Women's Movements and the State: Job-Training Policy in France and the U.S.

Abstract

The goal of this article is to propose a model of state feminism to analyze the impact of women's movements on state activities in post-industrial democracies. It builds on conventional theories of social movement impact, specifically addressing problems of longitudinal and comparative analyses, and introduces an intervening variable-the role of women's policy machineries. This study examines the role of these machineries in France and the United States in injecting feminist stances into the content and processes of six job-training policy debates and assesses the explanatory usefulness of two clusters of independent variables. The findings challenge the conventional wisdom about women's movement successes in the U.S. and France by showing that a strong movement does not necessarily lead to a full state response in the absence of intervention of women's policy machineries. In turn they point to the importance of left-wing govemments and the relation of the women's movement to them. The conclusion includes plans for further testing of the state feminism framework by means of comparative studies in other countries and other policy areas.