Looking back at thinking ahead: Feminist institution-building in Australia
Merrindahl Andrew
AustralianNationalUniversity
Paper to International Political Science Association Congress
Santiago, Chile, July 13 2009
Special Session 262: Comparing social movements: Shifting strategies and the state
Introduction
The social movements that first flourished in the 1960s and 1970s were initially characterised by protest activity against the state and against dominant norms, and by their only-loosely-organised structures. Over time, however, these social movements, including feminism, have become partially institutionalised in government and non-government bodies, and in policies, practices and social norms. The price of this success has often been seen as high, and many have noted the risks of co-option and incorporation. On the other hand, as others have pointed out, it is difficult to imagine movements succeeding without the adoption of movement principles by powerful institutions, which itself implies the reconstitution of these principles into other frames of reference and other ‘logics of appropriateness’ (Olsen 2007).
Political scientists and social movement scholars have long debated the effects of institutionalisation on the prospects for movements achieving their goals, as indeed have
movement participants. Among the issues debated is the interaction of protest activity with institution-building. Of particular concern has been the extent to which a non-institutionalised movement committed to social change and operating outside the state is essential to support institutional change. Correspondingly, scholars have raised the possibility that an institutionally-focussed strategy might ‘crowd out’ or otherwise undermine the non-institutional (or less institutional) movement. For example, in the Australian context, Maddison and Jung (2008) have pointed to problematic cultural consequences arising from the dominance of state engagement as a form of movement action, as feminists who did not support this strategy were alienated from the movement.
This paper steps back from debates about how to evaluate the institutionalisation of movements such as feminism, to explore an aspect of institutionalisation that is rarely considered: that is, how activists have themselves viewed the prospects for and implications of their increasing focus on institutional action. In the case of the Australian women’s movement, many of the current questions about the interaction of activism and institution-building were foreshadowed by activists’ debates and movement theories about ‘reform vs revolution.’ The paper draws on my doctoral research (Andrew 2008), including interviews with women who were feminist activists in the 1970s and 1980s, to reviewthese debates and theories, giving a perspective on what participants ‘thought they were doing’.[1]
The paper first situates its analysis in the academic literature on feminism, institutions and institutionalisation. The second part of the paper briefly outlines the history of the Australian second-wave movement. The third and main part discusses participant perspectives on institutionalisation.
Feminism, institutions and institutionalisation
In talking about institutions and institutionalisation I am drawing on two bodies of academic work. The first is the attention given by social movement studies to the institutionalisation of social movements as a process. So, for example, scholars including Paul Bagguley (2002) have studied how the incorporation of feminism within institutional politics might relate to social movement ‘abeyance.’ Similarly, David Meyer and Sidney Tarrow (1997) have explored how the pattern of institutionalisation of social movements has coincided with the diffusion of social movement practices to create the ‘movement society,’ in which repertoires of protest and contention, in their less-disruptive forms, have actually become more common and are taken up by a wider range of social actors. Importantly, this idea of a process of institutionalisation takes as its starting point a non-institutional form or arena of action. The question arises, then, of what it means for movements like feminism to become institutionalised, and what this implies for the ‘success’ of the movement. An important part of this question is what in has meant for participants to engage in the process of institutionalisation, which is the topic of this paper.
The second body of workto which this paper responds is institutionalism as it appears in political science, where it is concerned with viewing social and political life through the lens of institutions. Possibilities for feminist institutionalism have been explored by scholars including Fiona Mackay, Petra Meier and Joni Lovenduski (Mackay and Meier 2003; Mackay 2009; Lovenduski 1998). These scholars have highlighted how gendered power relations can be seen as an institution, and how the norms and rules of political institutions can be explored in terms of the possibilities and limitations they imply for efforts towards gender equality. While institutionalism gives some attention to actors in relation to institutions, it tends to focus primarily on an existing field of institutions and their effects, and less on agency and institutional change. Mackay and Meier (2003) therefore see scope for feminist political research to contribute to institutionalism a greater focus on agency towards social change — in this case feminist agency towards social change. Both of these ways of thinking about institutions and feminism suggest that it will be fruitful to give attention to how institutional change and institution-building is initiated, and that this will help us to understand the place of agency in change.
Another distinction is important from the outset: that between institution-building and broader institutional change. At the highest level of generality, if social and political life is viewed through the lens of the institution, there may indeed be little distinction between these two. So, for example, the creation of a discrete and identifiable institution (such as a new political party) can be seen as a ‘bounded innovation within an existing system’ or linked set of institutions (Mackay 2009). However, social movement participants (and political actors generally), are likely to draw a distinction between the building of identifiable institutions intended to contribute to achieving the goals of the movement and the very broad social changes that the movement is trying to bring about. This paper therefore explores the differences as well as the correspondences between the ideas of feminist activists about their efforts at change, and the way we as social scientists might describe institutionalisation or institutional change.
