Women's Social Movement Involvement: The Role of Structural Availability in Recruitment and Participation Processes

Abstract

Data derived from three years of field work illuminate women's participation in a working class, community-based environmental protest organization. Findings show that (1) initial recruitment occur through women's social networks, activating the structurally available; (2) structural availability continues to figure significantly in the ongoing mobilization process in determining who performs which tasks; and (3) the practical necessity that drives women to change their gender role behavior in the social movement organization subsequently prompts similar changes in their domestic lives.