Claims to sisterhood are premised on women’s experiences with gender oppression, and many have argued that such claims ignore differences among women. Many have therefore dismissed sisterhood as a legitimate claim to solidarity, failing to examine the ways that sisterhood continues to be utilized by feminist activists. This article examines qualitative data from a study of a white, middle-class, feminist, antiracist organization that uses the language of sisterhood in its work on behalf of incarcerated women, who are predominantly of color (...) and poor. The author finds not only that sisterhood is simultaneously rooted in women’s experiences with oppression and pride and pleasure but that such language serves complex functions in feminist organizations that seek to work across difference. Beyond its use in creating and sustaining solidarity, sisterhood is utilized to bridge differences in race, class, and life experiences between women and to generate feelings of legitimacy amongst white, middle-class activists. (shrink)

During the past two decades, opportunities for women's social movement organizations to expand their scope of engagement have often been accompanied by greater vulnerability to donor discipline and scrutiny. Efforts by activists to accommodate the demands for accountability and institutional sustainability by professionalizing their organizations have been instrumental in moving feminist concerns into the political mainstream. However, such institutionalization has frequently contributed to the persistence or creation of social hierarchies within and between women's organizations, as well as to shifts in (...) their social change agendas and action strategies. This article examines the common dilemmas of activists in Latin America and the United States, bringing together two usually separate domains of scholarship to analyze the course, costs, and possibilities of organizational transformation. (shrink)