1. Time for gender and civil society theorists
to tango
There are many reasons why it is time to interrogate
more closely the relationship between gender and civil
society. The first and perhaps most obvious reason for
feminist theorists and practitioners is that women
have been significant actors in the theatres of civil
societies across the world. Often excluded from state
institutions and male-dominated politics, women in
different historical and cultural contexts have found it
easier to become active at the local level through, for
example, community organisations, self-help groups,
traders’ associations, faith-based organisations,
mothers’ groups, or campaigning. It is on this terrain
that women activists, including feminists3, have
articulated their demands, mobilised around issues
such as the right to vote, dowry, land rights and
domestic violence, and created networks of solidarity.
The spaces and institutions within civil society can
exclude women, but they also have an emancipatory
potential, which feminists can and do make use of.
Given the centrality of civil society to feminists as a
space for association, for the articulation of interests,
and for ideological contestation, it is important that we
theorise these spaces from a feminist perspective,
and the language of civil society can be useful in this
endeavour. In the past feminist theorists have used
the diverse languages of social movements, struggle,
rights, equality and emancipation to frame their
understanding of women’s activism. As a result there
is a rich, empirical treasury of historical, structural and
analytic accounts of the rise of women’s movements
in a diversity of contexts. Feminist researchers focused
on women’s movements apart from the broader
context of civil society, while civil society theorists
referred to women’s activism to illustrate the dynamism
and vibrancy of actual civil societies. Yet there are
surprisingly few studies of how such movements and
forms of collective action impinge more generally
upon the spaces, organisations and regulatory
frameworks governing civil society, nor of how the
regulatory frameworks governing civil society, the
organisational composition and forms of civil society,
and the range of issues and values espoused by civil
society actors in turn affect the way women organise.
In what ways, if at all, do women organise differently
from men in civil society? As civil society is a broader
concept than social movements, it allows for the
possibility of exploring these larger questions about
how spaces for collective action are used, how they
become politicised, and how they are gendered.
Second, drawing attention to how women and gender
relations have been absent in the work of many civil
society researchers is important for enriching empirical
analysis. However, it is also of interest how, why and
when men organise in the spaces of civil society, and
how such action in turn shapes the possibilities for
women’s participation. In this way we can begin to ask
whether men and women organise differently,
whether the styles of leadership and mobilisation are
different, whether the organisational forms are distinct,
whether the issues addressed, the language expressed
and the type of activities engaged in differ between
male and female bodies. Although much discussion of
civil society ignores the gendered nature of organising,
the emergence of a field of study around men and
masculinities has much to offer in understanding
men’s engagement in civil society4. Moreover, this would
provide an opening to develop a more nuanced approach
to men’s organising that takes on board competing
notions of masculinity and diverse identities and
solidarities. The differences between various types of
men’s organising such as the military, working men’s
clubs, gay movements, anti-feminist men’s groups,
and Fathers For Justice could then be explored and
comparisons drawn with women’s organising.
Third, civil society is a double-edged sword for
feminists. It can provide a site for organising around
feminist issues, for articulating counter-hegemonic
discourses, for experimenting with alternative
lifestyles and for envisioning other less sexist and
GENDER
1 For a critique of these processes see Howell and Pearce (2001),
Ottaway and Carothers (2000), Carothers (1999), Biekart (1999),
and Van Rooy (1998).
2 Researchers who have tried to engender the discussion of civil
society and the public sphere include Beckwith (2000), Fraser
(1992; 1997), Howell (1998), Howell and Mulligan (2003; 2004),
Landes (1988), Phillips (2002), and Rabo (1996). It should be
noted that a similar vacuum relates in relation to the concept
of social capital, as exposed forcefully by Molyneux (2002).
3 We distinguish here between the broad term ‘women activists’,
which embraces activism by women informed by diverse ideo-logical
positions and who do not necessarily describe themselves
as `feminists’, and the term ‘feminist activists’, which refers to
women who envision a world where gender differences are not
a source of oppression and inequality. The visions of feminist
activists are in turn shaped by analyses of gender premised on
liberal, socialist and radical perspectives.
4 See for example Carver (1995), Connell (1995), Ruxton (2004),
and Seidler (1991).
