Received: 29 June 2017 Revised: 16 February 2018 Accepted: 16 April 2018

DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12267

SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE

Imagining new feminist futures: How feminist

social movements contest the neoliberalization of
feminism in an increasingly corporate‐dominated
world
Kate Grosser1 | Lauren McCarthy2

1
School of Management, RMIT University
2
Centre for Research into Sustainability, Royal Increasingly it is argued that feminism has been co‐opted by
Holloway, University of London neoliberal agendas: becoming more individualistic and losing
Correspondence
touch with its wider social change objectives. The
Lauren McCarthy, School of Management,
Centre for Research into Sustainability, Royal neoliberalization of feminism is driven in part by increased
Holloway, University of London, Egham,
corporate power, including the growing role of corporations
Surrey TW20 0EX, UK.
Email: [email protected] in governance arenas, and corporate social responsibility
agendas. However, we turn to social movement theory to
elucidate strategies that social movements, including femi-
nist social movements, are adopting in such spaces. In so
doing, we find that feminist activists are engaging with
new political opportunities, mobilizing structures and strate-
gic framing processes that emerge in the context of increas-
ingly neoliberal and privatized governance systems. We
suggest that despite the significant challenges to their
agendas, far from being co‐opted by neoliberalism, feminist
social movements remain robust, existing alongside and
developing new strategies to contest the neoliberalization
of feminism in a variety of innovative ways.

KEYWORDS

corporate social responsibility, feminism, feminist social movements,

neoliberalism, new governance

1 | I N T RO DU CT I O N

Whilst there has never been one ‘pure’ form of feminism, and heated debates over its objectives and practices as a
social movement continue (Funk, 2013; Prügl, 2015), broadly:

1100 © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/gwao Gender Work Organ. 2019;26:1100–1116.
GROSSER AND MCCARTHY 1101

Feminism is about the social transformation of gender relations' (Butler, 2004: 204), and about the quest
for justice through reducing gender inequality by advancing the diverse interests of women (Walby, 2011),
as well as achieving equity through structural change. (Grosser, Moon, & Nelson, 2017, p. 542)

This onus on social transformation of gender relations through structural changes underlies feminist social
movements' broadly defined aims: to mobilize through collective action to achieve a common good and equality
for all (Dean, 2010).
Critics of contemporary feminism argue that these objectives have recently been cannibalized by neoliberalism.
Fraser (2013), Prügl (2015) and Rottenberg (2014), among others, argue strongly that the ‘neoliberalization of’
feminist movement agendas has occurred. This includes the emergence of ‘transnational business feminism’ (Roberts,
2015) whereby states, corporations, international bodies and non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) develop a
‘business case’ for women's equality, and ‘market feminism’ (Kantola & Squires, 2012) whereby products and market-
ing campaigns draw on feminist notions of ‘choice’ (Kirkpatrick, 2010) and ‘empowerment’ as selling points. Indeed,
the ostensibly feminist goals of empowerment, choice and agency have proliferated as buzzwords under neoliberal
feminism (Kirkpatrick, 2010; Rottenberg, 2014). These are defined with reference to the advancement of individual
women, rather than as a shared struggle in search of collective solutions to advance gender equality in society
(Rottenberg, 2014). The neoliberalization of feminism has proliferated in the context of rising corporate power and
neoliberal economics (Rottenberg, 2014), and has involved sidelining debates about the gendered, and racialized,
structures and substructures which underpin organizations and which perpetuate inequality (Acker, 2006).
Yet feminist social movements have not gone away. They are, in fact, alive and kicking. We argue that we need
to look more closely at how they are evolving to adopt new strategies for gender equality in the context of an
increasingly corporate‐dominated world. It is these strategies that this article elucidates and theorizes in such
contexts. By so doing we address the question of how feminist social movements contest the neoliberalization of
feminism in an increasingly corporate‐dominated world and develop new strategies for their transformative social
change objectives?
In addressing these issues, this article focuses on corporations. Corporations have been of long‐standing interest
to feminist scholars because they employ large numbers of people globally and have been shown to rely on gender
inequality as a resource (Acker, 2006), exploiting women's low pay transnationally and relying upon the unpaid care
work done by women to sustain workers and organizations. In this sense, organizations can be conceived of as
‘inequality regimes’ (Acker, 2006). Corporations are also powerful: influencing regulation, business practices and
popular culture globally, including gender relations. We argue that the growing economic and political power of
corporations, and their global reach, means that the ways in which they do or do not address gender equality
have become increasingly important with respect to feminist agendas, and increasingly worthy of investigation
(Grosser & Moon, 2017).
One of the key ways in which corporations advance more neoliberal forms of feminism is through corporate
social responsibility (CSR) initiatives (Roberts, 2015; Tornhill, 2016a). CSR is a highly contested concept extending
to corporate accountability for social and environmental impacts, and involves a wide range of strategies, actions
and governance systems relating to workplaces, supply chains, communities and the environment (Crane, Matten,
& Moon, 2008). Numerous social movements now focus on and develop strategies to influence corporations, as well
as governments, acting as adversaries but also at times as partners (den Hond & de Bakker, 2007; Mena & Waeger,
2014; Rasche, de Bakker, & Moon, 2013), including in CSR initiatives. Therefore, it would not be surprising to find
feminist social movements also campaigning against corporations, participating in CSR initiatives or building new
alliances with corporate actors. This article thus explores the ways in which these strategies are emerging amongst
feminist social movements. The key argument is that in order to understand the neoliberalization of feminism, and
in particular how it is being contested, we need to refocus our attention on feminist social movements themselves,
where activism occurs. To this end, we draw upon social movement theory (SMT) (McAdam, McCarthy, & Zald,
1996; Pollack & Hafner‐Burton, 2000) to elucidate feminist activist involvement in political opportunities, mobilizing
1102 GROSSER AND MCCARTHY

structures and strategic framing processes in the context of new governance involving business as well as
government.
This article makes two contributions: first, we extend theory with respect to the relationship between CSR and
feminism (Grosser & Moon, 2017), contributing to research on the neoliberalization of feminism and providing a con-
ceptual framework for further research on this topic. Second, we provide examples of new kinds of feminist activist
strategies that contest the neoliberalization of feminism as advanced by corporations and through CSR.
The theory article proceeds as follows. We first define the neoliberalization of feminism, and explore the rising
power of corporations and their involvement in new governance systems. We elucidate the growth of CSR and
gender initiatives as key sites where neoliberal feminism is being advanced. We then use three key SMT concepts:
political opportunities; mobilizing structures; and strategic framing processes, to help us explore how feminist social
movements organize and agitate for change. We argue that far from being co‐opted, feminist social movements
contest neoliberalism in a variety of innovative ways.

