The women’s cause in a field: rethinking the architecture of collective protest in the era of movement institutionalization

TLDR: In this paper, the concept of women's cause field is introduced, which refers to the relational structure of groups mostly devoted to the advancement of women in a variety of social settings, cutting across the line between civil society and political institutions.

Abstract: This article introduces the concept of women’s cause field, which refers to the relational structure of groups mostly devoted to the advancement of women in a variety of social settings, cutting across the line between civil society and political institutions. Unlike the women’s movement, the women’s cause field encompasses a set of both extra-institutional and intra-institutional mobilizing structures. This concept expands on scholarship on institutional activism, and on field and network theory. Beyond the case of the women’s movement, it provides a new framework – the notion of cause field – to capture the architecture of specialized collective protest in the era of movement institutionalization, distinct from, and complementary to, the concept of social movement.

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The women’s cause in a eld: rethinking the
architecture of collective protest in the era of movement
institutionalization
Laure Bereni
To cite this version:
Laure Bereni. The women’s cause in a eld: rethinking the architecture of collective protest in the
era of movement institutionalization. Social Movement Studies, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 2021,
Special Issue: Conceptualizing the Context of Collective Action: Field, Space, Arena, 20 (2), pp.208-
223. �10.1080/14742837.2019.1679107�. �halshs-02324536�

Laure BERENI, 2019, “The women’s cause in a field…”, Social Movement Studies.
1
The women’s cause in a field: rethinking the architecture of
collective protest in the era of movement institutionalization
Laure Bereni
CNRS-Centre Maurice Halbwachs, Paris, France.
Published online in SOCIAL MOVEMENT STUDIES, 21 Oct. 2019.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14742837.2019.1679107
Abstract:
This article introduces the concept of women’s cause field, which refers to the relational
structure of groups mostly devoted to the advancement of women in a variety of social
settings, cutting across the line between civil society and political institutions. Unlike the
women’s movement, the women’s cause field encompasses a set of both extra-
institutional and intra-institutional mobilizing structures. This concept expands on
scholarship on institutional activism, and on field and network theory. Beyond the case of
the women’s movement, it provides a new framework – the notion of cause field – to
capture the architecture of specialized collective protest in the era of movement
institutionalization, distinct from, and complementary to, the concept of social movement.
Keywords:
Women’s movement; feminism; field theory; institutional activism; collective protest

Laure BERENI, 2019, “The women’s cause in a field…”, Social Movement Studies.
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In the past 20 years, definitional debates over the concept of social movement have been
at the center of social movement theory. The classical, political process view of social
movements as ‘rational attempts by excluded groups to mobilize sufficient political
leverage to advance collective interests through noninstitutionalized means’ (McAdam,
1982, p. 20) has been discarded for being too narrow and rigid. After the protest cycle
of the 1960s and 1970s, social movements in many Western Democracies have become
increasingly institutionalized, as they have borrowed the organizational and action
repertoires that used to be the distinctive feature of established polity members, and as
their ideas and actors have entered policy-making arenas (Armstrong & Bernstein,
2008; Banaszak, 2010; Giugni & Passy, 1998; Katzenstein, 1998a; Meyer & Tarrow,
1998; Rootes, 1999). Distinctions between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’, ‘incumbents’ and
‘challengers’, as well as between ‘institutional’ and ‘non-institutional’ politics, have
become increasingly fuzzy. Moreover, it has been acknowledged that social movements
target a wide range of institutions and cultural norms, beyond State authorities. In this
context, one of the challenges encountered by social movement scholars has been to
provide a definition of social movements that could be wide and flexible enough to
account for the ‘diversity of contemporary change efforts’ (Armstrong & Bernstein,
2008, p. 75) without diluting the analytical distinction between protest politics and
‘politics as usual’. While it has been increasingly difficult to associate social
movements with distinctive discourses, repertoires of action, or targets (Fillieule, 2009),
they have remained equated with a set of actors (often referred to as Social Movement
Organizations, SMOs) located outside of political institutions. Following a consensual
definition in the field, the concept of social movement refers to a set of “collectivities
acting with some degree of organization and continuity outside of institutional and
organizational channels [my emphasis] for the purpose of challenging or defending
extant authority” (Snow, Soule, Kriesi, & McCammon, 2018, p. 10). Whereas a series
of works have addressed institutional activism, they have mainly remained centered on
dynamics internal to institutions (Banaszak, 2010; Briscoe & Gupta, 2016; Eisenstein,
1995; Pettinicchio, 2012; Santoro & McGuire, 1997; Sawer, 1990). A category that
would capture a structure of collective protest that is fueled by both extra and intra-
institutional actors is still lacking.
It is this challenge that the concept of women’s cause field
1
seeks to address. As such it
offers a new framework to conceptualize the architecture of collective protest, which is

