* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
FRIDAY FILE: In December 2014, AWIDs Young Feminist Activism (YFA) programme launched the #ICommit campaign to brainstorm, share, learn about what it takes to effectively organize across generations. This week take a look at some of the responses to the conversation.
By Susan Tolmay
Multigenerational organizing has been an ongoing discussion for the YFA programme for over five years. From 2008 to 2013 multigenerational dialogues, webinars, and e-discussions have been convened, which show that while discussion is important much of the learning comes “from stories of activists building, working, mobilizing together in concrete action, and seeing the results of these actions as powerful tools, initiatives, and contributions to women’s and social justice movements” according to YFA Coordinator Ghadeer Malek.
#ICommit was a hashtag campaign created by YFA to put forth an alternative way of talking about multigenerational activism: one that starts from the personal, and identifies when, where, and under what conditions multigenerational organizing is effective. The hope was to explore the personal and collective commitments that activists and movements we can make to organize effectively across generations.
The twitter and blog posts were both personal and analytical and reveal the hidden dynamics, relations, and processes in multigenerational organizing. Everyone agrees that effective multigenerational organizing is crucial to building strong and truly intersectional movements. But what does this mean and how does it work in practice?
In On air activism: the feminist magazine collective, Cherise Charleswell shares her experience and learnings from being part of a multigenerational Feminist Magazine collective. She stresses the importance of everyone’s opinion being seen as valid and holding equal weight regardless of age. She also makes an important point about diverse knowledge and mutual learning and sharing, because “…nobody is considered the expert, who has all of the answers”, her experience has shown that multigenerational organizing combines the varying experience, expertise and skills sets available - for example young members may be more tech savvy and have new ideas, while more senior members have vast networks to draw from and have past experience and historical context. She has learned that multigenerational organizing ensures diversity and inclusivity, “and again this diversity and the ability to remain all-inclusive is a hallmark of Feminism; as well as social movement organizing in general.”
Srilatha Batliwala reflects on four decades of multigenerational organizing in Age and activism: Some reflections on my experience. Her wealth of experience shows that multigenerational organizing can be a lived reality. She talks about starting out as a young health policy researcher who was given a lot of freedom and autonomy to do the work and make decisions, and how this was important for building trust and confidence. Her early activism taught her much about her own conditioning, and as her age consciousness changed she learned the importance of listening, and that age had little to do people’s understanding and knowledge - that some younger, poorer and less educated people had better experience, understanding and wisdom than her and some of her older teachers and colleagues. Batliwala emphasizes that her “focus has always been linking everyone’s passion for the cause, for our mission; in relating to each person’s core abilities” she adds, “over and over again, it was clear to me that people’s ability to deliver, to shine, to innovate, to be highly responsible and accountable, to be insightful, brilliant, tactically ingenious, rarely had anything to do with their age.” And following many years of being in top decision making positions in various organisations, she also shares her experience and learning of transcending age-based hierarchy, where she can stand back and support rather than lead, “This helped me find meaning and joy in being a grandmother in the movement as well – not taking the lead but supporting from the back, and enjoying the affection and respect for my experience and insights that this accords.”
In An open letter to the feminists of my life: mothers, grandmothers and sisters Mariam Gagoshashvili shares her experience of the complexity and growth of the Georgian Women’s Movement, the informal versus institutionalised organizing. She emphasizes the work that grandmothers did, and “Our feminist mothers – a lost generation”, because of the Soviet ban of civic activism, she says “Their collective contribution to continuing the work of feminist activists of the 19th century has been mostly overlooked and ignored”, which for her has been a big loss for the movement “because the kind of movement I want to see is the one that acknowledges and recognizes that which came before, which laid down the groundwork, created the connections and made today possible. … I want a movement that draws strength from diversity of actors, strategies and experiences.” She talks about the importance of mutual learning and sharing, and how this worked in practise with her feminist mother, “I introduced her to feminist theory, and she showed me ways to translate it into feminist action. In this symbiotic relationship, we raised each other as feminists. We became each other’s feminist mothers, daughters, and sisters—all at the same time.”
Claudia Bollwinkel talks about filia.die frauenstiftung’s (a women’s fund based in Germany) experience of including young women in decision making about project funding for girls, in Learning from the Girls Advisory Board. Overall, including 11 young women aged between 14 and 24 on the first Girls Advisory Board was empowering for everyone, but came with challenges. One of the key learnings for her was to understand her own ageism, how she took her power for granted and the importance of building strong trust and ensure a space for mutual learning and effective participation. Communication is key, being heard, taken on board and able to make decisions.
In The heart and soul of multigenerational organizing: Dialoguing through archivesMaissan Hassan talks about her experience in Egypt in the Coalition of Feminist Organizations - a coalition of more than 15 Egyptian women NGOs and groups, Hassan says, “These were difficult times for multigenerational organizing. Young people were idolized in mainstream media and older generations were blamed for all the mistakes of the tumbling regime.”While she mentions some challenges that the process presented, there was a commitment to multigenerational dialogue. She talks about the importance of young women taking up leadership roles in the media, in formal hearings and other international spaces. But her role in the Women and Constitution Working Group, set up to ensure that gender issues and feminist demands were included in the new Egyptian constitution, led her to the wealth of information and knowledge that exists in archives and she has discovered that “Women’s archives could open up new horizons for contemporary feminists; both young and old. Women’s archives do not only speak of success stories. Most importantly, they also teach us how older feminists resisted. A multigenerational dialogue is not confined to meeting rooms, international forums, community based activities and online discussions. Being a member of a women’s archive and library for almost 8 years taught me how documenting women’s personal archives, collecting their oral histories and preserving writings of other feminists are the heart and soul of multigenerational dialogue.”
What the #ICommit conversation shows is that there are no short answers or solutions to effective multigenerational organizing, but principles of mutual learning, trust and respect are all integral to this. Finally multigenerational organizing is not only an ideological imperative but is crucial for greater legitimacy and to building truly intersectional movements.
Experiences around this issue are vast and multifaceted and the Young Feminist Activism program would like to keep this conversation on multigenerational organizing going. Email yfa@awid.org with any thoughts, suggestions and/or other stories about multigenerational organization that you would like to share.
