Political Activism in the 2010s - The Case for Gender - A Case Study of Mamabake

Abstract

For decades, feminists have sought to broaden the definition of what counts as 'political', with the premise being that the definition of political participation, as well as where it should take place, are gendered. Whilst this research has shown that there are observable gender differences within the participatory framework, with women's activism often being more network-oriented, issue based, and taking place outside the formal public forums, the role of gender is largely absent from the political participation literature outside the feminist framework. Such omission, while not necessarily intentional, has left significant gaps in the theories about the purported decline in political participation, and also the studies of new forms of political participation which have challenged the mainstream assumptions by developing alternative participation frameworks. This paper uses, MamaBake, an Australian social movement group, as a case study to examine the role that gender plays in new participatory communities and argues that in theorising modern activism, the notion of gender must be explicitly included in order to further our understanding of current political activity.