2 | T HE N EO LIB E R A LIZ A TIO N OF FE MI NI SM AN D TH E R I SE OF

CO RPORATIO NS

‘Neoliberalism’ is a contested, yet ubiquitous concept. Prügl (2015), drawing on Larner (2000) and Ferguson (2009),
presents three main facets of neoliberalism: politically, neoliberalism is characterized by a limited role for government
in social welfare and business regulation. Economically, neoliberalism reflects the ideologies of free market econo-
mies, related to de‐regulation, austerity and free trade. Culturally, neoliberalism is characterized by ‘the application
of private market forces to public governance while vice versa inserting themselves into the most intimate realms
of privacy’ (Prügl, 2015, p. 617). Individualism, as opposed to collectivism, runs through all three of these domains.
Feminism, it is argued, has recently followed in this vein (Dean, 2010; Rottenberg, 2014). Feminist movements
are characterized by ‘shared struggle, common connection with other women and the pursuit and implementation
of collective solutions to communal problems’ (Adamson, Biese, Kelan, & Lewis, 2016, p. 2). This differs substantially
from neoliberalized versions of feminism which focus on individual women's advancement. The latter proliferate in
corporations, where women leaders are told to ‘lean in’ (Rottenberg, 2014), often accompanied by a business case
which emphasizes how individual women's empowerment benefits corporations (Roberts, 2015). For example,
promoting women in business can enhance: reputation (Bear, Rahman, & Post, 2010); access to new markets (Dolan
& Scott, 2009); and investment ratings (Miles, 2011). Neoliberalized feminism legitimizes ‘the same neoliberal
macroeconomic framework that has sustained gender‐based inequality and oppression’ (Roberts, 2015, p. 209) as
it emphasizes corporate growth and individual — above collective — advancement. Tornhill (2016b, p. 541) argues
that corporate adoptions of feminism ‘tend to be implicated in the very replacement of politics’. This is important
as it suggests that feminism in the modern era has become toothless: depoliticized, co‐opted by corporate interests
and lacking an understanding of the structural elements of women's oppression (and potential for emancipation)
(Dean, 2010; Eisenstein, 2009). Next, we interrogate further the context in which these changes have occurred.

2.1 | Neoliberalism, corporations and CSR

In the context of neoliberalism, and as a consequence of the associated privatization, deregulation, liberalization and
a ‘hollowing out’ of government (Rhodes, 1996), the private sector is playing an ever‐increasing role in employment,
and in societal governance globally (Crane et al., 2008; Moon, 2002; Osborne & Gaebler, 1992). Corporations
have become increasingly involved in regulatory, and indeed citizenship, processes as evidenced in the growth
of ‘privatized governance’ (Scholte, 2005), and in the rapid expansion of new governance systems, including multi‐
stakeholder governance involving business, government and civil society actors in processes concerning public goods
of all kinds (Crane et al., 2008).
GROSSER AND MCCARTHY 1103

For feminists organizing to advance gender equality these changes are significant. Nearly 20 years ago, UNIFEM
(2000, p. 82) noted ‘more women taking legislative decisions, but at a time when economic decision‐making power is
moving away from legislatures’. Thus, it is increasingly recognized that new strategies for change are necessary where
‘the state has become the market, with the result that women's emancipation depends on negotiating with the state
and the market in more complex ways’ (Metcalfe & Woodhams, 2012, p. 133). Yet, few feminist scholars to date have
explored in any detail the nature of such negotiations that involve market actors as well as the state. This article
advances this research agenda.
As the role and power of the private sector has grown globally vis‐à‐vis governments, we have witnessed the
growth of CSR. This is evidenced by: the plethora of CSR reports (KPMG, 2015); growth of CSR consultancies; the
engagement of CSR professionals; and the proliferation of CSR initiatives and standards of various kinds around
the world. While sometimes viewed in a positive light in view of the potential to extend responsible business practice
globally, others have interpreted this focus on CSR as a way to ameliorate criticism of the growing power of business
in society, and as a legitimizing process serving corporate interests (Banerjee, 2010; Fleming & Jones, 2013).
Meanwhile CSR as an academic field has burgeoned (de Bakker & den Hond, 2008). CSR research has developed
from being ‘corporate‐centred’ to a ‘corporate‐oriented’ concept and field of scholarship (Rasche et al., 2013),
extending to ‘new accountability’ (McBarnet, Voiculescu, & Campbell, 2007) for business social and environmental
impacts (Gond, Kang, & Moon, 2011), and drawing upon a wide range of theoretical perspectives. CSR research also
increasingly discusses the role of corporations in new governance systems involving collaboration with government
and civil society in multi‐stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) to develop and implement soft law with respect to social and
environmental issues (Rasche et al., 2013). These developments are commonly referred to in the literature on ‘polit-
ical CSR’ which particularly addresses the role of business firms as political actors, and their potential contribution to
public goods (Palazzo & Scherer, 2006; Scherer & Palazzo, 2007; Scherer, Rasche, Palazzo, & Spicer, 2016). In sum,
CSR is a highly contested concept and ‘the CSR movement is a discursive and material struggle about business
practice; it represents a politicization of the social content of the institutions that govern private economic activity’
(Ougaard, 2006, p. 236). In this sense, CSR is a new site of political engagement for social movements that aim to
hold corporations to account for their impacts upon society.
Following this logic, we contend that CSR involves important new sites of governance and political contestation
which we would expect feminist social movements to have to engage with in order to advance their agendas, not as
an alternative to strategies focused on the state, but in addition to these. Indeed, the CSR literature notes engage-
ment by radical as well as more moderate social movements, working on environmental issues for example. Research
explores how NGOs and civil society actors influence companies through adversarial campaigns as well as collabora-
tive partnerships, or a combination of the two (den Hond, 2010; Mena & Waeger, 2014; Soule, 2009). Scholars reveal
a range of NGO strategies, including those intended to change individual companies, and also strategies aimed at
field‐level change through influencing the rules of the game, as represented in CSR norms and indicators, for
example. Thus, social movements increasingly focus campaigns on corporations themselves, and on CSR initiatives
as new sites for political activism in a neoliberal world. Our interest in this article is in how feminist social movements
engage in these new strategies and spaces.

