with the success of collective action. Protests in which women play an active role are more peaceful in nature. This is due to the mediating role of women, which prevents the growth of tension in the conflict. Results. Based on the analysis of statistical information and case-study, it was revealed that the economic and legal structural similarity of states does not determine the nature of women’s protest participation in politics, which is more dependent on historical practices, previously achieved results of women’s protest, the presence of institutional structures that organize protests, as well as on the specific problems of women in the state. The prospects for the development of women’s protest and women’s social movements are determined by the level of success achieved. While in Western Europe and the USA, women’s social movements are fighting for the achievement of postmaterial values, due to the solution of the economic differentiation problems, in Latin America, women are fighting for their natural right to life and their own bodies. A vector of women’s protest is aimed at combating all types of discrimination, but the nature of specific problems is fundamentally different.