Mobilization, collective identity and activism in a Women's Movement Organization in Victoria.
Date
1996
Authors
Cikaliuk, Monique
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
For the past quarter of a century the women's movement has mobilized an array of resources and brought them under collective control to facilitate social change. The mobilization process, which includes the construction of a collective identity, has revealed conflict at the core of the movement based on two rival frames for understanding oppression.
The politics of identity, a frame which marked the early phase of the women's movement, characterized women as a distinct homogeneous group and revealed a systemic asymmetry of power based on gender. The identity frame conceptualized the transformation of women's shared oppression based on an alliance of women everywhere. The emergence of the difference frame in the mid 1980s contested the privileging of gender as the primary category of oppression.
The politics of difference drew attention to multiple, interlocking systems of oppression that acknowledge intricate and contradictory power relations and the complexity of organizational strategies. An understanding of how the mobilization process, which includes the construction of a collective identity, has been shaped by the frames of identity and difference over the past twenty-five years has been examined through nine in-depth interviews of key activists from the Victoria Status of Women Action Group (SWAG) and historical organization documents.
Aspects of the mobilization process that have been examined include the emergence of SWAG, the financial contradictions it has faced, the development of its cultural resources, and the transformation from a traditional hierarchical organization to a collective approach congruent with feminist principles.
The creation of collective identity has been differentially shaped by the identity and difference frames. The identity frame has guided the creation of an impermeable boundary based on an underlying biological commonality among women. The difference frame has not directed an attempt to define a cross cultural, transhistoric set of criteria to establish boundaries. Consciousness, as guided by the identity frame, has defined women as a distinct, homogeneous group whose oppression has been enforced through the unidirectional, top-down exertion of power. Self transformation has been accorded priority as a strategy for effecting change. The difference frame has placed an awareness of multiple, interlocking systems of stratification at the centre of consciousness. Cooperative efforts aimed at both personal and structural relations of power are needed for a coalition approach to social change.