A young feminist new order: an exploration of why young feminists organise the way they do

ABSTRACT

This article draws on FRIDA/The Young Feminist Fund's experience of young feminist activism. It explores a range of examples from around the world of how young feminists are reinventing and building different institutions based on new cultures of leadership, greater emphasis on the collective, and more holistic compensation for activist work. These strategies are needed in a world where progressive activism for social justice is under fire: not only from right-wing movements, but also from development that is seen widely as apolitical, yet fails to challenge patriarchal elites who benefit from inequality and poverty.

Cet article s’inspire de l’expérience de FRIDA de l’activisme des jeunes féministes. Il examine une variété d’exemples provenant du monde entier de la manière dont les jeunes féministes réinventent et construisent différentes institutions sur la base de nouvelles cultures de leadership, d’un accent plus marqué sur la dimension collective et d’un dédommagement plus holistique pour le travail d’activisme. Ces stratégies sont requises dans un monde où l’activisme progressif en faveur de la justice sociale est menacé : non seulement par les mouvements de droite, mais aussi par un développement qui est largement perçu comme apolitique, mais qui échoue à mettre en question les élites patriarcales qui profitent de l’inégalité et de la pauvreté.

El presente artículo se fundamenta en la experiencia de frida en torno al activismo de jóvenes feministas. En este sentido, examina varios ejemplos tomados de distintas partes del mundo relativos a cómo las mismas están reinventando y construyendo distintas instituciones basadas en innovadoras culturas de liderazgo, un mayor acento en lo colectivo y una compensación más integral por el trabajo activista. Estas estrategias son necesarias en un mundo en que el activismo progresista en pro de la justicia social ha sido amenazado, no solo por movimientos derechistas sino también en el ámbito de desarrollo, que en general se considera apolítico aunque no impugna a las élites patriarcales que se benefician de la desigualdad y la pobreza.

KEYWORDS:

• Young feminist activism
• organising
• international development
• young women’s leadership
• non-government organisations (NGOs)

Acknowledgements

With thanks to our interviewees: Majandra Rodriguez Acha, TierrActiva, Peru; Akudo Oguaghamba, WHER, Nigeria; Channsitha Mark, United Sisterhood Alliance, Cambodia; Aizat Shakieva, Bishkek Feminist Initiative, Kyrgyzstan; and Marianna Szczygielska, RQAC, Hungary.

Notes on contributors

Devi Leiper O’Malley is a Co-Executive Director of FRIDA | The Young Feminist Fund. Postal address: FRIDA | The Young Feminist Fund, 215 Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5T 2C7. Email: [email protected]. Twitter: @devi_lo

Ruby Johnson is a Co-Executive Director of FRIDA | The Young Feminist Fund. Email: [email protected]. Twitter: @RubyAmeliaJ

Notes

1 See www.youngfeministfund.org.

2 ‘Gender mainstreaming’ was originally developed as an approach by feminists but its original radical political vision has been lost in translation to become a technical concern (Mannell 2012).

3 See http://grootskenya.org.

4 See https://bishkekfeminists.wordpress.com/.

5 See https://tierractiva.pe/.

6 See https://whernigeria.org/.

7 Manifestx is a gender-neutral spelling of ‘manifesto’ or ‘manifesta’. FRIDA's Happiness Manifestx will be publically available by the end of 2018.

8 See www.unitedsisterhood.org/.

9 By ‘strategy mining’ we mean ‘outsiders’ extracting information about different strategies used by another organisation, group, or individual – who may not have formally written down their strategy, but rather have naturally come to practise the strategy regularly over time through their inherent knowledge of their community. This is problematic when outsiders do so without transparency and equal understanding from the group that holds the strategy and credit is not given. In most extreme cases, we see this happening by larger, more resourced and privileged institutions in the global North, who do not involve global South activists and institutions in developing the formal articulation of these strategies.

10 See https://thousandcurrents.org/.

11 See https://novofoundation.org/radicalhope/.

12 See https://thewhitmaninstitute.org/.