Gender, Power and Left Politics: From Feminisation to “Feministisation”

Abstract

Responding to on-going debates about the presence (or otherwise) of feminism within left-wing politics, this article has two central aims. First, it seeks to develop a set of analytical criteria to identify and assess the extent to which an instance of politics has become “feminist”. Second, it aims to illustrate the potential utility of this framework by applying it to a range of examples of contemporary left politics in Britain. Our overall argument is similarly two-fold. Conceptually, learning from the literature on socialist feminism, gender and politics, and cultural studies and sociology, we identify five features of what we call “feministisation”, arguing that in addition to feminist ideas, policies and modes of organising, we must also pay attention to the role of embodied performances and affect. Empirically, we suggest that, seen through this lens, the British left has in fact undergone a significant, but uneven process of feministisation in recent years.