The Institutionalization of Feminism: Inclusion and Marginalization

The success of the quinquennial World Conferences on Women (WCW) from Mexico 1975 to Beijing 1995 that favored the development of gender studies and the creation of governmental entities for women’s rights and gender equality opened a window of opportunity for feminist movements to influence politics from within the state, entailing their institutionalization, through a process of inclusion and marginalization of activists—a selection between those who adhere to the routines of official politics and those who condemn them. Despite some differences in the kind of feminism that was institutionalized in Belgium and Romania, stemming from dissimilarities in the political opportunity structure (POS), the institutionalization of the feminist movements appears as a partial, open-ended, and multiple-level process that involves the embedding of feminist norms and practices into organizations, social systems, or society through the stabilization of some access points into enduring institutions.