240116 SE VM1 / VM7 - Transnational Feminism Comparing Women's Movements (2025S)

After an introduction to feminist theories, an analytical framework to study different women's movements will be developed. We will examine and compare cases from Europe, Latin America and Africa: What are the central demands of women's movements? What have women's movements achieved so far, what challenges have they had to face? Women’s activists come from diverse social backgrounds. How does this affect their demands and political struggles? Which different types of social movements can be distinguished? What common goals but also differing objectives can be identified by comparing different women’s movements? What are the main political strategies they have developed? What is their relationship to the state? What role do the divisions between public-private and production-reproduction play in stabilizing gender relations as power relations? How do various forms of oppression interact and reproduce domination? What forms of othering are central to the reproduction of domination at different historical moments? How are women affected in different ways? What role do other political actors, historical power relations and modes of production play in the development of women's movements? Can other influencing factors be identified that contradict or go beyond the analytical framework we have developed? Can empirical results be identified that point to Eurocentric assumptions? What new theoretical findings can be derived from our comparisons?

We will also look at how women's movements have always networked transnationally and what strategies of “inter-movement alliances” they are currently pursuing. After looking at the international debate on women's rights and gender equality (World Conferences on Women, reproductive health, sustainability, gender mainstreaming, trade regimes, advocacy, etc.) we analyze how these political experiences of activism on an international level lead to changes in organizational structure, strategies and transnational alliance building.