From Transactional to Transformational: 'The Fund' and Reproductive Justice as Revolution

• In Event: 474 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 16. Movement Outcomes

Abstract

Why has the contemporary feminist movement surrounding abortion and reproduction seen divergent outcomes in organizational practices, despite similar origins? How have reproductive justice organizations maintained radical politics, and why did they diverge from the institutionalization of mainstream feminism in reproductive rights organizations? This study focuses on the historical arc and unique outcome of The Fund, which has transformed from a reproductive rights organization into a reproductive justice one, and subverted the iron law of oligarchy (Michels 1915) and deradicalization (Piven & Cloward 1979) by institutionalizing radical politics. This work tests canonical social movement literature against contemporary intersections of identity and oppression in social movement organizing, utilizing intersectionality (Davis 1983; Crenshaw 1991)and Black feminist epistemology (Collins 2009) literatures to explain the lived realities of activists and organizers in the reproductive justice movement. This paper argues that reproductive justice praxis and movements are a break from what hooks (2015) named the "classical feminist impasse," and are means by which to create a "liberatory ideology" and "make a conscious break from the system" of institutionalization and deradicalization seen in mainstream feminist organizing (ibid).

Author

• Meghan Daniel, University of Illinois at Chicago