On the Streets and in the State: How Do Protest Events Relate to State Feminism?

This paper interrogates some common assumptions about social movements, focusing on the relationship between feminist protest events and institution-building. It uses data from a unique project tracking the evolution of the Australian women’s movement to consider how feminist protests, feminist services and feminist policy agencies developed in the Australian sub-national state of New South Wales between 1970 and 2005. The general view of social movement evolution is that an early protest phase produces a subsequent response in the form of institution-building, which in turn displaces extra-institutional activity. Scholars of state feminism have also argued that gender equality projects within the state cannot survive and prosper without support from a mobilised and visible women’s movement. Although there are many narrative accounts of protest/institution relationships, this paper represents the first attempt to assess these relationships by analysing quantitative chronological data.