CHAPTER 1
GENDER AND CIVIL SOCIETY
Jude Howell
Introduction
When east European intellectuals such as Václav Havel
and Adam Michnik seized upon the vocabulary of civil
society to articulate their dissent from overbearing
Leninist regimes, they could not have known how much
political and intellectual interest in the notion of non-governmental
public action their choice of concept
would generate. Appropriated for diverse and often
discordant ideological ends, and used empirically to
refer to an array of referents, the concept of civil society
has been subject to ongoing assault, with criticisms
ranging from its apparent vagueness to its historico-cultural
specificity. Nevertheless, politicians, activists,
government bureaucrats, and intellectuals across the
globe continue to embrace the discourse of civil society
to explain and justify their differing visions of the world
and their courses of action.
The revival of the concept of civil society has
promoted further study in the fields of political
science and sociology of the changing forms of
collective action, the politics of the non-governmental,
the emergence of new democracies and the changing
contours of state-society relations. In social policy the
term has provided a lens through which to analyse
welfare services provision, social exclusion and
volunteerism. In development theory, policy and
practice, the resurgence of interest in civil society has
contributed to a paradigmatic shift in thinking away
from a dualistic, ideologically informed fixation with
the state versus the market towards a new triadic
paradigm embracing civil society, state and the
market (Howell and Pearce 2001). This triadic model
in turn has not only informed debate around
governance, poverty reduction, participation, and
policy influence but has also led to the creation of
specific programmes aimed at fostering civil society
in aid-recipient contexts, with the effect of gradually
depoliticising the term1. For law academics and
practitioners the resurgence of interest in civil society
has focussed attention on the legal and regulatory
regimes shaping state relations with non-governmental
actors. In international relations the arrival of the idea
of civil society and the growing presence of global non-governmental
actors have undermined the dominant
focus on nation-states, multilateral institutions and
international regimes, and prised open the concept of
global governance (Kaldor 2003).
Nevertheless, it is curious that there has been so
little interrogation of the relationship between gender
and civil society, within either feminist or civil society
theories2. This is surprising not only because each set
of theories would have much to gain from the other in
terms of theorisation and practical knowledge but
also because organising around gender relations can
constitute in different historical and cultural contexts
a significant part of actually existing civil societies. This
chapter addresses this lacuna. It begins by laying out
the reasons for promoting a closer encounter between
gender and civil society theory. It then explores what
this would mean for the way in which civil society and
gender are theorised and conceptualised. In particular,
it develops a framework for conceptualising gender and
civil society that highlights the interconnectedness of
sites of power and the constant flow of socially con-structed
male and female bodies through a circuit of
gender relations. Finally, we map out the practical and
theoretical issues that deserve further investigation
and action.
GENDER
I am very grateful for the immensely helpful discussion of earlier
drafts of this chapter at two workshops on gender and civil society
held at the LSE, in November 2004 and February 2005. Participants
at this workshop included Bakin Babajanian Christine Chinkin,
Judy El-Bushra, Marlies Glasius, Khadijah Fancy, Marlies Glasius,
Armine Ishkanian, Ruth Jacobson, Mary Kaldor, Ulla-Brit Lilleaas,
Nisrine Mansour, Diane Perrons, Hakan Seckinelgin, Victor Seidler,
Purna Sen, Judith Squires, and Karen Wright. Their lively and
reflective engagement with the earlier draft and their insightful
comments have helped to move this chapter forwards.
2 3
5. GENDER
11
Gender
One of the battlefields between the two movements was the term ‘gender’ itself. The Women’s Caucus argued
that ‘(i)t is precisely because the vast majority of laws, legal instruments and institutions have been created
without a gender perspective that the everyday violations of women’s human rights are invisible to the law and
the most atrocious violations have been rendered trivial’ (Facio: 1997). Pro-family groups objected to the use of
the term ‘gender’ anywhere in the Statute because it might ‘provide protection for “other genders” including
homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered, etc’ (REAL Women of Canada 1998).
After protracted negotiations, the following definition of gender was agreed: ‘the term gender refers to the
two sexes, male and female, within the context of society. The term gender does not indicate any meaning
different from the above.’ The Australian coordinator of these negotiations later wrote:
While the Statute’s definition of ‘gender’ appears, on its face, to be rather unusual (with the tautological second
part of the definition), it represents the culmination of hard-fought negotiations that managed to produce language
acceptable to delegations on both sides of the debate. At the end of the day, it was the only definition of ‘gender’
to which the Arab states and others were willing to agree. At the same time, the reference to ‘within the context
of society’ satisfied those delegations that wanted the definition to encapsulate the broader sociological aspects
of the term, along the lines of earlier definitions. (Steains 1999: 374–5)
Forced pregnancy
The second, even more contentious, issue was whether to criminalise ‘forced pregnancy’: the practice, which
first emerged in Bosnia, of raping a woman with a view to impregnating her, and then forcing her to carry the
baby to full term. Pro-family groups joined the Vatican in voicing objections to the inclusion of forced pregnancy
as a war crime, calling it a ‘code word for criminalizing any denial of access to abortion’ (C-FAM 1998).
