| Gender ideologies are an important yet understudied feature shaping social change in America. In the following dissertation project, I analyze the social processes through which gender is constructed and reproduced in the U.S. breast cancer movement in comparison to those in the anti-sexual violence movement. Though prior sociological research finds that gender matters to social movements and activism, this research builds from the identification of gender as important to show how gender matters. Findings are based on over three years of ethnographic research, a period during which I conducted on-going participant observation at two social movement organizations and three activist/advocacy conferences. In addition to my intensive participation at these locations, I completed formal and informal interviews with over sixty social movement participants and analyze movement brochures, flyers, photographs, news articles, and other memorabilia collected during my years of participation. My analysis reveals contradictions as an inherent feature of social movements, social movement organizations, and participation within movements. In the chapters that follow, I analyze the causes and consequences of these contradictions. Specifically, I show that gendered constructions of social change shape the extent to which women are thought of, and think of themselves, as political actors and as fully participating members of society. I also find that narrow conceptions of politics keep women's activist and volunteer efforts invisible---out of view from those with whom such groups might form alliances, out of view from potential beneficiaries of women's activist and volunteer efforts, and out of view from critics who argue that Americans' concern for others has disappeared. This work contributes to literatures in the sociology of gender, social movements, and public and political participation. |
