{"title":"“Working women demand peace and food”: Gender and class in the East London Federation of Suffragettes' food politics","authors":"Elaine Swan, Katerina Psarikidou","doi":"10.1111/gwao.13000","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this article, we foreground how gender, class and feminism underpin the aims and modes of mobilization of the food politics of a British first wave suffragette organization, the East London Federation of Suffragettes. Our discussion shows how upper and middle-class suffragettes excluded working-class women and marginalized their political gendered classed interests, raising questions about feminist cross-class solidarities today. We focus on three of East London Federation of the Suffragettes quite different modes of mobilization: embodied protests, radical welfare community organizing and food protest writing, all of which foreground class politics. In discussing three quite distinct modes of mobilization, we highlight the rich package of strategies they created and the different classed identities and struggles in these. We show the diversity of gendered and classed social roles around which the women politicked, as workers, mothers, housewives and consumers. The historical focus enables us to “see” the activities and identifications over time to understand and map their range and dynamics. Moreover, suffragette politics have a “longtail” and continue to influence feminist politics and thinking, but the working-class mobilizing and food politics have been much less recognized and yet offer potential insights for feminist activism, including the cost-of-living crisis today.</p>","PeriodicalId":48128,"journal":{"name":"Gender Work and Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9000,"publicationDate":"2023-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/gwao.13000","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Gender Work and Organization","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gwao.13000","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"MANAGEMENT","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In this article, we foreground how gender, class and feminism underpin the aims and modes of mobilization of the food politics of a British first wave suffragette organization, the East London Federation of Suffragettes. Our discussion shows how upper and middle-class suffragettes excluded working-class women and marginalized their political gendered classed interests, raising questions about feminist cross-class solidarities today. We focus on three of East London Federation of the Suffragettes quite different modes of mobilization: embodied protests, radical welfare community organizing and food protest writing, all of which foreground class politics. In discussing three quite distinct modes of mobilization, we highlight the rich package of strategies they created and the different classed identities and struggles in these. We show the diversity of gendered and classed social roles around which the women politicked, as workers, mothers, housewives and consumers. The historical focus enables us to “see” the activities and identifications over time to understand and map their range and dynamics. Moreover, suffragette politics have a “longtail” and continue to influence feminist politics and thinking, but the working-class mobilizing and food politics have been much less recognized and yet offer potential insights for feminist activism, including the cost-of-living crisis today.
期刊介绍:
Gender, Work & Organization is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal. The journal was established in 1994 and is published by John Wiley & Sons. It covers research on the role of gender on the workfloor. In addition to the regular issues, the journal publishes several special issues per year and has new section, Feminist Frontiers,dedicated to contemporary conversations and topics in feminism.