Proponents of the clause, including many Western states, but also conflict states like Bosnia and Rwanda and
Muslim states such as Azerbaijan and Turkey, argued that it was meant to codify a terrible crime, such as
witnessed in Bosnia, and had nothing to do with viewpoints on abortion (Steains 1999: 366). The definition that
came out of these negotiations in the final week of the conference was as follows: ‘the unlawful confinement
of a woman forcibly made pregnant, with the intent of affecting the ethnic composition of any population or
carrying out other grave violations of international law. This definition shall not in any way be interpreted as
affecting national laws relating to pregnancy.’ The second sentence was clearly inserted to protect the anti-abortion
laws of the objecting countries (Steains 1999: 366–8)
Conclusion
As a result of the compromises reached on the definition of gender and on forced pregnancy, the Women’s Caucus
and the pro-family groups could both claim victory. A few conclusions can be drawn from this case study. First
of all, it has demonstrated that, despite the poisonous relations between the two groups, it was actually possible
for the confrontation between different understandings of gender to produce mutually satisfactory outcomes.
Second, there is a pervading sense in the women’s movement generally that those who work on gender
concerns are necessarily disadvantaged and marginalised. This sense of being the underdog, undoubtedly
justified in many local, national and international settings, should not be assumed to be applicable to every
situation. The Women’s Caucus did not, in fact, meet with intense opposition from many representatives; it
met with intense opposition from very few representatives. Despite their close links with the Vatican, it was,
in fact, the pro-family groups that were marginalised at this particular forum.
Finally, it suggests that excluding ‘conservatives’ and ‘fundamentalists’ from global decision-making forums
is short-sighted from both a moral and a strategic perspective. Global civil society should not be understood
as the exclusive domain of ‘progressive’ human rights, environmental, social justice and women’s rights activists.
It is a space shared with conservatives, anti-abortionists, and religious fundamentalists. Global civil society is
populated by actors with strongly held values, but these strongly held values are not all the same. Plurality and
even discord are part and parcel of global civil society. The United Nations, although more in some parts than
in others, has in recent years explicitly embraced the notion that civil society participation is one of the elements
of its legitimacy. But if we believe that there is such a right to participate or interact, then excluding certain types
of groups from participation would infringe this right. If women’s groups have a right to be active at forums such
as the ICC negotiations, and they have fought hard for that right, then so do pro-family groups.
See Glasius (2004; 2005) for a more extensive treatment of the gender component of the negotiations on the
Statute for an International Criminal Court.
Marlies Glasius, Centre for the Study of Global Governance and Centre for Civil Society, LSE
GENDER 10
Box 1.2: Confrontations over ‘gender’ at the global level: the ICC negotiations
While confrontations between women and patriarchal power-holders are as old as the hills, national policy
debates about sexuality and birth control in particular emerged in the West with the second generation of
women’s movements in the 1960s and 1970s. The issue of abortion became the prime matter of controversy,
especially in the United States. But at the global level, within United Nations fora, feminist women’s groups
still tend to be collectively considered as the sole representatives of women’s concerns. Some ‘pro-family
groups’ explicitly question this notion. Realistic Active for Life (REAL) Women of Canada, for instance, argues:
‘No one organization or ideology can represent the views of all women any more than any one organization
can represent the views of all men. Until the formation of REAL Women of Canada, there was no voice to
represent the views of those many thousands of women who take a different point of view from that of the
established feminist groups’ (REAL Women URL).
Transnational debates over feminist priorities, and the eventual convergence of many women’s groups
around the issue of violence against women, have received ample academic consideration. Less attention has
been paid to the fact that pro-family groups, both Protestant and Catholic but always supported by a globally
oriented Catholic Church, have also come to form a transnational movement, which confronts the women’s
movement at every UN forum that has any relevance to sexual issues. (Some attention is paid to this movement
in Kulczycki, 1999, 25–8, and Keck and Sikkink, 1998: 189–91)
At the International Criminal Court (ICC) negotiations, the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice was formed
in 1997 on the initiative of a small group of women’s rights activists who realised that, without a much greater
effort, gender concerns were not going to be adequately represented in the negotiations. The caucus quickly grew
to be a coalition within a coalition, with hundreds of member organisations by the time of the Rome conference.
