The fields of gender and social movements have traditionally consisted of separate literatures. Recently, however, a number of scholars have begun a fruitful exploration of the ways in which gender shapes political protest. This study adds three things to this ongoing discussion. First, the authors offer a systematic typology of the various ways in which movements are gendered and apply that typology to a wide variety of movements, including those that do not center on gender issues in any obvious way. (...) Second, the authors discuss the process by which movements become gendered. In doing so, they go beyond current scholarship by bringing “others” squarely into the gendered analysis. The article concludes by speculating about the outcomes of these processes and suggests that movements that draw on feminine stereotypes face a double bind that hampers their success. Illustrations come from movements in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. (shrink)

In the Montgomery bus boycott and the South African anti-pass campaign, women's autonomous organizations initiated actions that catalyzed the mass movements for racial justice and national liberation. The activism of women and their organizations sprang from their particular positioning within systems of multiple oppressions simultaneously experiencing racial/ethnic, class, and gender oppression. In both the United States and South Africa, the particular structural location and autonomous resistance of women of African descent was an important aspect of the political opportunity structure and (...) served as a catalyst that catapulted their respective movements for racial justice and/or national liberation to higher levels. This study employs a gendered and comparative approach to these two resistance campaigns to understand better the effects of interactive and multiplicative inequalities on movement processes and the gendered nature of political opportunities. (shrink)