Another point to begin with is that for feminist research in particular, there is a close and vibrant relationship between, on one hand, the concerns and ideas that have flowed from the non-academic parts of the movement and, on the other hand, the ideas and methods used by researchers. This has enabled the development of important concepts that have enriched political studies generally, such as ‘unobtrusive mobilisation’ (Staggenborg and Taylor 2005; Katzenstein 1990). In this respect feminist scholars’ present interest in institutions and institutionalisation derives not only from a desire to engage in the central concerns of ‘mainstream’ political science but also from concerns arising from reflections on the current situation of women’s movements themselves. That is, as women’s movements have become more institutionalised and more involved in the formal institutions of politics, there is a desire to reflect on the implications of these changes for the substantive goals of gender equality and women’s liberation (see for example Outshoorn and Kantola [eds] 2007). In the Australian case, the erosion of feminist institutions from the 1990s on has given special impetus to the project of evaluating the benefits and weaknesses of what has been called the ‘femocrat strategy.’ This paper aims to bring out into the open some of the ideas that underpin present assessments, by revisiting some of the ideas of feminist activists about what we might call institution-building in the early stages of the second-wave women’s movement in Australia.
The institutionalisation of women’s movements is not something that has just ‘happened.’ In many ways it has been intended, created and shaped by activists. For this reason, as we analyse the agency of feminist activists as actors in institutional change and institution-building, this analysis has to take account of their intentions and theories: their understandings of what they were doing.
At the same time, of course, the intentions of feminist activists — their efforts to create feminists institutions and to reshape the gendered nature of other institutions — have come up against and interacted with a range of other factors and pressures. This means that clearly it is not correct to see feminist institutions as simply resulting from feminist intentions, or to see the institutionalisation of feminist principles within other institutions as having been caused in the same way.
So, on one hand it is important to keep in view the intentions and ideas of those who have created change. On the other hand it is important not to see changes as simply resulting from intentional action. This is one of the reasons why feminist agency in institution-building and institutional change is ambiguous,and interesting.
The Australian second-wave women’s movement
Studies of the Australian second-wave women’s movement have highlighted theunusual degree to which feminist goals and processes were institutionalised in theAustralian state from an early stage (Chappell 2002).Morerecently, the erosion of Australian women’s policy machinery and feminist-inspiredprograms has been recorded (Maddison and Partridge 2007; Teghtsoonian and Chappell 2008).Importantly, one of the factorsidentified as contributing to this erosion is the gradual disappearance from public viewof an autonomous, active and oppositional women’s movement (Maddison and Partridge 2007).
There were, of course, considerable tensions about the extent to which the movementshould pursue what came to be known as the ‘femocrat strategy.’ (Summers 2000; Ryan 1999).These tensionsreflected the different origins of the major strands of the Australian movement. The firstactions and meetings of the new movement emerged from anti-Vietnam activism andleft political circles to become women’s liberation in late 1969 (Curthoys 1992).These groups were focused on consciousness-raising but also took directaction against external targets to express their rejection of sexism. Women’s liberationgroups, along with others, later became involved in establishing refuges and women’shealth centres.With some overlap but also many new members, Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL) was formed toconduct a candidate survey for the 1972 federal election.After 1972, WEL continuedto pursue changes through government machinery and policy. Several movement-wideconferences were held, but no umbrella organisation or peak body developed. Instead,the movement diversified without an organisational or deliberative centre. While theeffects and off-shoot projects of the women’s liberation groups are manifold, this streamof the movement has not been institutionalised or maintained by a structure, in contrastwith WEL, which still has an organisational identity and some (fairly minimal)structures.
Alongside these autonomous women’s groups, the movement has also involved women active in political parties and elected as parliamentarians (especially though notexclusively those elected as Labor Party members), union women, older women’sgroups pre-dating the 1970s, such as the Australian Federation of Women Voters, newer vocational women’s groupssuch as women in policing, and feminists working in non-gender-specific organisations,such as migrant groups.
Beginning in the 1970s Australia developed a unique model of women’s policy machinery as organisations such as WEL initiated a turn to the state seeking a response to feminist demands (Sawer 1990; Eisenstein 1996).The Labor government led by Gough Whitlam responded to these demands with a commitment to developing new mechanisms within government by which issues of concern to women might be properly considered as the business of government. The model of feminist policy machinery that resulted relied on a close and interconnected relationship between activists in the women’s movement and feminist activists within the bureaucracy (Magarey 2004, 127). Although some feminists argued against state engagement, over time this approach became dominant, reflecting the imperative of engaging with the state as a means of contesting the construction of social problems and policy issues that continued to constrain gender equality (Bacchi 1999; Franzway, Court and Connell 1989). The internationally remarkable model that developed from this relationship gave the rest of the world the ‘femocrat’, the name for feminists appointed to positions in the bureaucracy with a specific directive to improve policy outcomes for women.