2.2 | CSR and gender equality

CSR policies and initiatives increasingly reference gender equality. Regarding the co‐optation of feminist agendas by
neoliberal interests (Fraser, 2013), these developments are described as one manifestation of the neoliberalization of
feminism (Prügl, 2015). Corporate actors such as Wal‐Mart, Coca‐Cola and Vodafone claim to be ‘empowering’ women
in their value chains (McCarthy & Moon, forthcoming), and support international campaigns such as #HeforShe, just as
‘Gender economics [as] smart economics’ (World Bank, 2006) has become an unquestioned concept in many interna-
tional and national bodies, both public and private (Elias, 2013). Concurrently, a growing number of studies have both
praised (Karam & Jamali, 2013; McCarthy & Muthuri, 2018) and venerated (Pearson, 2007; Roberts, 2015) approaches
1104 GROSSER AND MCCARTHY

to gender equality led by corporations through CSR. Praise herein tends to focus on ways in which CSR initiatives can
help individual women in economic terms (Dolan & Scott, 2009), although even these claims are increasingly contested
in the literature regarding the experiences of the women ‘beneficiaries’ of such initiatives (McCarthy, 2017, forthcom-
ing; Tornhill, 2016a, 2016b).
However, despite the many negative judgements of gender and CSR initiatives by critical feminist scholars, others
have adopted an approach which is both critical and engaged with respect to CSR and gender equality (Grosser, 2016;
Prügl, 2015). They do this via a discussion of feminist social movements, investigating the way ‘selective feminist move-
ment ideas are being integrated into neoliberal rationales and logics, what is lost in the process and what is perhaps
gained’ (Prügl, 2015, p. 614). Research on feminist social movements and CSR is important given that their involvement
in such spaces, or lack of it, will be one factor determining how this process of neoliberalization plays out.
Finally, we note that feminism is always a political project (Calás & Smircich, 2006). Engagement by feminist
scholars with CSR to date relates to at least six different CSR theoretical perspectives including ethical, instrumental,
stakeholder, political, institutional and critical theories of CSR (Grosser & Moon, 2017). However, viewed through the
lens of feminist theory all CSR is political in that gender relations, and specifically gender inequality, are inherent in all
organizational, and thus CSR, practices and processes (Acker, 2006). Therefore, while our emphasis here on CSR as a
process of new governance (involving business and civil society actors as well as government) aligns most closely
with ‘political CSR’, our discussion is deliberately wide‐ranging with respect to the CSR initiatives that we discuss.
This follows the literature on NGOs and CSR more generally, which addresses NGO involvement not only in ‘political
CSR’ projects that affect field‐level change, but also engagement with specific corporations and their CSR initiatives.

3 | S O C I A L M OV E M E N T T H E O R Y

We now turn to SMT (Benford & Snow, 2000; McAdam et al., 1996; Snow & Benford, 1992; Tarrow, 1994),
specifically its application to feminist movements (Pollack & Hafner‐Burton, 2000). Since the 1980s, feminist social
movements around the world have moved from a primary focus on protest, to engagement with the state (Walby,
2011). This has involved pressurizing for changes in government policy and its implementation at local, regional,
national and international levels from outside the state, gaining representation on state legislative bodies, and work-
ing for change from within the state and international governmental bureaucracies, wherein ‘femocrats’ have acted as
tempered radicals (Meyerson & Scully, 1995) through a range of government machinery (Walby, 2011). There is a
large body of literature exploring how feminist activists have organized themselves in myriad locations, manners
and historic moments (Moghadam, 2013). SMT has been employed in this analysis, for example, to explore the ‘polit-
ical opportunities’ for women's groups in the UK, France and Germany (Poloni‐Staudinger & Ortbals, 2011), the
United States (Banaszak, 2010) and globally (Moghadam, 2013). Scholars have studied the ‘strategic framing pro-
cesses’ necessary for domestic violence policy development in South Korea (Heo, 2010), Scotland and Wales (Charles
& Mackay, 2013), and feminist ‘mobilizing structures’ in the form of formal and informal activist groups working
within transnational organizations such as the United Nations (UN) (Joachim, 2007; Moghadam, 2013) and the
European Union (EU) (Pollack & Hafner‐Burton, 2000). It has become clear that women's NGOs, and the social move-
ments they represent, have helped us move beyond a focus on individual equal opportunities and non‐discrimination,
to challenge systems and structures that cause gender inequality at a policy level (Cullen, 2015; Moghadam, 2013).
Yet attention has focused on the role of social movements with respect to the state and international institutions
(Banaszak, 2010; Joachim, 2007). We note little discussion of feminist social movements/activism in relation to the
private sector as a political actor, within new governance systems. Therefore, the question arises as to how feminist
social movements advance their agendas in the context of the rising power of corporations in societal governance,
CSR and the associated neoliberalization of feminism?
In sum, SMT is useful in addressing this question as it explores how social movement actors (we hereby refer to
these as ‘feminist activists’ vis‐à‐vis our focus) organize and agitate for social change (Moghadam, 2013). In the fol-
lowing sections, in line with feminist social movement scholars investigating NGO–state activism, we draw upon
GROSSER AND MCCARTHY 1105

