Social Movements

In my series of blog posts, I'm going to focus on an issue that is near and dear to me: women’s equality and rights. As a woman, I feel that this is something very important and it's something that I have enjoyed learning about. Because of the women's movement that started around 170 years ago, I have every right that a man has (yes, there are still many issues), but I am incredibly inspired by how far we've come. Throughout my blog posts, I will be taking a term from our readings and placing it in the context of the women’s movement to better understand the movement as a whole.

To begin, I am going to discuss what a social movement actually is and how the women’s movement is a social movement. A social movement, according to class discussion, is a collective challenge based on common purposes, solidarity, and sustained interaction with elites, opposites, and authority. Another definition states the following: “a deliberate, voluntary effort to organize individuals to act in concert to achieve enough group influence to make or block changes.” I think it is hard to put an exact start date on when social movements became an effective and legitimate way to make change. You could argue that Jesus led a social movement through his teachings thousands of years ago. However, Tilly and Tarrow say that social movements were not really relevant until the 1860’s when the Industrial Revolution drove the poor populations into the cities. Workers came together and mass communication came about, and thus social movements are born. I believe that social movements existed long before that, but just didn’t have the title. Now, I would like to discuss the women's movement as a social movement. 

The women’s movement really started in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention. Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, two prominent feminists, organized the convention, along with three other women. After being barred from the floor at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention, they decided to hold their own convention in order to discuss the state of women’s rights. Over the course of the two-day convention, around 300 people gathered and essentially started the women’s movement. Stanton read the Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances, which was modeled after the Declaration of Independence and included 18 greivances and 11 resolutions. This two-day convention was the start of a social movement that has lasted until present day, which is both impressive and sad.

The women’s movement is a social movement because it encompasses the qualities I previously mentioned: collective challenge, common purposes, solidarity, and sustained interactions with elites, opposites, and authority. Now I want to go a little more in depth to show how the women’s movement embodies each value.

•           Collective challenge: a collective challenge is a group of like-minded individuals coming together for a common purpose. In this case, it is a group of women coming together in order to protest the state of their rights. From about 1848-1920, the biggest challenge that the women’s movement faced was gaining the right to vote. Now, the issue involves things such as equal wages, sexual and domestic violence, and unequal gender representation in the workforce. I mentioned before that while it is impressive that the women’s movement has lasted so long, it is also sad in that there is still a need for a women’s movement.
•           Common purposes: I touched on this in the section above when talking about the challenges that the women’s movement comes together to protest. The common purpose in the women’s movement is simple: equal rights for women. This is why it’s also called the feminist movement. Many of my Facebook friends from high school (I live in one of the most conservative counties in Texas) post about how the feminists want to “take away rights from men” and that they are a bunch of “fat lib-tards”, but these people are petty and ignorant, and I have no patience for sexists. Feminists only want the same rights as men, and I don’t think that is asking for too much.
•           Solidarity: solidarity means unity in a group. This is a no-brainer. In order for a social movement to be successful, there must be unity within the group. While solidarity is important, it can be hard to achieve. In a large group setting, it is often difficult to all be able to agree on the same principles. For example, the 2017 Women’s March on Washington tried to be very inclusive, but there were reports that they would not allow pro-life feminists to march with them.
•            Sustained interactions: this can mean a lot of different things, but in this case I’m going to interpret it to mean sustained interactions with those who can make change. In the women’s movement, it is important to interact with legislators, both those who agree with you and those who do not. A social movement is not legitimate if all you do is stand on the street in large numbers. There has to be some kind of interaction. One of my favorite examples of this is the National Women’s Suffrage Association continually lobbying Congress and President Wilson to pass an amendment allowing women to vote, and not stopping until they got what they wanted.

Resource Mobilization Theory

           Now that we have established that the women’s movement is indeed a social movement, I want to discuss resource mobilization within the movement. Resource mobilization is important to any social movement. It’s easy to have an idea and to talk about that idea, but until you have the means to get your idea off the ground, it can be hard to take action. That’s where resource mobilization comes in.

            To better understand what exactly resource mobilization is, I turned to resource mobilization theory. This is a five-part theory, and I have listed it below:

• “The actions of social movement's members and participants are rational.
• A social movement's actions are strongly influenced by institutionalized power imbalances and conflicts of interest.
• These power imbalances and conflicts of interest are sufficient to generate grievances that lead to the mobilization of social movement's intent on changing the distribution of resources and organization.
• Centralized and formally structured social movements more effectively mobilize resources and achieve goals of change than decentralized and informal social movements.
•  The success of social movements is heavily influenced by group strategy and the political climate.”

