Abstract
In 2018, more women than ever have run for and been elected to public office in the United States. Moreover, there has been an increase in women’s collective actions aimed at improving the welfare of women. In this social and political context, we examined the motivational mechanisms of collective action among college women in response to gender inequality and discrimination. Little work has addressed how collective action among college women emerges in the context of their lives. Based on data from 20 interviews with U.S. college women and using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), we developed a model that describes the process of mobilizing and maintaining engagement in collective action among college women and identifies the obstacles that they experience. Our findings extend prior research documenting the important roles of college women’s personal, social, and cultural life experiences in self-identification and collective action and describe additional obstacles and mechanisms of collective action. Researchers and activists alike could use the developed model to design strategies for mobilizing and sustaining activism among college women on behalf of all women.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adler, J. M., Dunlop, W. L., Fivush, R., Lilgendahl, J. P., Lodi-Smith, J., McAdams, D. P., … Syed, M. (2017). Research methods for studying narrative identity: A primer. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 8, 519–527. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617698202.
Alter, C. (2018). A year ago they marched: Now a record number of women are running for office. Time. Retrieved from https://time.com/5107499/record-number-of-women-are-running-for-office/.
Bargad, A., & Hyde, J. S. (1991). Women’s studies: A study of feminist identity development in women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 15, 181–201. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1991.tb00791.x.
Becker, J. C., & Wagner, U. (2009). Doing gender differently—The interplay of strength of gender identification and content of gender identity in predicting women's endorsement of sexist beliefs. European Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 487–508. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.551.
Bogdan, R. C., & Biklen, S. K. (2011). Qualitative research for education: An introduction to theories and methods (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
Chatfield, S. L. (2018). Considerations in qualitative research reporting: A guide for authors preparing articles for Sex Roles. Sex Roles, 79, 125–135. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-018-0930-8.
Curtin, N., & McGarty, C. (2016). Expanding on psychological theories of engagement to understand activism in context(s). Journal of Social Issues, 72, 227–241. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12164.
Damico, J. S., & Tetnowski, J. A. (2014). Triangulation. In C. Forsyth & H. Copes (Eds.), Encyclopedia of social deviance (pp. 751–754). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
de Lemus, S., & Stroebe, K. (2015). Achieving social change: A matter of all or none? Journal of Social Issues, 71, 441–452. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12122.
Dottolo, A. L. (2011). “I’m not a feminist, but…”: Introducing feminism in psychology of women courses. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 35, 632–635.
Downing, N. E., & Roush, K. L. (1985). From passive acceptance to active commitment: A model of feminist identity development. The Counseling Psychologist, 13, 695–709. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000085134013.
Drury, J., & Reicher, S. D. (2000). Collective action and psychological change: The emergence of new social identities. British Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 579–604. https://doi.org/10.1348/014466600164642.
Duncan, L. E. (1999). Motivation for collective action: Group consciousness as mediator of personality, life experiences, and women’s rights activism. Political Psychology, 20, 611–635. https://doi.org/10.1111/0162-895X.00159.
Eisenberg, N., Cumberland, A., Guthrie, I. K., Murphy, B. C., & Shepard, S. A. (2005). Age changes in prosocial responding and moral reasoning in adolescence and early adulthood. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 15, 235–260. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2005.00095.x.
Ellemers, N., Van Knippenberg, A., & Wilke, H. (1990). The influence of permeability of group boundaries and stability of group status on strategies of individual mobility and social change. British Journal of Social Psychology, 29, 233–246.
Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook “friends:” social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12, 1143–1168. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00367.x.
Felmlee, D., Inara Rodis, P., & Zhang, A. (2019). Sexist slurs: Reinforcing feminine stereotypes online. Sex Roles. Advance online publication, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-019-01095-z.
Foster, M. (2014). The relationship between collective action and well-being and its moderators: Pervasiveness of discrimination and dimensions of action. Sex Roles, 70, 165–182. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-014-0352-1.
Gurin, P., Miller, A. H., & Gurin, G. (1980). Stratum identification and consciousness. Social Psychology Quarterly, 3, 30–47. https://doi.org/10.2307/3033746.
Hercus, C. (1999). Identity, emotion, and feminist collective action. Gender and Society, 13, 34–55. https://doi.org/10.1177/089124399013001003.
