What is your gender? Gender and participation in Attac-Italy

In: Journal of Gender Studies

Abstract

Since gender disparities do not appear to be confined within the political system, I assume a gender perspective within social movements. In order to better understand the relations between the social movements and gender issues, I analysed the case of the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and Aid to Citizens (Attac) in Italy. Attac is an international network of sibling organizations. The Italian branch has been described as a political/cultural association which is based on previous cultural/political backgrounds of militants. Accordingly, I supposed that these cultural/political backgrounds have affected the present organization and its forms of participation. Structural information on participation in parties and trade unions proves that Attac has a strong linkage to the Italian left-wing, while the relations between gender, participation and power have been investigated in the fieldwork. Yet, certain dynamics of inequity and the risk of reproducing models learned elsewhere, which also replicate gender exclusion in those associations which lie halfway between civil society and political parties, have been discussed for gender and participation in the contradictory age of globalization.