three well‐grounded concepts deriving from SMT, each of which comprise elements of social movement strategies
for change: (i) political opportunities; (ii) mobilizing structures; and (iii) strategic framing processes. These are not
mutually exclusive, often overlapping and feeding into one another (McAdam et al., 1996). Using extant literature
and recent empirical examples, we discuss how these strategies for change are being adopted by feminist social
movements in neoliberal times, and particularly through the growing phenomenon of CSR.

3.1 | Political opportunities

Political opportunities include ‘consistent — but not necessarily formal or permanent — dimensions of the political
environment that provide incentives for collective action by affecting people's expectations for success or failure’
(Tarrow, 1994, pp. 76–77). In the feminist literature political opportunities are further defined as: (i) access points into
political structures; and (ii) the existence of elite allies within these (Pollack & Hafner‐Burton, 2000). We follow this
two‐point definition.

3.1.1 | Access points

Above we have argued that corporations, and CSR, have become new important political arenas. These include new
organizational forms: MSIs such as the UN Global Compact, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the Ethical Trading
Initiative (ETI); and public–private partnerships (Crane et al., 2008; Rasche et al., 2013). MSIs can comprise political
opportunity access points for corporate‐focused activism (Mena & Waeger, 2014), as they bring different groups of
actors together to develop norms, guidelines, principles and evaluation criteria for responsible business practice
(den Hond & de Bakker, 2007; Mena & Waeger, 2014; Rasche et al., 2013), in effect creating new forms of soft regula-
tion. Such settings constitute arenas for meaning‐making, defining what issues, topics and approaches are on corporate
agendas, and how they are expected to be accountable for their impacts upon society. Imbalances of power in these
arenas mean that corporations have disproportionate influence over decision‐making therein, or at least a power of veto
beyond that of other actors. Nevertheless, the presence of more critical movements and actors can temper the advance-
ment of corporate agendas and increase the likelihood that accountability processes include the interests of less
powerful actors such that participation matters (Bebbington, Brown, Frame, & Thomson, 2007; Grosser, 2016).
New governance arenas may also offer opportunities to feminist social movements (Grosser & Moon, 2005).
Interviews with leaders of women's NGOs in the UK and Australia reveal some ‘see CSR as an alternative regulatory
compliance process when it comes to equalities law, and as a process of business accountability’ (Grosser, 2016,
p. 71), and thus consider CSR as a potential site for feminist social movement activism. Kilgour (2007) scrutinizes
the feminist potential (and drawbacks) of the UN Global Compact, whilst Bexell (2012) and Prügl and True (2014,
p. 1159) argue that CSR ‘partnerships in support of gender equality and women's empowerment bring together
the legacies of neoliberalism and feminism, with different results in different contexts’, enabling potential
co‐optations but also new openings for change.
Many studies depict the inadequacy of CSR codes of conduct for women workers in value chains (Alamgir &
Cairns, 2015; Barrientos, Dolan, & Tallontire, 2003; Hale & Wills, 2007). This is especially the case for informal
workers, who are disproportionately female and unprotected by formal employment contracts. However, studies also
indicate that CSR codes can be conceived of as access points for feminist activists, because corporate codes of con-
duct can provide opportunities to go beyond limitations of minimal legislation (Barrientos et al., 2003). Elias (2003, p.
283) posits that despite their limitations ‘these codes do provide a space for the bringing in of gender concerns into
the labor standards debate’. A good example can be found in the involvement by the small British NGO Women
Working Worldwide (WWW) in setting up the ETI, an international MSI which works with large corporations to
improve value chain practices (Barrientos & Evers, 2014; Hale & Opondo, 2005; Hale & Wills, 2007). WWW collab-
orated with the Central America Women's Network and UK‐based homeworking organizations, to influence the
development of the ETI value chain base code. This was important given the fact that the vast majority of low‐skilled
workers in ETI company supply chains are women. Ongoing engagement with the ETI allows such NGOs to also
1106 GROSSER AND MCCARTHY

influence code implementation. WWW then focused on trying ‘to bridge the gaps between these high‐level initia-
tives and women workers themselves’, and ‘developed international consultation and education projects about com-
pany codes of conduct in Asia’ (Hale & Wills, 2007, pp. 463–464) to better address gender issues. Indeed, the setting
up of the Kenyan Horticultural Ethical Business Initiative, which uses participatory social auditing methodologies, was
the main outcome of the campaign by women's NGOs described by Hale and Opondo (2005), aimed at facilitating a
voice for women workers. Hale and Wills (2007) argue that:

successful workers' organization increasingly depended on understanding global value chains, mapping the
connections between workers and consumers along any chain, and using the information to find points of
leverage to target leading brand names. (p. 473)

Feminist activists are increasingly using such strategies it seems.

Further access points arise in the context of corporate stakeholder engagement processes, where local women's
organizations pressure companies for change. In the mining sector, Gibson and Kemp (2008) reveal engagement in
negotiations between mining companies and communities as opportunities for feminist activism that can positively
affect communities. However, this is just one example. It is important to acknowledge that there are many more
examples of when women's voices, especially those from the global South, are missing from CSR initiatives (Grosser,
2016; McCarthy, 2017), including in the mining sector (Keenan, Kemp, & Ramsay, 2014; Lauwo, 2016). Nevertheless,
we find evidence that new access points for social change are opening for social movements in the era of new gov-
ernance — for example, through MSIs, input into ‘soft’ regulation and opportunities to influence the private sector,
and that feminist social movements are beginning to make use of these. Engagement with such access points
illustrates new ways in which feminist social movement perspectives are being operationalized in neoliberal times.