The Women’s Caucus was highly visible in Rome: it had between 12 and 15 people at Rome at all times. The
delegation, moreover, included women from all parts of the world, including grass-roots activists as well as
experts on the ‘hard-core legal stuff’.
A pro-family group called the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, which has a permanent office at the
UN in New York and keeps a close eye on all UN processes that touch on its concerns, warned like-minded
organisations in late 1997 that ‘the strong presence of many feminist NGOs in the preparation for the upcoming
ICC conference’ should be of concern to pro-family activists (C-FAM 1997).
Relations between the two groups of activists present at the final ICC negotiations in Rome in June/July 1998
can be described as hostile, even vitriolic. Members of the Women’s Caucus have described the involvement of
the opposition as an ‘intense and sustained attack by an alliance of religious fundamentalists and conservative
organisations’ (Oosterveld 1999: 39), ‘intent on undermining the Court’s ability to appropriately address sexual
and gender crimes’, by making ‘misleading linkages’ (Bedont and Hall Martinez 1999: 67). The pro-family groups
usually referred to the opposition simply as ‘feminists’ or ‘radical feminists’ (probably a swearword in their circles),
but occasionally they became more venomous: one article, for instance, claimed that a Canadian Women’s
Caucus member was being referred to as ‘the snake’ behind her back (REAL Women 1998), while another
referred to the women’s groups as the ‘anti-life, anti-family movement’.
The Women’s Caucus had very good relations with Australia, Bosnia, Canada, Costa Rica, Mexico, the
Netherlands, Sweden, European countries generally, and South Africa. This list is particularly formidable
because it includes the two countries chairing the negotiations (first the Netherlands and later Canada) and
the country chairing the special negotiations on gender issues (Australia). One person from the Women’s
Caucus (the ‘snake’) became a member of the Canadian state delegation; another went on the delegation of
Costa Rica. All this suggests that there was a strong overlap in values and aspirations between the Women’s
Caucus and the so-called Like-Minded Group of states which drove the negotiations. The pro-family groups,
in contrast, were tolerated by states and NGOs, but not exactly welcomed. Most NGOs and many state delegates
greeted them with irritation and hostility. The Australian delegate who chaired negotiations on gender issues,
for instance, called their lobbying an ‘unfortunate departure from the generally constructive role played by
NGOs throughout the Conference’ (Steains 1999: 368). However, they also had some very strong state allies,
particularly in the Vatican and to a lesser extent other Catholic and Arab countries.
9. children and inheritance. Men, however, spoke of women’s violation of cultural taboos by bringing ‘private’
issues into the public domain. There had been a backlash and younger wives had taken the brunt; women had
been beaten as a direct result of spending their time in meetings rather than on domestic work. The divorce
rate had increased as a consequence.
Gender orders also impose costs and risks on men. This is most evident in homophobic violence, but there can
be other strong social pressures. NGOs working on health and reproduction with men in Latin America note that:
Peers are often reported to be an obstacle to change. A man who is changing his life is a threat to other men,
who will criticise or ridicule him as unmanly, as dominated by his wife (‘his chicken orders him around’) or a
sissy…. this occurs with problems like alcoholism or violence, and also in the reproductive decision making
around vasectomy…(De Keijzer 2004: 38)
It is evident from the continuing levels of activism that these risks are negotiable – the Angolan women
did not withdraw from the organisation, and the Latin America men drew on humour to defuse the criticism.
Nevertheless, a gendered approach to civil society activism demands that costs and risks are taken into
account, both conceptually in policy and in implementation.
Dr Ruth Jacobson, Peace Studies, Bradford University
19 GENDER 18
GENDER
Box 1.3: The costs and risks of being ‘out of place’
The expansion in the scale and impact of civil society activism to improve women’s status at the global
level is beyond dispute. The year 2005 marks the tenth anniversary of the UN’s Women’s Conference in Beijing.
As Mary Kaldor (2003: 96) notes, the conference was grounded in intensive and preparatory research and
reflection at the global, regional, national and local levels. Another milestone at the global level has been the
2000 UN Security Council’s Resolution 1325 on the necessity of integrating gender concerns into the entire
range of peacekeeping operations, peace negotiations, and their aftermath. These are just some examples
of the unprecedented level of activity of global civic networks working together towards an emancipatory
transformation of women’s status. The activity encompasses and cuts across the fields of academic research,
political activism, policy formulation, socio-economic development, humanitarian action, conflict analysis,
peacekeeping and peace-building.
