Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper discusses the inclusion of feminist movements -- and by implication all social movements -- inside the State. It makes two major arguments. First, that exclusion from the State is a continuous variable with many social movement actors having penetrated the State to some degree. We then argue that social movements’ inclusion is a function of characteristics of the State, particularly the partisan control of the bureaucracy and mechanisms for building the civil service, and characteristics of movements, particularly ideology and their partisan allies. We examine these arguments by examining three cases of feminist activism inside the State: the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The U.S. and Germany have similar bureaucratic characteristics in terms of recruitment and partisan control but differ dramatically in the nature of the feminist movement. The women’s movements of Germany and the United Kingdom share many characteristics but the pathways into the bureaucracy differ dramatically. We find that feminist insider participation through women’s policy agencies is affected by partisan control and the organization of the bureaucracy (e.g. location of the women’s policy agency). The participation of individual feminist insiders also appears affected by norms of partisan control and by the ideology of the women’s movement.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: “Drugs in Urban Society” is an undergraduate seminar class that was initially modified for use as a prison-based course for the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program. The class involves bringing undergraduate university students into a men’s maximum security jail in Philadelphia where all “inside” students come from a prison-based drug treatment program. After adapting the campus-based course for Inside-Out, the class was then modified once again to be a campus-based class incorporating many of the pedagogical strategies employed in the prison-based class. This paper describes a case study of the dialectical process of adapting the pedagogical strategies been campus and prison based classroom settings, and the use of Inside-Out curricular innovations for non-Inside-Out campus classes.

Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: Increasingly, movement scholars have recognized the power and importance of social movement activists within the State (Banaszak 2004, 2005; Santoro 1999; Santoro and McQuire 1997; Wolfson 2001). This paper discusses the characteristics of the feminist activists within government focusing on two related questions. First, we examine the degree to which feminist activists inside the State were characteristic of the larger movement. Second, we examine these feminist activists as members of the bureaucracy, focusing on their reasons for choosing government service and their career trajectories. Two conclusions emerge: First, I find that overall insider activists were initially drawn from liberal feminist (or to use Jo Freeman's terminology "old") wing of the feminist movement which clearly influenced the type of policies and mobilization that occurred around these activists. However, the ideology of these individuals varies much more than most accounts suggest, and that variation increases in later years of the movement, suggesting that activists who enter the state as a result of movement institutionalization are not necessarily more conventional. Second, I argue that feminist activists located throughout the federal government are motivated as much by their activism as by a desire to maintain their positions in government. This suggests that the typical belief that feminist activists inside of government differ from outside activists may be overstated.

Supporting Publications:
Supporting Document

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Social movement scholars generally view movements as existing outside of government, yet there is often considerable overlap in personal and institutions between states and social movements. This paper examines the overlap between the U.S. women’s movement and the federal government (in the form of feminist activists who work for the federal government) and asks how it influences social movement outcomes. One impressive aspect of the U.S. women’s movement – especially in comparison to other movements -- has been its ability to create large social and legal changes which have fundamentally altered how women are viewed and treated. I utilize secondary sources, historical documents and in-depth interviews with 40 government employees who were also activists in the women's movement to tease out the influence these feminist activists had on government policy. The paper examines three case studies –equal pay, educational equity, and foreign aid for women in developing countries. It argues that feminist activists inside the state often served as initiators or behind the scenes supporters for policy changes that were finalized in Congress and the courts as well as in the executive branch itself. Moreover, the role of feminist activists in government continued after such policies were adopted because it was these feminist activists who assured that implementation of policy also reflected underlying feminist values, even under hostile administrations.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In my presentation, I will discuss my transnational research journey as a Mexican immigrant who has lived in the United States for almost 20 years and who goes back home to conduct sexuality research from feminist and community-based perspectives. In this on-going research project, I study the sociology of incest in Mexican society while paying special attention to the sexual and romantic histories of 60 adult incest survivors living in highly industrialized locations in the nation (i.e., Ciudad Juárez, Monterrey, Gudalajara, and Mexico City). In my presentation, I will critically examine the following lessons I have learned from the first stages of this study: (1) the transnational methodologies and epistemologies I have developed while working on this research project; (2) the ways in which I have romanticized transnational feminist research and some of the disappointments and dilemmas that have emerged as I have been immersed in the field; (3) some of the issues and concerns with regard to my own internalized intellectual colonization; (4) the intellectual bridges that I have crossed and reinvented as I have interacted with local, national, and transnational intellectual activists conducting gender and sexuality research; (5) some critical views with regard to issues of intellectual legitimacy, ethical dilemmas, exclusionary practices in academic circles, and personal vulnerabilities and actual risks I have been exposed to as a resarcher; and, (6) the potential avenues to use my transnational research methods and results for the benefit of the study participants and their families and communities.