3.1.2 | Elite allies

Pollack and Hafner‐Burton (2000) posit that political opportunities are also reliant on the existence of elite allies.
Within the CSR literature the case has been made for strong leadership on CSR within the firm (Voegtlin, Patzer,
& Scherer, 2012). With reference to feminist social movements, Meyerson and Scully (1995) assert the importance
of ‘tempered radicals’: those individuals who work for political and social changes, such as gender equality, in strate-
gic ways within organizations. Benschop and Verloo (2011) argue for the importance of ‘gender experts’ in facilitating
gender change, and Walby (2011, p. 78) points out that ‘feminists are within the institutions of power as well as
outside them’. This is true for the private sector as well as the state.
Increasingly, feminist activists move between sectors: government, corporations and civil society, sometimes in
search of jobs, or of new ways to work for change. For example, Kemp, Keenan, and Gronow (2010) document
how community relations practitioners, some with previous experience in NGOs and government, work from within
mining companies to try to minimize the adverse gender impacts of mining, and argue that:

scholars concerned with civil society should move beyond an ‘enemy perception’ of a ‘monolithic’ private
sector as such ‘hostile simplifications’ block learning and the ability to confront industry from an
informed yet critical perspective. (p. 580)

These authors note senior allies in top management positions in corporations who support feminist agendas by provid-
ing resources and championing arguments internally (Kemp et al., 2010). The challenge is that while Pollack and Hafner‐
Burton (2000) generally view elite allies in a positive light, in the context of the private sector and CSR, scholars now
highlight ways in which feminist agendas have been co‐opted by business in attempts to fix individual women as market
actors, with no recognition of wider structural inequality, to which corporations often contribute (Roberts, 2015).
We find, however, some evidence that business leaders have used their power to advance feminist perspectives
which challenge wider societal gender inequality. Examples include: Anita Roddick's support for Women's Aid's campaign
against domestic violence (Grosser, 2016; Harwin, 2016); involvement of women business leaders in the Fawcett
GROSSER AND MCCARTHY 1107

Society's campaign against ‘Sexism in the City’ (Grosser, 2016) and support for the payment of wages for domestic work
in the Fairtrade value chain (Butler & Hoskyns, 2016). These issues demand discussion of patriarchy, male power and vio-
lence, and require collaborative, social change beyond the individualism found in neoliberalizing feminism.
Therefore, we argue that one way in which feminist social movements have advanced in the corporate‐dominated
world is through alliances with elite allies in corporations or in CSR processes and practice, as well as in government.
The limitations of this approach for women's NGOs is outlined well by Harwin (2016), and the possibility of co‐optation
also exists in such contexts. However, the literature on ‘tempered radicals’ reveals that feminist social movements can
play an important role in supporting feminists inside mainstream organizations/corporations, as they provide opportu-
nities for ‘co‐optation check‐ins’ (Meyerson & Scully, 1995, p. 598) that aim to keep each other on course with regard to
wider feminist aims.

3.2 | Mobilizing structures

Mobilizing structures are defined as: ‘those collective vehicles, informal as well as formal, through which people mobi-
lize and engage in collective action’ (McAdam et al., 1996, p. 3). They include: informal networks of activists and
experts, or movement ‘communities’; formal committees or associations that fall under larger institutions and formal-
ized social movement organizations, such as NGOs. These can be considered mobilizing structures if they are ‘actively
seeking to implement the preference structures of a given social movement’ (Buechler, 1990, p. 42 in McCarthy,
1996, p. 143). These forms enact ‘tactical repertoires’ (McCarthy, 1996, p. 142): including but not limited to
campaigns, communications and protest (McCarthy, 1996).
For example, Pollack and Hafner‐Burton (2000), focusing on gender mainstreaming in the EU, identify ‘suprana-
tional actors’ in the form of equal opportunities ‘units’ and ‘committees’ in the European Commission and the
European Parliament. These, they argue, ‘form the heart of the transnational network of experts and activists’ who
have ‘succeeded in placing on the agenda a wide range of issues previously beyond the scope of EU policy‐making’
(Pollack & Hafner‐Burton, 2000, p. 434). Moghadam (2013) identified a similar feminist transnational network
collaborating around the 1995 UN conference on women.
Women's NGOs are particularly important mobilizing structures in that they are sometimes able to lobby and
pressurize for change on gender equality issues within political opportunities structures (Pollack & Hafner‐Burton,
2000). They may exert pressure through external campaigns, awareness‐raising, fundraising and through carrying
out research (Moghadam, 2013), as well as internal ‘backroom’ conversations.

3.2.1 | Mobilizing structures — Forms

In an era of new governance, corporations and their CSR practices are becoming important institutions of global gov-
ernance for feminist mobilizing structures. For example, formal groups include: the GRI which convened a gender
working group to integrate gender perspectives into the most widely used set of corporate sustainability reporting
guidelines globally (Grosser, 2009; Miles, 2011). A similar international gender working group exists for the Women's
Empowerment Principles, a subset of guiding values developed by a group of corporations, NGOs and international
organizations to direct corporate behaviour regarding gender equality (Kilgour, 2013). At the local level there are cor-
porate stakeholder Steering Committees and External Advisory Panels on gender (e.g., in Kenyan horticulture — Hale
& Opondo, 2005, and at Rio Tinto — Kemp et al., 2010). Such groups are not without their problems: many are by
invite only; often heavily skewed towards representation of ‘elite’ white women, predominantly from economic
and corporate backgrounds (Prügl & True, 2014), and equal access for women's NGOs compared to other NGOs
remains a significant problem (Grosser, 2016). Nevertheless, while often considered sites for the neoliberalization
of feminism by corporate actors, such initiatives can also be vehicles through which feminist social movements can
contest this, and attempt to advance their wider social change interests.
Women's NGOs, while not predominantly focused on corporations (Kilgour, 2007), do increasingly contest the
neoliberalization of feminism and challenge corporate practice. For example, as explored in Section 3.1, the ETI
1108 GROSSER AND MCCARTHY