In the face of these achievements, it becomes increasingly difficult to deny women the capacity for significant
agency in their own right rather than as dependents of men, and this is correctly represented in current accounts.
However, there remain some underdeveloped areas. Some literature on women’s campaigns tends to emphasise
their transformational content while overlooking the costs and risks incurred by the participants. As the present
chapter demonstrates, feminist political scholarship about the public-private divide has produced substantial
evidence that the parameters of ‘the public’ have always been gendered in the West. The public sphere is
represented as the sphere of rationality and intellect while the domestic sphere has been designated a sphere
of emotion, passion, non-rationality and nature. Historically, ‘women’s place’ has been confined to the private/
family sphere, and attempts to claim public space, such as the suffrage movement, met with ridicule and
sometimes harsher measures.
Women’s entry into waged labour and formal political representation in the ‘developed’ world and some areas
of the former Third World have indisputably shifted the public-private boundaries significantly, but not to the
extent of making gender irrelevant. Time-use surveys in both industrial and developing societies consistently
find that women continue to bear a heavier proportion of the burden of domestic and caring work regardless
of other wage/income earning activities. As a result, when women participate in civil society initiatives, they
incur time costs. These kinds of cost may be particularly demanding in the post-colonial nations of the global
South where the withdrawal of state services has confined the rich collective activities of indigenous women’s
organisations to a narrower area of service delivery.
Research from the field also points up the significance of local gender orders – that is, the dynamic process
of symbolic and material representations of gender relations institutionalised through practices at the micro,
meso and macro levels of the political economy and reproduction. In some settings, this gender order operates
strong social sanctions to maintain the boundaries around ‘women’s place’. Evaluators of a community-based
water project in Angola observed that there was a majority of women on the Water Committee, but:
We asked these women during the meeting whether they wanted to add anything to what the male members had
said on their behalf. They replied that they agreed with everything that had been said and that they didn’t think it
was necessary to repeat information which had been correctly presented by the men. On the occasions when the
soba (the local traditional leader) was present at these meetings, the timidity and modesty with which the women
made any contribution was noticeable, which was the contrary of what happened when meetings were made up
only of women. (Jacobson and Perreira 2001)
Other projects in Angola set out to make a space for women and men of different generations which would
allow the less powerful to speak about community priorities. Older women chose a song to convey their views,
which condemned husbands who spent women’s hard-earned money on alcohol, gambling and women. Younger
women began to speak out against domestic violence and control over their movements. Men fought back,
accusing the younger women of washing dirty linen in public. In a review eight months later, women declared
their pride at gaining greater access to legal representation in cases of domestic violence, maintenance of
12. Fifth, at the theoretical level there is work to be done
on reviewing the gendered nature of the concept of
civil society as used in Western political thought, and
similar concepts used in other traditions, to unmask
the gendered assumptions underlying the distinction
between family and civil society, and to query the
boundedness and autonomy of spheres and concepts.
the start of a dialogue between civil society
and feminist theories should not only enrich
knowledge in boht fields but strengthen the
effectiveness of practical feminist strategies
to bring about changes in gender relations
Sixth, accounts of women’s organising need to take
on board the increasingly global set of players engaging
with national and local civil societies. In particular
there is room for further research into the role of
international donor agencies, global networks and
international women’s coalitions on the development
of women’s organisations in different contexts. To what
extent do international donor agencies reproduce
‘Western’ understandings of the public-private
divide20, of civil society and of gender relations in their
support to women’s groups in aid-recipient contexts?
What is the impact of major international events such
as UN Conferences on Women on discourses,
agendas, frameworks and practices in different
contexts? In what ways do global women’s coalitions
and organisations set gender agendas, contribute to
processes of change at global and national levels, and
frame debates on issues such as domestic violence
and genital mutilation?
Finally, at the practical level a number of challenges
need to be addressed in creative and productive ways.