Sawer (2007) and Maddison and Partridge (2007) have recorded the decline of this model of gender analysis and policy coordination in Australia. Perhaps the starkest example is the removal of the Office for Women (formerly the Office for the Status of Women [OSW]) from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in 2004 and its relocation to the Department of Family and Community Services (now Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs). Before this major change, however, a series of budget cuts, abolitions and relocations signalled the Howard Government’s intention to dismantle the Commonwealth women’s policy machinery. These ranged from the 1997 removal of the Women’s Bureau in the Department of Employment (which had been in existence since 1963) to the axing of the Australian Broadcasting CorporationWomen Out Loud radio show (formerly the Coming Out Ready or Not show) in 1999. The government left the position of Sex Discrimination Commissioner unfilled for 14 months between February 1997 and April 1998 (Summers 2007, 6; AHRC 2000). Feminist groups were alert to and critical of this incremental dismantling (see, for example, Sydney Women’s Liberation Newsletter 1998). Some groups mobilised against it, as when, during the 2004 Federal election, WEL’s campaign material denounced the ‘politicisation and undermining of OSW’ under the Howard Government and called for ‘[r]estored capacity within government for expert analysis of the gender impact of policy’ (WEL 2004). Such actions did not, however, provoke the broader mobilisation necessary to make feminist resistance visible to the wider public, perhaps affirming to the government that it could pursue this course of action without suffering electoral or ‘reputational’ damage (Sawer 2007, 40; Teghtsoonian and Chappell 2008).
Early participant perspectives on institutionalisation
An initial point to consider might seem obvious, but is significant: what social scientists call institutionalisation (the increasing formalisation of movement organisations, increasing engagement with established political institutions, the establishment of taken-as-given norms and routines, and so on) was not called institutionalisation by participants. In large part this is because all the elements of this broader process of institutionalisation were not undertaken together as a whole strategy, but arose out of feminists’ engagements and opportunity-taking on a more detailed level. Yet, together, these processes have led to what we now call institutionalisation. And, importantly, there were feminists who did critique and reflect on the process as a whole, but not necessarily in terms of institutionalisation. This immediately raises a challenge for those who wish to explore agency in relation to feminist institution-building and institutionalisation: foresight about consequences and control over the process as a whole cannot be prerequisites of agency.
If Australian feminists did not set out to achieve (or oppose) institutionalisation per se, what were the intermediate or proximate strategies that they understood themselves to be undertaking? I argue here that two key concrete approaches taken were state engagement and the development of non-government women’s services, and that these emerged from a desire to ‘do something practical’ towards comprehensive social change and not from a desire to institutionalise the movement (although we can see that as one result).
The desire to ‘do something practical’ needs to be seen in contrasted with a particular ‘method’ of thinking and acting that was very important to some women in the early phases of the movement. A commitment to personal transformation as the core of social change was central to the involvement of many in the women’s liberation stream of the movement. This involved first exploring ‘what is the personal’ in an issue, and only on that basis proceeding to develop and share an analysis.
The implications of this approach for political action can be seen in the history of the short-lived South Australian (SA) Working Women’s Group, which was established by Adelaide women’s liberationists in 1973 as a result of encouragement from groups in other States.[2] By 1975, the group had foundered due to the lack of direct involvement from working-class women, according to Sylvia Kinder, a participant-historian (Kinder 1982, 376) .
Kinder compares the Adelaide and Melbourne groups in terms of personal experience, observing that the involvement of militant working-class women in the Melbourne group ‘ensured a greater understanding of initiatives suited to their needs’ (Kinder 1982, 376).The original Adelaide women’s liberation group was formed in 1969 by university women. It was guided by a Marxist model of revolution: leadership of the masses by a vanguard armed with a theoretical analysis.(Kinder 1982, 368). Unlike the Sydney group, early actions in Adelaide were therefore not concerned with self-liberation from internalised sexism, but with protesting to raise public awareness about sexism in society, for example in advertising (Summers 2000).Increasingly, however, such externally-oriented protests were seen as inadequate. This helps to explain why, by 1975, Adelaide women’s liberationists disbanded their Working Women’s Group. They did not consider it sufficient to have a theory of women’s oppression in the workforce. In their view, action had to emerge from the experiences of the oppressed themselves. Adelaide women’s liberationists could have protested against the injustices faced by women in the workforce by copying tactics from elsewhere, as had happened earlier with protests against beauty pageants (Summers 2000).But the rejection of political action divorced from personal experience made this unacceptable, and led to the disbanding of this new institution.
From very early in the 1970s, there was, however, a developing impetus within the movement towards ‘practical’ action, in part because the movement quickly broadened its base to include more women who had feminist commitments, skills and energy but were less oriented to personal-transformative change (Sawer 2008).Some women’s liberationists, too, felt compelled by the suffering exposed in testimonials and the growing movement literature to take action for women beyond their own consciousness-raising groups.