was mobilized effectively by the British women's NGO WWW in collaboration with the Kenyan Women Workers
Organization to improve working conditions in the cut flower sector (Hale & Opondo, 2005). This cross‐national
collaboration between women's NGOs enabled WWW to take reports of Kenyan women workers' grievances
directly to UK buyers. More recent literature shows women's NGOs continuing to participate in the development,
monitoring and verification of labour standards in corporate value chains (Barrientos & Evers, 2014). Whilst debate
continues about the impact of such mobilization, we argue that CSR and the resultant governance mechanisms form
new mobilizing structures that can, and are, being used by feminist social movements. Moreover, despite their
limitations, we must ask what the implications might be of feminist social movements not engaging in mobilizing
structures that are setting new rules and norms for business behaviour regarding social and environmental impacts
globally.

3.2.2 | Mobilizing structures — Tactics

Following SMT, we would also expect to see a combination of adversarial and collaborative NGO tactics challenging
corporate power and the neoliberalization of feminism. For example, the Porgera Women's Association in Papua
New Guinea was established to help women challenge mining companies regarding impacts on communities' health
(Gibson & Kemp, 2008). In the UK, the Fawcett Society has campaigned, in collaboration with business women,
against the routine use of pornography in the workplace and of lap‐dancing clubs in business entertainment in
the City of London (Grosser, 2016). They collaborated with corporate managers to set up a Gender Equality Forum,
advising on gender equality internally in workplaces, and later incorporating government representatives in this
discussion, in effect creating a mini MSI on gender equality (Grosser, 2016). Women's NGOs have also formed
alliances with large development NGOs, such as Oxfam and World in Action, to organize around gender and labour
rights in corporate value chains (Barrientos & Evers, 2014; Hale & Wills, 2007). These are all strategies through
which feminist social movements forward wider social change objectives to contend, or offset, the neoliberalization
of feminism.
A rallying cry of intersectional feminism has been that unity lies in feminist social movement coalitions building
around specific issues and causes (Walby, 2011). There is emerging evidence of approaches to feminist activism
incorporating experiences at different sites of oppression, and different locations in global value chains, involving alli-
ances between feminist activists/NGOs in the global North and South. Hale and Shaw (2001, pp. 525–526) argue
that ‘strategies based on building connection and campaigns along commodity chains provide a space in which to
bring producers and consumers closer together’. Such alliances can strengthen the capacity of small women's NGOs,
and particularly local women workers' organizations (Barrientos & Evers, 2014). In sum, evidence suggests that as
corporate power grows vis‐à‐vis state power, some feminist social movements are beginning to align along global
value chains, rather than simply across national and international state structures. Thus, feminist perspectives and
their associated movements are moving into new arenas of governance, adopting new strategies and tactics that
run alongside — and challenge — neoliberal feminist ideas. Analysis of this phenomenon has been missing from the
feminist literature to date and needs further investigation.
Finally, in a context where many social movements, including feminist ones, are marginalized from CSR as a pro-
cess of governance due to lack of resources (Boström & Hallström, 2010; Grosser, 2016), new mobilizing structures,
both forms and tactics, are emerging involving online feminist activism (Evans, 2015). These exist as spaces for com-
municating with (e.g., the Women's Empowerment Principles working group open online forum — Kilgour, 2013) and
campaigning against corporations. For example, the feminist ‘No More Page 3’ campaign in the UK systematically
targeted retailers' Facebook and Twitter pages in their quest to remove photographs of naked women from The
Sun newspaper (Glozer, McCarthy, & Whelan, 2015). Evidence increasingly testifies to the impact of online protests
on corporate profits (e.g., van den Broek, Langley, & Hornig, 2017). Thus, as corporations are targeted by feminist
social movements online we posit that the importance of this space as a political site for diverse feminist perspectives
will garner much more traction in practice and in theory.
GROSSER AND MCCARTHY 1109

