丁香园AV

Social justice movements play an important role in creating policy reforms and shifting social norms, but often face conflicts that mirror broader social struggles for equality and liberation. Social movements are often criticized for playing 鈥渋dentity politics鈥� by emphasizing group marginalization and oppression, which commentators say lead to fragmentation within social movements which weakens them. However, emerging research is challenging this assumption.

Laurel Weldon, Distinguished Professor of political science at 丁香园AV, is showing that emphasizing differences actually strengthens social movements and can ensure a movement鈥檚 persistence in the long run. Weldon is an internationally recognized scholar of gender, social movements and public policy who uses advanced statistical analyses of original datasets combined with field work in her research to show how and when women鈥檚 movements prompt government action to advance women鈥檚 rights.

With funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Weldon鈥檚 team created a database of more than 8 million tweets using the #blacklivesmatter and #sayhername hashtags over the period from May 2015 to April 2016.

Weldon wanted to investigate how the #sayhername campaign, which called attention to the intersectional marginalization of Black women, impacted the broader #blacklivesmatter social movement. Applying network analysis to map engagement between the two movements revealed that the emergence of #sayhername increased engagement in the #blacklivesmatter movement. This showed that emphasizing differences does not lead to divided and weakened social movements. Difference is what strengthens social movements and encourages more active participation.

Just as with her past work, Weldon has established the importance of women鈥檚 movements in shaping women鈥檚 human rights, especially in the area of violence against women. Her book The Logics of Gender Justice: State Action on Women鈥檚 Rights Around the World broke new ground in the analyses and dataset on women鈥檚 rights and associated movements.

Social movements give voice to the marginalized and disenfranchised people of the world and offer pathways to political representation. Movements like #sayhername bring to the forefront opportunities and challenges of advancing women鈥檚 rights in our modern age. That is why Weldon鈥檚 work is as important as ever.

鈥淲omen鈥檚 rights are so important, not just because they鈥檙e human rights, but also because they are critical for developing strong democracies, economies and families,鈥� Weldon says. "Identifying patterns in movements like #blacklivesmatter helps us understand why governments sometimes seem to support significant advances in women鈥檚 rights in some areas, while rolling them back or failing to advance them in others.鈥�

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