Grabe, S. (2016). Transnational feminism in psychology: Moving beyond difference to investigate processes of power at the intersection of the global and local. In T.-A. Roberts, N. Curtin, L. E. Duncan, & L. M. Cortina (Eds.), Feminist perspectives on building a better psychological science of gender (pp. 295–318). Springer International Publishing/Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32141-7_17
Abstract
Although problems related to patriarchy have long concerned women and feminists throughout the world, transnational feminism, in particular, arose during the 1980s out of the interplay between global and local practices influenced by neoliberalism that were denying women’s rights, permitting exploitation, and reproducing subjugation. It is now well documented that the neoliberal shifts characterizing the 1980s and 1990s—free trade agreements, structural adjustment of social welfare policies, increased international activity by multinational corporations, and the deregulation of markets— exacerbated already existing gendered power imbalances, increasing women’s risk for human rights violations. The political mobilization and feminist activity that emerged in response to these neoliberal shifts reflected diverse modes of resistance, operating from different strategic spaces within society that reflected movement across national borders to address the range of women’s growing concerns. The mobilization and collective identity behind transnational feminism, therefore, is not rooted in the notion that women have universal experiences; rather it is rooted in a shared criticism of and resistance to how neoliberal economic policies and governments create structural conditions that limit women’s rights in their respective locations.