How do we evaluate the professionalisation or NGO-isation
of women’s organising and gender issues in
post-transition contexts? How do we deal with
contestation among groups of women with different
gender ideologies, values and politics? Who should
mediate these struggles and how? How can feminist
activists bring men into debates around gender
relations, and where should a deeper engagement
begin? Where should feminists seek allies among
men’s organisations, and how should they analyse
these? What kind of global organising by women
around gender issues is most effective, and why? How
can groups concerned about gender issues persuade
other actors in civil society who perceive gender to be
marginal to their primary interests to reflect critically
upon gender issues both within their organisations
and in relation to the issues they are battling for? And
how can we reduce the risks to women and to
subaltern gender identities of traversing the four
interconnected sites of power?
This may be an ambitious agenda. However, the
start of a dialogue between civil society and feminist
theorists should not only enrich knowledge in both
fields but also strengthen the effectiveness of practical
feminist strategies to bring about changes in gender
relations. For civil society activists, too, there is a need
for a moment of reflection and probing if the arena of
civil society is to serve as an emancipatory terrain for
both men and women.
GENDER
25
20 I am grateful to Hakan Seckinelgin for this comment on
donors and the public-private divide.
GENDER 24
Looking ahead
The failure of researchers in the fields of civil society
and gender to engage in a serious dialogue with one
another, for all the reasons given above, has affected
the development of theory, the formation of concepts,
the state of empirical knowledge, and the design of
practical strategies of emancipation. Much remains to
be done. Armed with a sharper set of conceptual tools,
we start to identify an agenda for future research,
debate and critical reflection.
First, there is a huge gap in the literature concerning
the gendered composition of civil society, the gendered
norms and practices prevailing among civil society
organisations, and the barriers to the participation of
not only women in civil society but also some men.
There is no systematic, comprehensive disaggregated
data available on the gendered make-up of civil society.
How many male-dominated or female-dominated
associations are there, and what kinds of issues,
sectors or activities are these associated with? What
do we mean by a gender-based organisation? What is
the gender distribution of different kinds of formal and
informal organisation? What percentage of volunteers
and employees are women, and how does this vary
across time, country context and sector? How do we
explain the predominance of men or women in
particular types of groups? What proportion of
directors, trustees and managers of civil society
organisations are male, and why are women under- or
over-represented in different country contexts or at
the global level? How has this changed over time?
What legal or regulatory mechanisms facilitate the
exclusion or inclusion of many women and some men
from participating in civil society? Through what
gendered norms and practices, such as the lack of
childcare facilities or the times of meetings, are
women effectively excluded from taking part in
different civil society groups? How do gender relations
within the household affect the way women participate
and organise, be it in women’s organisations or other
kinds of civil society groups? Although some of these
questions have been broached in relation to state
institutions and formal politics, their application to the
realm of civil society requires systematic attention
and research.
Second, there is a need for further empirical studies
and theoretical work to describe and explain the
distinctiveness of men and women’s organising. In
what ways does women’s organising differ from men’s?
How does organising by women around women’s rights
differ from that of human rights groups, business asso-ciations,
trades unions, or professional associations?
What unique material, psychological and discursive
resources do men and women deploy to promote their
agendas? What kinds of organisational forms are best
disposed to advance gender issues in state policy? To
what extent are the internal ways of organising and
leadership different in women’s organisations from
men’s organisations and other civil society
organisations? Do women do politics differently from
men and, if so, in what ways and with what effects?
(See Box 1.5.)
Third, there is a need to theorise further the inter-connectedness
of different spheres and the flow of
gendered discourses, practices and norms within and
between spheres. Why is it that activism in local civil
societies and social movements tends to provide a
springboard for men into formal politics but less so
for women? How does state policy on gender alter
gender relations in civil society, and why is it that the
state has proved better than civil society at absorbing
demands for and the language of gender equality, as
reflected in the UN Millennium Development goals
and CEDAW? How do gendered norms and practices
within the family reverberate through state
institutions and civil society? To what extent do
theories of power or gender relations or civil society
illuminate these processes?
Fourth, the concept of civil society needs to be
disaggregated into not only different types of
organisations with divergent ideological and political
predilections but also into individuals, structured by
societal divisions such as class, gender, and ethnicity.
The focus within civil society studies on organisations19
as well as the tendency to reduce ‘civil society’ to a
singular actor and voice has analytically steered the
gaze away from the constituent individuals who come
together in the spaces of civil society. Similarly,
although many feminist theorists cautiously refer to
‘feminisms’, in the plural, there is still a tendency to
work with aggregate notions of ‘the women’s
movement’, which can mask rather than reveal the
ideological nuances among women’s groups.
19 I am grateful to Karen Wright for this observation about the
focus on organisations.
