Why aren't there more female political activists?

by Clare Sun Mar 09, 2008 22:40 ragdublin at riseup dot net Dublin

Notes from discussion on gender imbalance in political organising:
(Comments and additions to these notes very welcome.)

This discussion took place on Monday, 3rd March 2008 at St Nicholas of Myra, Dublin; it was a RAG monthly open meeting. There were 16 people present, 7 women and 9 men. Hopefully, this discussion may be continued at a later stage, setting some objectives. (One idea could be to put together a list of dos and don’ts for groups attempting to improve their gender balance … however, it could prove to be more divisive than productive?)

List of suggested “reasons” why women are underrepresented in political organising, these are just some things that have been suggested, true or not:
§ Socialisation
§ Childcare required
§ Not enough time
§ Meetings are too full of jargon
§ Groups are already male-dominated
§ Doesn’t address women’s issues
§ Atmosphere can be aggressive/competitive
§ It’s a stupid waste of time
§ Boys like rioting, therefore more likely to be interested
§ Few female role models
§ Men are more likely to have nerdy obsessions
§ Politics is about power and control, women prefer to focus on personal and practical
§ Men are more likely to join a revolutionary organisation during on-revolutionary times, as you’d need to be either mad or madly arrogant.

At the beginning of the meeting members of various groups gave a brief introduction to the gender balance within their organisation/campaign or groups they have been involved in, in the past.

On the whole women were in the minority in most groups. Groups or meetings that were community led tended to have a majority of women involved, although when it moved to ‘committee’ level the amount of women seriously dropped. Some groups were aware of the gender ratios in their groups, even acknowledging it at meetings. However, no group reported taking successful action to attract more women.

The following is some comments that were made in this session:
§ On community based campaigns, when doing door-to-door calls, more often than not it would be the woman in the house who would be signing up and encouraging other women to do the same.
§ Some groups had discussed providing childcare during meetings.
§ Some groups reported an ever-fluctuating ratio. In one group it was felt that in times of crisis the gender balance improves.
§ Although meetings had a majority of men, one group felt that the atmosphere at their meetings was distinctly not macho and that this was a good thing. How gender is expressed at meetings is an issue that can also be considered.
§ The camp provided a women-only sleeping space, after it was requested.
§ As one group grew the gender balance got worse, another group reported the opposite.
§ One group had actively invited women to join, however, this may have back-fired has some of the women believed they were only being invited as they were women.
§ RAG had the worst gender balance, being 100% women (not surprising though as it is a women-only group).

A discussion followed, some points made:
§ An anarchist group in South America found that once they moved into campaigns more based in the community and college campuses, the number of women involved increased dramatically.
§ Perhaps it is more important to ask why more people in general aren’t attracted to radical political organising.
§ Gender is not just something about women. It is also just as necessary to consider how gender impacts men e.g. ‘macho’ culture, there can be similar power issues.
§ Women are too often treated like a ‘minority’ group despite being 50% of the population. One example given was that there could be a talk on Privatisation and then separately another talk on How Privatisation Impacts Women, however why should these be separate?
§ Just because someone isn’t politically active doesn’t mean they’re not political.
§ Some people prefer to organise in different ways than those usually provided by political groups.

People present explained briefly why they initially were attracted to political organising, why they got involved and why they stayed. Some of the comments included:
§ One person got involved in one particular issue, experiencing a victory was the motivation to stay involved.
§ Organising together provides people with a community and support. Collective activity can in fact be rewarding in itself.
§ Some people were motivated by friends and even peer pressure.
§ Some were initially intimidated to approach groups they were interested in.
§ Many had been vaguely interested in left-wing ideas for years before discovering a group or organisation that seemed right to them.
§ Political groups provided some people with a framework to place ideas they had already begun to develop.
§ It provides an opportunity to continuously, critically evaluate the world around us.
§ Examples like the X case, the Dunnes Stores strikers, Genoa G8 were given as reasons became more politically motivated, encouraging them to search out groups.
§ It’s good fun, social.
§ Some people were motivated by an eternal optimism, a faith in people, believing things in the world can be better.
§ Some found it difficult to pin point their entry into political organising.
§ Many were influenced by parents and family.
§ Some became involved through college.
§ Some people found these groups more queer friendly than mainstream stuff.
§ One person stated that perhaps they had been partly motivated by first world guilt and experiences of seeing life in other countries.
§ Some people were already involved in other alternative things like punk scene, zines etc. these led them to politics.
§ Work and other commitments greatly impact the amount of time you have available for activism.
§ Solidarity between groups is important.
§ Somewhere like Seomra Spraoi offers a lot, it is an alternative to capitalism.
§ Other people keep us going and inspire us.
§ Some said that doing something to bring about change can be vital for our mental health. Being aware of injustice and the shitty system forces you to take action, doing nothing is not an option.
§ Some of us are politico junkies (but remember admitting your problem is the first step to recovery!).

