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This manuscript examines the use of corporate women's groups to achieve a more level organizational playing field. It first reviews the literature on the use of such groups to bring about change, considering such topics as the origins, purposes, membership, structure, and benefits of such groups to women and to their organizations. Then three ongoing case studies of such groups are summarized Corporate women's groups face some unique challenges in changing organizations as a result of their bottom‐up approach to change.

In 1920 Margaret Sanger called voluntary motherhood “the key to the temple of liberty” and noted that women were “rising in fundamental revolt” to claim their right to determine their own reproductive fate (Rothman, 2000, p. 73). Decades later Barbara Katz Rothman reflected on the social, political and legal changes produced by reproductive-rights feminists since that time. She wrote: So the reproductive-rights feminists of the 1970s won, and abortion is available – just as the reproductive-rights feminists of the 1920s won, and contraception is available. But in another sense, we did not win. We did not win, could not win, because Sanger was right. What we really wanted was the fundamental revolt, the “key to the temple of liberty.” A doctor’s fitting for a diaphragm, or a clinic appointment for an abortion, is not the revolution. It is not even a woman-centered approach to reproduction (2000, p. 79).

Resistances of Nongovernmental Organizations (NGO) to the construction of gendered religious nationalism are addressed. The implications of such resistances and redefinitions of gendered religious nationalism for the women’s movement in India and transnationally are also assessed.

Semi-structured interviews with leaders and/or key informants of purposively selected organizations in the state of Gujarat serve as the primary data for the chapter. Using a grounded theory approach, the study is a qualitative analysis of the interviews and a reading of major published documents, unpublished reports, and internal reports of the NGOs that were made available.

The analysis discerns three main frames deployed by NGOs in resisting attempts by the state to construct nationalism: Communal Harmony (Not Communal Violence), “Endangered” Woman and Gender Mainstreaming. The “communal harmony, not communal violence” frame views women as an ungendered part of their communities. Although women are made central to the religious violence and struggle, they are viewed as passive persons without rights. This passive frame is the “endangered woman” frame. But women’s groups and NGOs addressing the violence have actively sought to emphasize the gender aspect of all formal and informal political activities. This is the “gender mainstreaming” frame. However, the mere visibility of women in political discourse should not be confused with the feminist framing of women’s rights or mainstreaming women’s issues.

The analysis brings an organizational agency perspective to consider resistance to the gendered basis of the violence perpetrated and embedded in nationalism.

Purpose: The purpose of this chapter is to examine women’s college alumnae’s gender panics surrounding transgender admittance policies and negotiations on how to define the boundaries of the alumnae community in moments of these panics.

Methodology/Approach: I explore these negotiations by conducting a modified grounded theory approach of online discussion threads of one women’s college alumnae Facebook group from 2013 to 2016. These threads (39 threads; 2,812 comments) discuss transgender admissions policies at women’s colleges and the definition of woman more broadly.

Findings: I outline three strategies that define who belongs to a women’s college community in response to peers’ gender panics. First, I discuss the ways in which alumnae “call out hate” and label exclusionary peers as Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFS). Second, I discuss the negotiated boundaries of who is included within the women’s college community. Finally, I focus on the recommended suggestions and expectations for fellow alumnae to be allies toward their trans peers.

Social Implications: These findings imply that feminist boundary negotiation is not only simply based on external threats, but can also be debated among members within the community.

Originality/Value of Study: This study highlights the nuances and strategies of boundary construction in regards to the social category of woman. I propose that researchers expand theorizations of gendered boundary negotiation to consider the ways in which boundaries are drawn not only as a form of panic and exclusion but also as a response to such panics to promote inclusivity and diversity.

Since the 19th century, peace movements have consistently called on women to oppose war based on their roles as mothers and citizens. The women's rights and women's peace groups that participated in the anti-war movement of the 2000s continue this pattern drawing on both maternalist and egalitarian frames in their mobilizations. This chapter seeks to understand the forces that shape individual perceptions of the persuasiveness of these frames using face-to-face survey data collected at three 2004 demonstrations. The analyses show that different frames appeal to people with different levels of movement experience. The maternalism frame is negatively correlated with social movement experience and the egalitarian feminist frame is positively correlated. I extrapolate from this finding that that the maternalism frame may serve as a recruitment frame and that the egalitarian frame may serve as a retention frame. The conclusion theorizes that rather than thinking of women's groups that use different framing in oppositional contexts, it may be useful to think of the two sets of social movement organizations as working together in a symbiotic relationship that draws in new participants and maintains existing adherents through the use of distinctly different frames. This paper applies social movement framing theory in two unconventional ways: (1) it focuses on framing reception and the way that frames link individuals with organizations; (2) it encourages social movement scholars to think about the relationship between different frames within a broader movement and proposes an alternate conception of frame competition.

Purpose and approach – This research explores gender and gender inequality in representation in state legislatures among African Americans, Hispanics, and white Americans. Using 10 states with the largest concentrations of African Americans in the population and 10 with the largest concentrations of Hispanics in 2003, a parity index was used to compare each race/sex group's share of each state's population with that group's share of seats in the state legislature. Parity ratios were also constructed for white women and white men in both sets of states.

Findings – White men dominate all the state legislatures surveyed here; white women are severely underrepresented as are Black women, Hispanic women, and Hispanic men. Black men are slightly but not greatly underrepresented in political office in these states. A consistent pattern is that the higher the representation of any group of males, the greater is the gap between women and men.

For Black and white women in both sets of states, having a high proportion of women who are college graduates, who are employed, and who work as managers or professionals and garner larger earnings increases their chances for election, but this pattern is not observed among Hispanic women.

Implications – These findings are significant because they bring together previously disparate insights from political science and sociology; highlight differences between women and men and among people from different ethnic groups; and reveal the importance of an intersectional approach for understanding the representation of diverse groups in political office.

What are UK women's groups like? Who do they appeal to? How do they compare with each other?

Bosnia-Herzegovina has recovered slowly from the war of 1992–1995 partly due to the fact that the Dayton Accord that ended the war created a consociational state segmented by the three majority ethnic and religious groups, the Bosniaks, the Serbs, and the Croats. These “constituent peoples” live in divided spaces, rule the country separately, and have not yet reconciled their differences, impeding the creation of national identity. Women’s nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and women peacemakers are working toward reconciliation and peace through the construction of an alternative narrative to that of the government’s and creating an increasingly influential civil society. These NGOs, comprised of women “victims” who became “empowered leaders,” are fostering reconciliation and peace through the promotion of the human rights of five groups: (1) deceased victims of the war; (2) surviving victims of the war; (3) minority groups; (4) marginalized groups; and (5) women. By the construction of liminal space through civic art, psychosocial healing, and political action, these groups are creating a new future and building the momentum to push the country forward to a reintegrated society. Leadership of the groups is dispersed throughout the country and comprised of many ethnic groups who collaborate to meet the needs and demands of their followers, who, in effect, have created the leaders and lead inclusively with them. The chapter provides an interesting study of the power of women, who turned victimhood into social action, to build a grassroots civil society that is fostering reconciliation and peace.