3.3 | Strategic framing

Social movement theorists have focused increasingly on the importance of ‘strategic framing processes’. These are
discussed first as ‘focused conscious strategic efforts by groups of people to fashion shared understandings of the
world and of themselves that legitimate and motivate collective action’ (McAdam et al., 1996, p. 96). Second, social
movements frame their causes ‘in order to resonate or “fit”’ (Snow & Benford, 1992, p. 137) with the existing dominant
frames held by various actors, who are more likely to adopt new frames that resonate rather than conflict with their
existing dominant frames (Pollack & Hafner‐Burton, 2000). For example, feminist social movements have framed their
agendas with reference to productivity and efficiency gains available to EU governments (Pollack & Hafner‐Burton,
2000), and nationally, in the case of domestic violence and its impact upon national productivity and social welfare
costs (Heo, 2010; Walby, 2011). They have done so strategically in order to influence government agendas.
Moreover, strategic framing typically reflects wider cultural contexts and changes, including the ‘extant stock of
meanings, beliefs, ideologies, practices, values, myths, narratives’ and changing ‘targeted audiences’ (Benford & Snow,
2000, p. 629). Thus, as dominant social, political, economic or institutional contexts change in a neoliberal global polit-
ical economy, the framing of social movement, including feminist, agendas change also. This might explain to some
extent the neoliberalization of feminism, with its increasing focus on the ‘business case’ for gender equality in the
context of growing corporate power. On the one hand, this change could be interpreted as a process of successful
strategic framing by feminist activists, and on the other, as a process of co‐optation by business interests. We would
argue that both these things are happening simultaneously, and that this explains why ‘neoliberal feminism’
(Rottenberg, 2014) has become the site of such contention in feminist scholarship. Indeed, it is well established that
attempts to advance gender equality and organizational efficiency simultaneously, as in the productivity and effi-
ciency frame, or the business case, frequently results in an instrumental takeover, to the exclusion of the social
change agenda (Coleman & Rippin, 2000). However, this does not mean that the more radical or critical perspectives
and their associated social movements have gone away (Gherardi, 1995). Rather these movements are developing
new strategies to fit with new political and economic conditions, sometimes alluding to the business case frame as
a strategic device to open space for their agendas in private sector contexts.
Notably, Benford and Snow (2000, p. 625) argue that new ‘frame extensions’, such as the business case for the
gender equality frame, can lead to ‘disputes within movements regarding issues of ideological “purity”, efficiency and
“turf”’ and thus increase instability in the movement. Our argument is that this is exactly what is happening currently
in feminist scholarship. It would be wrong to assume that because the dominant framing has changed, that critical
feminist perspectives are in decline. Rather, this is a space of contestation.
Indeed, a closer inspection of the literature exploring gender and the corporate sector reveals a multitude of
diverse feminist frames coexisting alongside the business case frames that corporations propagate. For example,
human rights and labour rights frames of gender equality argue for the scrutiny, leverage or sometimes abolishment
of corporate practices, such as private labour standards, codes of conduct or MSIs (e.g., Elias, 2007). These strategic
framings often appear to address governments indirectly, in calling for cross‐national and global standards and regu-
lations on women workers' rights that better control corporate actors. The literature also reveals the existence of an
environmental strategic framing of gender equality (Marshall, 2007, 2011; Phillips, 2014), which positions gender
equality as crucial to environmental sustainability.
Finally, we identify in the literature the emergence of a strategic framing of neoliberal arenas as sites where the
advancement of feminist social movement perspectives must be fought for, asking, for example, ‘How might women,
and women's organizations use the new rhetoric about girls and development to some advantage?’ (Grosser & Van
Der Gaag, 2013, p. 82). Others argue that corporate reporting (Grosser & Moon, 2008), codes of conduct (Hale &
Wills, 2007), MSIs (Elias, 2007; Prügl, 2015; Prügl & True, 2014) and stakeholder engagement (Gibson & Kemp,
2008; Grosser, 2009; Kemp et al., 2010) can be used by feminist activists to contend neoliberal agendas. Grosser
(2016) suggests that feminist social movements can instrumentalize CSR rhetoric on gender equality to reaffirm
and advance their agendas.
1110 GROSSER AND MCCARTHY

4 | C O N CL U S I O N S

Recent literature has argued that corporate actors, and their CSR initiatives, play significant roles in the
neoliberalization of feminism (Prügl, 2015). However, we further the argument that CSR also constitutes new sites
and processes of political struggle for the contestation of such interests, wherein feminist engagement is impor-
tant (Grosser & Moon, 2005) and where more research is needed. Prügl (2015, p. 627) concludes that ‘the
challenge for scholars is to better understand the conditions under which neoliberalized feminisms provide open-
ings to challenge oppressive power relations’. This article advances this agenda by adopting a SMT lens that
enables us to identify numerous new strategies for change on the part of feminist social movements as they make
use of new political opportunities, mobilizing structures and strategic framing processes to advance their agendas
in neoliberal times.
In so doing we contribute to SMT by challenging previous notions of politics, and political spaces, and exploring
how feminist movements might seize opportunities to enact social change. Few scholars have commented on the role
of feminist social movements as they relate to markets, private sector organizations, transnational corporations or
new governance systems that incorporate business and civil society as well as the state (Squires, 2007; Walby,
2011). Moreover, those that have begun to acknowledge such issues provide very few pointers for feminist organiz-
ing. We therefore contribute to the scholarly debate on feminism in neoliberal times in three ways.
First, we mobilize SMT to highlight the changing strategies of feminist social movements, providing a concep-
tual framework for further research on this topic. Second, by so doing, and revealing examples of how this is
playing out in practice, we are able to show how feminist social movements not only coexist with neoliberal
feminism, but continue to flourish, adopting new activist strategies that challenge corporate power in a variety
of ways. Third, while it's important to highlight the focus on individualism in neoliberalized feminism (Dean, 2010;
Roberts, 2015), by bringing attention back onto feminist social movements, which aim to advance collective
solutions to communal problems, and how they are actually operating and strategizing in neoliberal times, we
contest the idea of feminism becoming ‘capitalism's handmaiden’ (Fraser, 2013). Our conclusions are rather more
hopeful.
Our approach is not without its limitations. Here we address three in particular. First, while we have outlined
many structures, forms, tactics, allies and frames which show potential for feminist social movement strategies
within neoliberal arenas, we cannot vouch for the success, or outcomes, of these. Further empirical research is
needed that unpacks such strategies' impact. Second, we have recognized that for many marginalized peoples,
including feminist groups and individuals, CSR governance arenas are difficult to enter, tough to manoeuvre within
and often frustrating to work with (Boström & Hallström, 2010; Grosser, 2016; Miles, 2011). These challenges may
sometimes exceed those of working with state organizations and are in need of further investigation and research.
Third, while we have found examples of feminist social movements building alliances along corporate global value
chains to advance their agendas, we note a growing literature revealing the challenges for women from the global
South with respect to CSR (e.g., Alamgir & Cairns, 2015; Barrientos et al., 2003; McCarthy, 2017; Ozkazanc‐Pan,
2018; Tornhill, 2016a). Further research that seeks to learn how women's NGOs from these countries engage with
and challenge corporations, including through CSR, will be important in advancing an intersectional feminist
research agenda.
In addition, we have noted the threat of co‐optation by business with respect to feminist agendas in the
context of CSR (Prügl, 2015). Yet, historically, evidence suggests that feminist movements are not so easily
co‐opted:

once inside the state, feminist movements did not, as social movement theory and organizational behavior
might predict, become more moderate in their goals or institutionalized and conventional in their tactics.
Instead, their choice of tactics, their strategic behavior, and their impact on policy varied in regard to
the political opportunities available. (Banaszak, 2010 in Beckwith, 2011, p. 1064).
GROSSER AND MCCARTHY 1111

