This article analyzes feminist organizations as a species of social movement organization. It identifies 10 dimensions for comparing feminist and nonfeminist organizations or for deriving types of feminist organizations and analyzing them. The dimensions are feminist ideology, feminist values, feminist goals, feminist outcomes, founding circumstances, structure, practice, members and membership, scope and scale, and external relations. I argue that many scholars judge feminist organizations against an ideal type that is largely unattainable and that excessive attention has been paid to the (...) issue of bureaucracy versus collectivism to the neglect of other organizational qualities. The varieties of ideology, form, and strategy that feminist organizations embody should be analyzed in relation to outcomes for women, the women's movement, and society. As has recently begun to occur, feminist scholars are encouraged to claim the topic of feminist organizations for themselves. (shrink)

This article places Foucault's 1977 suggestions regarding the reform of French rape law in the context of ongoing feminist debates as to whether rape should be considered a sex crime or a species of assault. When viewed as a disciplinary matrix with both physical and discursive effects, rape and the rape trial clearly contribute to the “hysterization” of women by cultivating complainants' confessions in order to demonstrate their supposed lack of self-knowledge.

This case study of unobtrusive mobilizing by Southern California Rape Crisis Center uses archival, observational, and interview data to explore how a feminist organization worked to change police, schools, prosecutor, and some state and national organizations from 1974 to 1994. Mansbridge's concept of street theory and Katzenstein's concepts of unobtrusive mobilization and discursive politics guide the analysis. SCRCC's theme of “All We Do Comes from Victims” reflects the source of its initiatives, that is, victims who came to them for help. (...) Employing strategies of discursive politics and “occupy and indoctrinate,” members used a narrative method of “storytelling” to mobilize support and produce change. Our results increase understanding of how institutionalized women's movement organizations mobilize over time as they create meaning and commitment for members and outsiders. The authors call for more research on narrative as a women's movement strategy and on feminist organizations that are situated inside institutional contexts. (shrink)

Like other groups associated with social movements, rape crisis centers have been judged co-optive by some and progressive by others. This article argues that organizational theory yields fuller explanations of their dynamics and character. In a case study, two subcultures—dubbed the politicized and service perspectives—developed and epitomized fundamentally different approaches to sexual violence. These subcultures emerged for a number of reasons, including the organization's goals, the character of the fiminist movement, and organizational features such as permeability, a broad constituency, a (...) collective goods orientation, and an emphasis on open discourse. This article argues that similar organizational and environmental features in rape crisis centers and other social movement-related organizations are associated with organizational fluidity and conflict. While these groups may not be cohesive and stable actors for broad social change, they contribute incrementally to long-term shifts in gendered social structures. (shrink)