On the whole it seemed the reasons became involved and stayed involved did not differ between the men and women present. One point made was that all of us there had chosen to be there and were already interested in this topic, therefore not necessarily being a true reflection of all those involved in political groups.

by bot - RAG Fri Mar 07, 2008 11:43

and there's loads of amazing irish women too - RAG helped organise the feminist walking tour that is taking place tomorrow - a cool place to start looking at dublin feminism!
and on the backpage of the booklet we produced for it there's a list of some of those amazing irish women... see the event notice here http://www.indymedia.ie/article/85840 - and email feministwalkingtour AT yahoo.ie if you can't go but would like a copy of the booklet (hard or pdf)

by bot - RAG Fri Mar 07, 2008 10:33

yes - 7.30 on a monday night is not an easy time for mothers! but that's when RAG weekly meetings are, so that's when we have our monthly meetings too (1st mon of month). there are 4 mothers in RAG (me included), and that's when everyone's organised our monday "off" time for, so it's hard to go messing with it - also for consistency reasons we think it's best. but if childcare is ever an issue for you not attending a meeting in the futre, please drop us an email and we'll see if we can help. and thanks for the comment.

observer - thanks for the clique comments! it's kindof heresay, and i would dispute it - just on a personal level, i always tried to go up and chat to people who look like they were new/lost in seomra spraoi - male or female.
i realise it's difficult and intimidating to try and get involved in activist politics. that's one of the reasons women have more difficulties than men, i reckon. (that's also why RAG put on the monthly open meetings!)
one of the most interesting and frank discussions i've been to was a discussion on power relationships between women. women (myself included) often feel far more intimidated by other strong active women, than other strong active men - and that power imbalance is felt by both parties - it's easy to exploit it and is something totally unacknowledged. it's enforced through patriarchal socialisation and it's a barrier to becoming politically active (and to female solidarity/ feminism). the weird thing is that shyness can often be mistaken for bieng deliberately intimidating, so unless one makes a concerted effort to feel entitled to talk to whoever you want to, the thing gets enforced even more!
we agreed to stay aware of that in RAG, yet we probably slip up and should revisit it.
i'm involved in pro-choice campaigning too - choice ireland - it's a totally unintimidating group (none of us are shy ;-)- tell your mate to come along there! (choiceireland.blogspot.com - plug plug)

oh and saying "does the problem reside within the female community of activists?" - i don't think that's a helpful way of looking at it - it's not the women that are at fault - but the structures that we all live in.
also, i find the suggestion that female "activists" are only involved in politics for a social network, not because they have any political analysis, deeply sexist and insulting. even if you are repeating it through a female mouthpiece, you should think about the stereotypes you are perpetuating by repeating it.

oh and - from a height - FUCK "pop psychology". (*spitting fire) IT IS A TOOL OF THE OPPRESSOR!!
:-D

as for the bookfair meeting title - there was a fair amount of discussion and disagreement within the group when coming up with it. we started with going to have a meeting on parenting, then we were going to talk about children and anarchism, then discussing it, we realised that we were interested in exploring how tha entire structure of the nuclear family supports and perpetuates the system as it is. but is accepted as the absolute norm. that's what we want to discuss, it's not an educational, we don't have answers.
the quote as the title for the meeting (which made its way into the literature without the quotes somehow) was supposed to be like an attention grabber! but not everyone liked it! yet how you get "a) patronising b) insulting and c) Pie in the sky theory that no ordinary mother is going to relate to" is a bit beyond me - but noones ever gonna appeal to everyone i guess.

and "no ordinary mother?"
'sake.

"To confirm my reaction, I asked my flat mate and her friend (not active in politics but see themselves as definitely left wing) what they thought of this as a discussion."

- thanks for the token female reaction. this of course proves that you are correct

"Both of them responded "what does it mean" and when they realised what it meant they responded "surely they could pick a topic that people can genuinely relate too, i.e. single mothers and social policy, women and accessing health care services, the art of parenting etc."

there's room for lots of different women's and feminist groups. RAG is interested in revolutionary and anarchist theory and politics.. we can't cater for every woman's interests/concerns. by any means. yet the burden to do so is upon us by virtue of just being a group of women.
we're a publishing collective for chrissakes.
help!

other feminists must form themselves into other groups. they are starting to (check out myspace.com/lashbackdublin - hurrah!!)