Laure BERENI, 2019, “The women’s cause in a field…”, Social Movement Studies.
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distinct from, and complementary to, the notion of social movement. The concept
weaves together two distinct bodies of literature: scholarship on intra-institutional
protest, which has particularly developed in the subfield of women’s movements and
feminism; and conceptualizations of social movements as relational structures – field
theory and network analysis. In bringing the focus on a configuration of collective
protest that spans across the movement/institution dividing line, it significantly expands
over both.
The women’s cause field refers to the relational structure of groups mostly devoted to
advancing women/challenging the gender order in a variety of social settings, cutting
across the line between civil society and political institutions. Unlike the women’s
movement, the women’s cause field encompasses a set of both extra-institutional and
intra-institutional collective actors. The term ‘women’s cause’ has a generic meaning:
far from designating a unique, unequivocal perspective and/or a single issue, the
women’s cause refers to a wide array of particular causes associated to the advancement
of women (gender violence, pay equity, sexual harassment, women’s political
representation…), and to a variety of (potentially conflicting) definitions of women’s
interests, beyond the self-identified ‘feminist’ movement (Ferree & Mueller, 2004).
Drawing mainly on Bourdieu’s definition of ‘social fields’ (1984), while integrating the
insights of other social movement theorists (Ancelovici, in this issue; Bourdieu, 1984;
Diani, 2003; Fligstein & McAdam, 2011, 2012; Mathieu, in this issue; Ray, 2000;
Staggenborg, 1998), I use the concept of field to emphasize the relational structure of
collective mobilizations converging around the women’s cause: i.e. the set of groups
that, in a given context, are primarily and explicitly dedicated to the goal of improving
the status of women and/or challenging the gender order. Like other social fields, the
women’s cause field is marked by competition and power relations, but also by a set of
social ties, common interests and shared understandings that can foster cooperation
among its members (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012; Hoffman, 1999; Mathieu, in this
issue). The women’s cause field combines the concept of field with insights from the
literature on intra-institutional protest. While social movement scholars using the
concept of field have generally left untouched the movement/institution line, the notion
of women’s cause field encompasses a set of mobilizing structures on both sides of this
divide, and that are themselves embedded in a diversity of fields: not only women’s
movement organizations and informal groups, but also women’s sections of political
parties (within the partisan field), women’s rights bureaucratic bodies (within the State

Laure BERENI, 2019, “The women’s cause in a field…”, Social Movement Studies.
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field), feminist academic networks and centers (within the academic field), women’s
business networks (within the business field), women’s cultural institutions such as
bookstores and festivals (within the cultural field), women’s sections within religious
institutions (within the religious field), etc.
The notion of women’s cause field was coined in a specific national context (France in
the 1990s) and associated with the study of a women’s movement campaign. However,
I argue that this framework can be productively mobilized to capture the architecture of
collective protest around other causes – extending the notion of women’s cause field to
that of cause field.
This article is divided into four sections. The first one quickly presents the case study
from which the concept of women’s cause field emerged. The second section details
how the concept expands on insights from scholarship on intra-institutional protest as
well as on fields and networks. The third section sketches out the distinctive features of
the women’s cause field. The last section delineates the main contributions of the
concept to social movement theory.
1.From case study to concept building: explaining the success of the
campaign for gender parity in France
The concept of women’s cause field initially emerged from a specific case study,
namely the campaign for gender ‘parity’ in political representation in France during the
1990s (Bereni 2007, 2015). In the beginning of the 1990s, a small network of women’s
groups started a campaign around the claim of ‘parity’ (parité), calling for a law that
would mandate ‘a strict numerical equality’ between the sexes ‘in all assemblies of the
nation’ (Gaspard, Le Gall, & Servan-Schreiber, 1992). Parity campaigners targeted
political parties, government leaders, and the media, engaging in a variety of activities,
such as demonstrations in front of the Parliament, petitions and manifestos, conferences
and public meetings, letter-writing campaigns, books and press articles, or women’s
only electoral lists. During the first years of the campaign, the success of the claim
appeared highly unlikely, because of the weaknesses of the movement (small size, sharp
internal divisions, lack of media attention…), and because of the strong legal,
intellectual, and political resistances it encountered, in a very male-dominated political
field (in the early 1990s, women accounted for 5% of the French Parliament). Yet,
within less than ten years, the claim of parity translated into a major institutional
reform, comprised of a constitutional amendment (1999) and a legislative statute (2000)

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What contributions have the authors mentioned in the paper "The women’s cause in a field: rethinking the architecture of collective protest in the era of movement institutionalization" ?

