‘Studying Women’s Movements in Comparative Perspective: A New Measurement from the Research Network on Gender and Politics (RNGS)
Professor Amy G. Mazur, Washington State University
(& visiting professor at Birkbeck during the fall of 2014)
Tuesday 2nd December 2014, 13.00 – 14.30
Paul Hirst Seminar Room, Department of Politics
Birkbeck, 10 Gower Street, WC1E 6DP
The Gender and British Politics group at Department of Politics at Birkbeck (http://www.csbppl.com/research/the-gender-and-british-politics-group/) is organizing a seminar with speaker Prof. Amy G Mazur (Washington State University) on the 2nd of December.
Summary: Scholars of women’s movements have thus far not had access to enough conceptual tools that permit systematic comparison across a variety of temporal, sectoral and cultural contexts in order to construct sound theory about movements themselves as well as their social and political impacts. This presentation will offer a way of comparing variations in women’s movement strength through conceptualization that builds from research on gender equality policy, state feminism, women’s movements, and social movements. This approach involves careful definition of movements and movement strength as well as the specification of their dimensions for empirical observation through description, comparison and assessment of change. Using data from the RNGS project about women’s movements from the 1970s to the early 2000s in 13 Western democracies, the talk will illustrate how this approach can advance the study of and theorizing about women’s movements both as drivers and outcomes.