RAG will also be holding a feminist gathering over mayday weekend (all sexes and all ages welcome - details will follow on the blogspot) - hopefully this will facilitate other feminist groups deciding to form and more women getting active. this is only the beginning after all.

by Sarah - personal cap Mon Mar 03, 2008 10:56

To name but a few;Arundhati Roy, Naomi Klein, Angela Davis, Bernadette Mac Alliskey, Aun Sang su kyii,Mary Kelly, Caomihe Butterly, Lelia Doolin, Mary Robinson, Magarretta Darcy, Maura Harrington Mary Corduff, Sonny Jacobs, All the girls from rossport solidarity camp the greenham common women Dette from the SWP. The Shannon womens peace camp.Womens Eyes on the World Bank. Emily Pankhurst.

by Observer Sun Mar 02, 2008 21:42

On an another but related example of how anarchists are their own worst enemy when it comes to inclusivity:

I just noticed that the title of one of RAG's discussions at the Anarchist Bookfair is the following:

They fuck you up - exploring family structures

Now, my immediate reaction to this title is that it is

a) patronising
b) insulting
c) Pie in the sky theory that no ordinary mother is going to relate to

To confirm my reaction, I asked my flat mate and her friend (not active in politics but see themselves as definitely left wing) what they thought of this as a discussion.

Both of them responded "what does it mean" and when they realised what it meant they responded "surely they could pick a topic that people can genuinely relate too, i.e. single mothers and social policy, women and accessing health care services, the art of parenting etc.

We all agreed that none of us would attend.

by Observer Sun Mar 02, 2008 21:27

I think it is a great idea that this discussion is taking place. I cannot make the public meeting so here is a small observation from someone who has been involved in libertarian politics for a few years.

About a year ago I brought along a friend whom I grew up with to a few meetings and social activities taking place in Seomra Spraoi when it first opened on the quays.

She always said she would like to get involved with people who are 'active' and 'doing stuff' around issues she had thought about.

Anyway, after a few weeks of 'trying' to get involved she very quickly dropped out of doing stuff for the following reasons:

She felt that the 'women' in the group were very 'unfriendly' and had established their own 'clique' without even recognising it. She felt the guys were very warm, asked her to come to the next meeting, inquired into what she does for a living, and basically took an interest in her as a person.

She regularly complained to me that she felt all the female activists were some what hostile to another 'woman' entering into their 'field' of politics. It was if they wanted the 'group' to remain the same, and felt uncomfortable with someone else upsetting the balance that had already been established. She claimed that the 'group' were not about active politics but maintaining a social network of friends. And it was this close network of friends that put her off getting involved.

Anway, she eventually stopped getting involved and like most she occasionally turns up to a demonstration but highly unlikely to take a pro active role in organising an event.

Now, I do not necessarily agree with her conclusions about libertarian politics but I do take her observations seriously.

Common stereotypes of women being clique, hostile to newcomers within their group etc are very popular. Pop psychology would agree with the conclusion that this occurs.

Perhaps this is something that leftist women involved in politics should acknowledge as a potential problem and pro actively avoid creating cliques which arguably occur more often amongst women than amongst men.

by . Sun Mar 02, 2008 17:20

7.30 not a great time for mothers to attend ,earlier with some care

would be more inclusive.

by Sri Padma Sun Mar 02, 2008 04:30

Hi Claire; I agree with you & M.A.Ex there. Both valid. I guess I'm talking more in terms of being listened to in the decision-making process. I'm not in Dublin; so can't be there but I think your idea of the meeting is great.

by Marie Antoinette's executioner Sat Mar 01, 2008 23:40

I've a hunch that women don't go into politics for two reasons. 1. Men are such blatant eggheads about political theory and about personality infighting that women, being more into conciliatory emotions and nurturing, don't want much of that scene. 2. Women are attracted to power, yes, but the power of the family where they can be so influential.

Mary McAleese, Mary Hanafin, Joan Bruton, Marian Harkin, Kathy Sinnott - what do you think of their performance, and influence? Can you think of better political role models?

by Clare - RAG Sat Mar 01, 2008 19:27

Sri,

If you think there is a lack of female political activists at leadership rank, surely a start to addressing that would be to increase the number of women involved (well that is if they are underrepresented at rank and file level to begin with)? Maybe not, I'm not too clued in about 'leadership' within organisations, being an anarchist and all.

"male-constructed ideas" could be an issue, something worth exploring more.

Come along and further explain your ideas.

Clare

by Sri Padma Sat Mar 01, 2008 06:24

Claire, it's not about the lack of women's political activists; but the problem is within the leadership rank. I find most organizations still are dominated by male leaders and that is really frustrating. And they usually don't trust the women to take the initiative or lead in the decision-makings or events organizing! And usually when there're female leaders, they tend to conform to male-constructed ideas.

by Clare - RAG Wed Feb 27, 2008 14:27 ragdublin at riseup dot net Dublin

RAG Open Meeting

Monday 3rd March 7.30pm
St Nicholas of Myra Hall (creche room), Carmen Hall, Francis St, Dublin 2

Map to St. Nicholas of Myra hall