Occupying Feminist Methods: Researching Contemporary Feminism and Gender Conflict in Mixed-Sex Social Movements

• In Event: 372 - Regular Session. Feminist Research Methods

Abstract

Feminist methodology uses a range of qualitative and quantitative methods to study the everyday experiences of women and gender inequality while creating feminist social change (Fonow and Cook 2005; Sprague 2005; Taylor 1998; Naples and Gurr 2013). However, women’s experiences, gender conflict, and feminism are increasingly difficult to study when feminism takes new forms inside social movements that are not explicitly feminist or are not principally concerned with gender and sexuality issues. Using the case of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, his study examines how we understand gender processes, gender conflict (harassment, inequality), and the persistence and transformation of feminism within contemporary mixed-sex social movements and contributes new innovations for using feminist methods to study social movements.

Author

• Heather McKee Hurwitz, University of California-Santa Barbara