This theory sounds a lot like what makes the components of a social movement, as discussed in my previous blog post. The website that I used to find this theory (which I have hyperlinked above) gives a good summary of resource mobilization that is much less overwhelming than the five bullet points: “The resource mobilization theory of social movements examines structural factors, including a group's available resources and the position of group members in socio-political networks, to analyze the character and success of social movements.” Essentially, in order for a social movement to be legitimate and successful, you need to have group members who are in a position to bring about change for your group. Nancy Jones from next door may have some wonderful ideas regarding the women’s movement, but she is not going to be able to get as much as attention as Nancy Pelosi will in Congress.

In the beginning of the women’s movement, there really were not a lot of available resources. Women were expected to essentially stay in the home, raise children, and do as her husband says. When women decided that they did not want that life anymore, there really were not many resources available to them other than solidarity with other like-minded women, along with a few progressive-minded men. At the beginning of the women’s movement in Seneca Falls, they were able to find help in the abolitionist movement. Frederick Douglass even spoke in favor of the right to vote for women at the convention.

Around 20 years after the convention, the National Women Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association were formed. More and more women came on board with the women’s movement, and it grew through strength in numbers. In the early 20^th century when the fight for the vote was really heating up, suffragettes marched through the streets of New York with a banner that read, “President Wilson favors votes for women”. While Wilson was still hesitant, the suffragettes used his name as resource mobilization. The people that saw their banner also saw that the leader of the free world supported the right to vote for women. This is an example of early resource mobilization.

  

 A modern example of resource mobilization comes from the very recent Women’s March on Washington. The organizers of this march arranged to have many prominent celebrity figures speak at the event. America has a fascination with celebrities, so their very presence at the event probably caused a good portion of people to pay attention. It is important to note that you do need to be careful with who is associating with your movement. There were many speakers who relayed positive messages like Scarlett Johansson, who said, “President Trump, I did not vote for you. That being said, I respect that you are our president-elect and I want to be able to support you. But first I ask that you support me, support my sister, support my mother support my best friend and all of our girlfriends…” However, some speakers caused trouble and brought a dark light on the movement (I’m looking at you, Madonna). She said, “Yes, I’m angry, yes, I’m outraged, yes I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House, but I know that this won’t change anything.” Organizers of movements have to be careful about who is representing their goals. It is important to have resource mobilization and have prominent figures represent your movement, but you have to make sure they are doing so in a respectable fashion.

Civil Disobedience

          Civil disobedience: it’s a term we’ve all heard at one point or another if we’ve taken a high school English class. Listening to my teacher lecture on about how a privileged white man, Henry David Thoreau, decided one today to commit to an act of “civil disobedience”, I was incredibly bored and disinterested. Sorry, Thoreau fans, I just think he is a tad bit pretentious! While I still stick to that belief in college, I can and will acknowledge that his idea of civil disobedience now makes more sense to me and I view it as a useful tool for social movements, especially the women’s movement.

            As defined in the classroom lectures, civil disobedience is essentially “deliberate violation of the law in pursuit of some social goal.” Thoreau did not support the war in Mexico and therefore did not pay his poll tax. Obviously, not paying your taxes is against the law and so he was jailed. He deliberately violated the law in pursuit of some social goal, which was protesting the war in Mexico. This gave way to the idea of civil disobedience. The citizens who made up the women’s movement had similar actions: they used civil disobedience to argue for greater rights for women.

            In 1872, around 50 years before women had the right to vote; Susan B. Anthony decided to vote. (My favorite line from an article about her? “The B stood for badass.”) Initially, those running the voting booth told her she could not vote, but she threatened legal action against them if she would not be allowed to vote. She cast her ballot, knowing that she would be breaking the law. Anthony was soon after charged with unlawful voting and demanded to be arrested properly, just like a man would be. She denied bail in order to petition habeas corpus, but her lawyer went ahead and paid it for her because he hated to see a lady in jail. Later, at her trial, she was found guilty and fined $100. This is a prime example of civil disobedience in the women’s movement: Susan B. Anthony did not agree with the fact that women could not vote, so she deliberately violated that law in order to make a point.

            Another favorite example of mine comes from that same year. 1872 was quite a time to be alive! There’s just something about rebellious women of the 19^th century who refused to settle that makes me proud to be a woman. At this point in time, women still did not yet have the right to vote. Therefore, they could not run for president, but that did not stop Victoria Woodhull. Victoria and her sister created a publication where they could express their ideas on women’s suffrage, birth control, and other “radical” ideas of the day. Aside from using her magazine to spread her ideas, she also spoke to Congress on behalf of voting rights for women. She decided that her magazine and her lobbying of Congress was not enough, so Woodhull helped found the Equal Rights Party and ran for the U.S. presidency on that ticket. I’m trying to be academic but my only thought on this is: YES GIRL. I find it so incredibly amazing that during a time period where women were expected to stay in the house and raise children and were ostracized for just demanding equal rights, this woman (and many others) stood up and said “no”. Victoria Woodhull showed her civil disobedience by not voting for president, but actually running for President of the United States. I think Hillary Clinton would be proud.