Moreover, evidence suggests that such movements sometimes radicalized insider women (p. 1064).
We recognize a growing body of critical research revealing the limitations of non‐state governance, including weak
enforcement and its tendency to depoliticize and overlook trade union rights (Salmivaara, 2018). The feminist literature
builds upon such critiques. Yet we consider that as much as feminist activists and scholars might wish that state power
was not being eroded, and that the power of corporations was not on the rise, governance systems are changing and
corporate roles within these are increasing. As a result, the strict differentiation between these two sets of actors is
being challenged and broken down in numerous ways. Thus, our interest is in how the strategies of feminist activists
are evolving in these contexts, rather than evaluating the pros and cons of different governance systems for feminist
social movement ideas, which others have addressed extensively (e.g., Cullen, 2015; Roberts, 2015; Walby, 2015).
In line with this argument, we highlight how feminist research underscores the necessity of political representa-
tion in all forms of societal governance. Thus, we do not argue for engagement in new governance systems as an
alternative to, or replacement for, engaging with the state, and democracy, but rather as a complementary strategy.
The importance of such a strategy varies depending on local governance context. For example, we note that where
states are weak in many parts of the world and are unwilling or unable to advance gender equality effectively, fem-
inist social movements have had to engage with/address corporations and CSR directly (e.g., Karam & Jamali, 2013).
Moreover, research testifies to the important role government can play in driving CSR itself (Gond et al., 2011;
Knudsen & Moon, 2017). Therefore, echoing Funk (2013) and Prügl (2015) we see neoliberal arenas as new areas
of governance in which feminist social movements need to engage, and which we, as feminist scholars, should inves-
tigate. Consequently, we have asked: what might be the implications of feminist activists not engaging in governance
systems involving the private sector that are contesting the meaning of feminism?
In concluding we join others (Grosser, 2016; Prügl, 2015) in arguing for the importance of research that is both
critical of the elements of neoliberal feminism and engaged with them: not just critical and not simply engaged. Our
analysis finds a number of accounts by scholars adopting this strategy. They explore the potential of partnerships,
formulations of codes of conduct and private standards (Elias, 2003), and advisory, research or working group roles
(Grosser, 2016; Miles, 2011), as well as showing how feminists continue to take up adversarial, campaigning positions
in relation to private sector as well as government actors (Barrientos & Evers, 2014; Hale & Opondo, 2005; Hale &
Shaw, 2001). Finally, feminist research has commonly been linked to feminist activism. In the SMT literature, Gamson
and Meyer (1996, p. 287) argue that ‘if movement activists interpret political space in ways that emphasize opportu-
nity rather than constraint, they may stimulate actions that change opportunity, making their opportunity frame a
self‐fulfilling prophecy’. In this sense, by framing corporations, and CSR, as spaces where the neoliberalization of
feminism unfolds, but where it can also be contested, this article aims to contribute to advancing social movement
feminist perspectives in practice, as well as in research.

ACKNOWLEDGEMEN TS
We wish to thank the special issue editors, and our two reviewers, for helpful guidance and stimulating debate. This
article benefited from feedback at the Gender, Work & Organization conference ‘Moderate Feminisms’ stream in
2016, and at the GRB/Velux Corporate Sustainability Conference the same year. Special thanks to Jeremy Moon,
as Velux Chair in Corporate Sustainability at Copenhagen Business School, who generously sponsored Kate's visiting
fellowship and enabled us to devise and write our article together. Finally, a huge thanks to all the extraordinary fem-
inist activists we have had the privilege to work with and learn from over many years.

DECLARATION OF C ONFLICTING INTERES T

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID
Kate Grosser https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4112-5999
1112 GROSSER AND MCCARTHY

Lauren McCarthy http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6299-4651

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Kate Grosser is a Senior Lecturer in International Business in the School of Management, RMIT University, Mel-
bourne. Her research examines CSR from feminist perspectives, most recently exploring the contribution of
1116 GROSSER AND MCCARTHY

feminist theories, and particularly feminist organization theory, to CSR and business ethics. She has published in
Business Ethics Quarterly, Journal of Business Ethics, Business Ethics: A European Review, Accounting Forum and Inter-
national Feminist Journal of Politics. She was Guest Editor at Business Ethics Quarterly on gender, business ethics
and CSR (2017), and edited a collection Gender Equality and Responsible Business: Expanding CSR
Horizons (2016). Kate served on the Global Reporting Initiative͛ s Gender Working Group (2010), and as advisor
on ͚ integrating a gender perspective͛ to the UN Special Representative on Human Rights and Transnational Corpo-
rations and Other Business Enterprises (2009). She has been a feminist activist for over 30 years.

Lauren McCarthy is a Lecturer in Strategy and Sustainability in the Centre for Research into Sustainability at the
School of Management, Royal Holloway, University of London. Her research explores the intersections of gender
equality, responsible business and global value chains. She has published in Business Ethics Quarterly, Business
Ethics: A European Review, Business & Society and Organization Studies. In 2016 she edited a collection entitled
Gender and Responsible Business: Expanding CSR Horizons (Greenleaf) alongside Kate Grosser and Maureen
Kilgour. Lauren is currently researching how digital technologies may be further utilised by feminist movements.

How to cite this article: Grosser K, McCarthy L. Imagining new feminist futures: How feminist social move-
ments contest the neoliberalization of feminism in an increasingly corporate‐dominated world. Gender Work
Organ. 2019;26:1100–1116. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12267
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