Gender and Social Movements. Jo Reger
I am not sure I was able to satisfy Reviewer 2 completely, but I did my best and their comments made for a better book.
In regard to the actual process of writing, I am forever grateful for my writing group extraordinaire – Jennifer Law-Sullivan and George Sanders. Our weekly meetings keep me on track and, as I review the chapters in the final proofing, I can recall where I wrote them, often in the library, and often in your presence. I also thank you two for being a support group through a really difficult year of Covid and online teaching. Sometimes, I needed those venting (and laughing) sessions more than I needed to write. A very special appreciation goes out to George, who read this entire book, offered excellent revisions and settled some of my anxiety.
Finally, to my cast of characters at home – Angel and Faith. I love you both dearly. Thank you for making a home. And to my fur babies – Silvia, Cricket, and the irreplaceable Ray-Ray – you all wandered down to the basement every once in a while to check on what I was doing and sometimes sit on my lap. I appreciated your love and the writing breaks I took to go upstairs one more time to see why Cricket is barking at the neighbors and to see if Silvia is really out of food and starving, as she seems to be claiming.
Introduction: Integrating Gender and Social Movements
A 2017 MeToo rally in Los Angeles, CA.
Credit: Ronen Tivony/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Imagine you check your social media one morning and the hashtag #MeToo is everywhere. People you know, most of them women, are sharing stories of sexual harassment, abuse, and assault. Along with the personal posts, you see multiple news stories of prominent men in politics, business, entertainment, and the media being accused of sexual harassment and impropriety (of all degrees). The narrative in each case is similar. A man (rarely a woman) in a position of power, repeatedly used that power over a subordinate regardless of her objections. Most of these men had been engaging in these behaviors for years, some of them decades. As you watch the news coverage, it seems that as quickly as the accusations come to light, the accused is punished, losing their job and access to resources, privilege, and status. The mainstream media is full of reports, and pundits are perplexed as to the source of this tsunami of accusations. You begin to think over your own life and have a few “aha” moments of your own – A boss who stood too close; A teacher who made inappropriate comments; A romantic partner who would not listen to “no.”
Emerging in 2017, the importance of #MeToo was captured later that year when Time Magazine named the Person of the Year – “The Silence Breakers” – acknowledging the number of women who had come forward claiming they too were victims of harassment and sexual assault by powerful, cisgendered men. The beginnings of hashtag movement can be traced back to the multitude of women who accused media mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment, assault, and rape (Johnson and Hawbaker 2019; NPR 2018). Quickly following these accusations against Weinstein, the names of prominent men (and a few women) accused of behaviors ranging from sexual harassment to rape began to snowball. The list included powerful men in politics (U.S. Senator Al Franken, U.S. Senate nominee Roy Moore), entertainment (comedians Bill Cosby and Louis C. K., actor Kevin Spacey, R&B artist R. Kelly), and business (Uber CEO Travis Kalanak). Charges of sexual assault, harassment, and rape against President Donald Trump, along with his infamous statement about grabbing women by the “pussy,” also added to the moment.
#MeToo was not confined to the United States. It quickly spread with charges against prominent men across the globe in countries including South Korea, Sweden, and Egypt, all experiencing “landmark” victories for the accusers (Stone and Vogelstein 2019). Initially the hashtag was attributed to white actor Alyssa Milano; however it was later credited to long-time sexual assault activist Tarana Burke, who coined the term “Me Too” in 2006. Reflecting on #MeToo, it is clear that this wave of accusations challenged beliefs about gendered interpersonal relations, forced a redefinition of sexual consent, and illustrated how power cannot always win the silence of victims.
For as much as #MeToo tells us about the society we live in, it is also a productive place to begin an examination of gender and social movements. First, it allows us to see how social change occurs and how social movements play a role in those changes. Second, it highlights how issues of gender can be at the core of social change efforts. Third, taking a historical view of #MeToo illustrates that what appears to be a contemporary issue has its roots in the past. Finally, the mis-crediting of the hashtag to a white actor instead of the Black woman activist who created it demonstrates the importance of looking at gender issues through the lens of race and other social identities. Using the #MeToo movement as a starting place, this book explores the intersections and interactions of gender and social movements. To untangle these dynamics, I examine how gender influences social change by exploring how it shapes participants, social change goals, and the means (i.e. tactics and strategies) by which change is sought. In other words, the who, how, and why of social change is shaped by gender, even when it is not obvious to observers and participants. To understand these dynamics, I start by defining the ways in which we understand gender.
How Gender “Sorts” Society
While the common usage of “gender” often refers to whether someone identifies as male or female (e.g. sex), theorists argue that gender is more than sex and is, in fact, embedded in society in a multitude of ways beyond the individual. Judith Lorber (1994) defines gender as a process, a system of stratification, and as a structure shaping social life. To understand the difference between gender and sex, Lorber explains that we typically are assigned a sex at birth (male or female), and due to the assignment are placed in a sex category (woman or man, boy or girl). That sex category then takes on the attributes of gender dictated by our culture, prescribing our behaviors and lifelong expectations related to our gender. Gender is a core identity for individuals, set up on the binary of woman/man or masculine/feminine. People whose gender identity and sex category are in alignment are called cisgender. People also have identities outside the binary. Identities such as gender non-binary, gender non-conforming or gender fluid are present in society with more diverse identities being articulated. However, since gender is also a structure in society (Lorber 1994), it is used to sort people into the categories, making it difficult to completely break out of the binary in all aspects of life. For example, it is a relatively recent development that some places will allow identification outside the binary on official documents such as IDs, driver licenses, and birth certificates. Gender also resides outside of the individual and is commonly assigned to traits or behaviors such as acting masculine (i.e. active, rational, instrumental) or feminine (i.e. passive, emotional, nurturing). Embedded in this binary way of seeing identities and behaviors are value judgments (e.g. it is better to be active rather than passive) as well as indications of societal power (e.g. instrumental/action-oriented actions are rewarded more than emotional/nurturing ones). This illustrates how gender is both a system of stratification, that is distinguishing, valuing, rewarding individuals who show the most prized behaviors, and a structure with gendered ideas built into the very organization of society such as the home or workplace. Overall, gender is used to sort where people “belong” and what they should “do” in a society.
As such, gendered identities shape the way an individual experiences social life. Candace West and Don Zimmerman (1987) coined the phrase “doing gender” to explore how we integrate gender into everything we do. Seen as a type of performance, gender is not only a set of behaviors (e.g. acting masculine, feminine or fluid), but is also a set of social expectations for which we are held accountable. People who step out of their “side” of the gender binary – men who act feminine, women who act masculine – can be sanctioned by others in society (Lorber 1994; West and Zimmerman 1987). As West and Zimmerman put it, we can be “held hostage” to gender’s production in everyday life (1987: 126). It is important to note that with the hierarchy of gender characteristics, women can often “get away with” acting more masculine than men