Women and social action: social change through group activities and networks

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Women have a lengthy history of struggling for gender parity, but achievements fall short of women’s aspirations. Thus, feminist social action continues to promote women’s well-being holistically throughout society. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) reflect the international community’s commitment to realising gender equality by 2030. Time will tell whether these objectives will materialise globally. Feminist social action has been a primary vehicle for changing gendered relations. Redefining social problems has been central to this, reconfiguring private concerns as public issues for society to address, thus eschewing views that personal woes are best solved by individuals or forgotten. Feminists have targeted public policies, legislation, policymakers and public indifference to highlight women’s stories of private misery; demonstrate that some experiences can resonate with women everywhere; and demand social change. Feminist social activists did not wait for others to produce new provisions. Women with personal experiences of issues embarked on actions to develop alternative services that were created by and run for women. In this chapter, I focus on examples of feminist social action that brought women and supporters together in groups and collaborative networks to change social attitudes about men’s and women’s roles in society, secure women-friendly legislation and develop alternative facilities for women. Acknowledging that the ‘personal is political’ and the ‘political is personal’ assists in examining feminist groups, networks and processes through which feminist community workers identify problems to be addressed, how women organise collectively and resolve difficulties successfully by engaging women in community action. I consider feminist campaigns that highlight techniques and forms of organisation for overcoming isolation and securing changes in matters important to women in Chapter Five, although there are overlaps between these and the forms of social organisation that this chapter covers.