The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and the Challenges of Intersectionality Praxis

Abstract

Black feminist scholars argued decades ago for working for peace and justice from the intersections of people's multiple identities. A body of scholarship focused on intersectionality subsequently arose since doing so is thought to have broader appeal and be more efficacious. However, the degrees to which social movements actually use intersectional discourses is undetermined. Quantitative and qualitative data analyses from a longitudinal study (1990–2005) of peace movement organizations (PMOs) reveals surprisingly low levels of use. A subset of data from the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), a group thought to be highly likely to use intersectional discourses, was used to further explore the disconnect between public statements and organizational sensibility. Findings show that while WILPF historically did not use intersectionality discourses, usage significantly increased in their recent civil society consultation process regarding women and security issues. The findings suggest that an ideological commitment to inclusion alone was not sufficient to produce intersectional discourses; a combination of an external mediated political opportunity and an internal demographic threat to the movement's longevity were necessary before discursive change occurred.