This article introduces the concept of women ’ s cause field, which refers to the relational structure of groups mostly devoted to the advancement of women in a variety of social settings, cutting across the line between civil society and political institutions. This concept expands on scholarship on institutional activism, and on field and network theory. Beyond the case of the women ’ s movement, it provides a new framework – the notion of cause field – to capture the architecture of specialized collective protest in the era of movement institutionalization, distinct from, and complementary to, the concept of social movement. 

Q2. What is the added value of the concept of women’s cause field?

The added value of the concept of women’s cause field is to bring institutional activism into a broader relational structure of collective protest, including both extrainstitutional and intra-institutional actors. 

Q3. What is the first mechanism of convergence?

The first mechanism of convergence lies in individuals’ multiple affiliations, which often cut across the lines between different poles and streams of the field. 

Q4. What is the role of institutions in the development of feminist activism?

In many instances, institutionalization does favor the development of moderate over radical definitions of feminism and trigger a process of depoliticization. 

Q5. What is the term ‘social movement institutionalization’?

Social movement institutionalization, which refers both to ‘the professionalization of their activities and [to] the regularization of their access to policy-makers’ (Rootes, 1999, p. 1), is commonly associated with co-option, deradicalization, ‘de-politicization’ (dilution of their conflictual dimension: see Thörn & Svenberg, 2016) and, eventually, fading. 

Q6. What are the main categories of organizations that are not primarily devoted to the women’s?

political and social movement organizations that are not primarily devoted to the women’s cause (such as parties, unions, or SMOs that are mainly devoted to other causes) are counted out. 

Q7. What is the meaning of ‘organizational habitats’?

Katzenstein’s concept of ‘organizational habitats’ refers to ‘spaces where women advocates of equality can assemble, where discussion can occur, and where the organizing for institutional change can originate.’ 

Q8. What is the value of the concept of women’s cause field?

I contend that the concept of women’s cause field could be productively extended to the study of other areas of specialized collective protest, through the more generic notion of cause field (environmental field, disability rights field, civil rights field, etc.). 

Q9. What is the role of institutions in the study of feminist activism?

As such, institutional settings have played the role of ‘abeyance structures’, by which ‘movements sustain themselves in nonreceptive political environments and provide continuity from one stage of mobilization to another.’ 

Q10. What are the different streams of the women’s cause field?

There are potentially as many (overlapping) streams as there are ideological ways to define women’s cause in a given context: socialist, liberal, radical, queer, etc. 

Q11. What is the definition of the women’s cause field?

It encompasses all mobilizing structures that, in a given historical context, explicitly speak on behalf of women and for women (Beckwith, 2000; Ferree & Mueller, 2004), meaning that: 1) women are the main participants and take the lead of the mobilization; 2)women, or the social figures that are associated to women (mothers, sisters, daughters…), are considered as the mobilization constituents; 3)the advancement of women’s ‘rights’, ‘status’, ‘condition’, etc., is placed at the core of the collective’sconcerns, even if the gender order is not frontally and fully challenged, and even if the label ‘feminist’ is not used. 

Q12. What is the meaning of ‘social movement institutionalization’?

As Giugni, McAdam and Tilly put it, ‘it may well be that, by thoroughly legitimating and institutionalizing protest, the western democracies will render it increasingly ineffective as a social-change vehicle’ (M. Giugni, McAdam, & Tilly, 1998, p. 233) – going back to the idea of a ‘movement becalmed’ (M. Zald & Ash, 1966). 

Q13. What is the role of feminist policy and women’s movement scholars in the debates on social?

Feminist policy and women’s movement scholars have been particularly central in challenging the widespread dichotomy between movements and institutions, as more and more feminist settings have proliferated within a variety of political institutions over the last decades. 

Q14. What is the role of the state feminism institutions in fostering convergence?

State feminism institutions, both at the national and international levels, have played an important role in fostering sites of convergence over the past thirty years (cf. the United Nations women’s conferences regularly held since 1975). 

Q15. What is the fourth critical contribution of this body of research?

A fourth critical contribution of this body of research has consisted in showing that there is no necessary link between institutionalization and deradicalization and/or depoliticization. 

Q16. What are the characteristics of the women’s cause field?

In certain historical contexts, under favorable circumstances that have been identified by social movement theory (coalition and framing work, political opportunities…), these mechanisms of convergence can give birth to cross-sectional campaigns around common women’s claims, involving various components of the women’s cause field – although not the whole field. 

Q17. Why is the women’s cause field fluid?

Because the women’s cause field is an ideal-typical category, its boundaries are fluid: there is an ongoing variation in the array of mobilizing structures that can be counted in or out of the field.