            Although actors in the women’s movement still display civil disobedience today, I think it was even more impactful in the early women’s movement. In the 19^th century, women were expected to be obedient. Women were homemakers. They cooked and cleaned and raised the children and did not have a say in the government. Women were obedient creatures and that was that. I feel so inspired thinking of the women who stood up and stopped being obedient. Civil disobedience was a way to get the public’s attention, and it definitely worked. Both Susan B. Anthony and Victoria Woodhull became the subject of public scrutiny after their actions of civil disobedience, as I’m sure many other women did. These women sacrificed their public image in order to achieve a greater goal: equal rights for women. These two examples deliberately violated the law in pursuit of their social goal. It still took a while for women to win the vote, but I would wager that without the civil disobedience of Anthony and Woodhull, women would have had to wait quite a bit longer for their rights.

            

Media: Political Cartoons

Source: Daily Mail

Ah, yes. Fake news. While this tweet from our President does not really have anything to do with the women’s movement, per say, I think it is a nice segue into my next topic: the role of media in the women’s movement. I find the media to be incredibly important, especially in politics. It holds our government accountable and lets the average citizen what’s going on. Sure, we may chose to watch Fox or MSNBC and get a more biased version of the news, but I like to think that even that is better than complete ignorance. Not only does the media show what our government is doing, it also updates the public as to what is going on within the country. That being said, the media can play an important role in social movements. If the media chooses to not report on a particular movement, how will word get out? Sure, it may be simple enough to gain local recognition but if your movement is searching for widespread change then you need the press on your side and you need to be reported on.

I want to look at a certain form of media: political cartoons. Political cartoons have always been one of my favorite form of media, especially considering political matters. Politics in the media can get so… hairy. Cartoons keeps it simple and to the point, while oftentimes making a very big statement. 

                                                           Source: Library of Congress

Kenneth Chamberlain published this political cartoon in 1917, just three years before women got the right to vote. I love this. It depicts a woman (perhaps Lady Liberty) making a stance in that she will no longer be obedient. The list shows all the fields that women are capable of being in. She can do anything that a man can do, and she demands equal rights. This is very tastefully done political cartoon. It’s hard to see a cartoon like this and think of it as a bad message. If you do see it that way… you might be a misogynist.  

                                                      Source: New York Public Library

            This next political cartoon gets me... fired up, for lack of a better phrase. Thomas Fleming published this cartoon, and although I could not find the date, it is apparent that was either in 1920 or close to. It was done over the same issue as the previous cartoon, obviously, but with a much different stance. This cartoon very blatantly makes the point that a woman having the right to vote is a very bad thing. On one hand, you have the peaceful homemaker raising her daughter. On the other hand, you have a radical suffragette who is screaming and haggard looking and lives on the street! Please, men, you cannot let this happen to women! This cartoon makes a slightly more radical message: do not let women vote, or else they will end up like the woman on the right.

                                                            Source: Rosie the Riveter

            Rosie the Riveter is perhaps one of the most iconic political cartoons of all time. I suppose that technically it was more of a government campaign to get women to work during World War II, but it has since become an image of female empowerment. As World War II waged on, more and more women left the home to work. In fact, by 1945 one in four women were in the work force. Unfortunately, women only made about half of what their male counterparts made. This is unacceptable, of course, and with today’s female workforce only being paid about three-fourths of what men are paid in equal jobs, there are still improvements to be made. However, the amount of women who went to work during World War II was impressive and commendable. They did not only work in the factories; in fact, some were officers and some were even pilots. At this point, women seem to have come a long way since only being able to vote 25 years prior. The Rosie the Riveter image is powerful and inspiring. “We can do it!”

  Source: Dollars and Sense

This next cartoon is more recent, showing that throughout the years, political cartoons still carry a powerful message and are a good example of the use of media in the women’s movement. This cartoon shows how difficult it is to be a woman in a man’s world, essentially. This woman, along with her young child, simply wants to have a “really good career”. However, she is a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. The “really good careers” are only open to men, and they are definitely not open to a woman with a child. Employers can claim to be equal opportunity, but until their actions meet their words, it’s all for show, as this woman in this cartoon is finding out.