Jetten, J., Branscombe, N. R., Iyer, A., & Asai, N. (2013). Appraising gender discrimination as legitimate or illegitimate: Antecedents and consequences. In M. K. Ryan & N. R. Branscombe (Eds.), Handbook of gender and psychology (pp. 306–322). London: Sage.
Jordan, M. (2018). Record number of women heading to Congress. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/record-number-of-women-appear-headed-for-congress/2018/11/06/76a9e60a-e1eb-11e8-8f5f-a55347f48762_story.html.
Kelly, C. (1993). Group identification, intergroup perceptions and collective action. European Review of Social Psychology, 4, 59–83. https://doi.org/10.1080/14792779343000022.
Kelly, C., & Breinlinger, S. (1995). Identity and injustice: Exploring women's participation in collective action. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 5, 41–57. https://doi.org/10.1002/casp.2450050104.
Kelly, C., & Breinlinger, S. (1996). The psychology of collective action: Identity, injustice, and gender. London: Taylor & Francis.
Kelly, C., & Kelly, J. (1994). Who gets involved in collective action?: Social psychological determinants of individual participation in trade unions. Human Relations, 47, 63–88.
Klandermans, B. (1993). A theoretical framework for comparisons of social movement participation. Sociological Forum, 8, 383–402. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01115051.
Klandermans, B., & Oegema, D. (1987). Potentials, networks, motivations, and barriers: Steps towards participation in social movements. American Sociological Review, 52, 519–531. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-014-9692-9.
Klandermans, B., & Van Stekelenburg, J. V. (2014). Why people don't participate in collective action. Journal of Civil Society, 10, 341–352. https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2014.984974.
Klandermans, B., Sabucedo, J. M., Rodriguez, M., & De Weerd, M. (2002). Identity processes in collective action participation: Farmers' identity and farmers' protest in the Netherlands and Spain. Political Psychology, 23, 235–251. https://doi.org/10.1111/0162-895X.00280.
Kuk, L., & Banning, J. (2010). Student organizations and institutional diversity efforts: A typology. College Student Journal, 44, 354–361.
Liss, M., Crawford, M., & Popp, D. (2004). Predictors and correlates of collective action. Sex Roles, 50, 771–779. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:SERS.0000029096.90835.3f.
Liss, M., O’Connor, C., Morosky, E., & Crawford, M. (2011). What makes a feminist? Predictors of feminist identity in college women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 25, 124–133. https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-6402.00014.
Louis, W. R. (2009). Collective action—And then what? Journal of Social Issues, 65, 727–748. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2009.01623.x.
Martin, J., Brickman, P., & Murray, A. (1984). Moral outrage and pragmatism: Explanations for collective action. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 20, 484–496. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1031(84)90039-8.
Mason, M. G., & Gibbs, J. C. (1993). Social perspective taking and moral judgment among college students. Journal of Adolescent Research, 8, 109–123.
McCarty, J. D., & Zald, M. N. (1977). Resource mobilization and social movements: A partial theory. American Journal of Sociology, 92, 1212–1124. https://doi.org/10.1086/226464.
McGarty, C., Bliuc, A. M., Thomas, E. F., & Bongiorno, R. (2009). Collective action as the material expression of opinion-based membership. Journal of Social Issues, 65, 839–857. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2009.01627.x.
Merriam, S. B., & Tisdell, E. J. (2016). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation (4th ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Miller, D. A., Cronin, T., Garcia, A. L., & Branscombe, N. R. (2009). The relative impact of anger and efficacy on collective action is affected by feelings of fear. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 12, 445–462. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430209105046.
Mummendey, A., Kessler, T., Klink, A., & Mielke, R. (1999). Strategies to cope with negative social identity and relative deprivation theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 229–245. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.2.229.
Nelson, J. A., Liss, M., Erchull, M. J., Hurt, M. M., Ramsey, L. R., Turner, D. L., … Haines, M. E. (2008). Identity in action: Predictors of feminist self-identification and collective action. Sex Roles, 58, 721–728. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-007-9384-0.
Orum, A. M. (1974). On participation in political protest movements. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 10, 181–207. https://doi.org/10.1177/002188637401000206.
Quinn, C., & Clare, L. (2008). Interpretative phenomenological analysis. In R. W. H. McKenna, S. Cowman, & J. Keady (Eds.), Nursing research: Designs and methods (pp. 375–384). Edinburgh: Elsevier.
Radke, H. R. M., Hornsey, M. J., & Barlow, F. K. (2016). Barriers to women engaging in collective action to overcome sexism. American Psychologist, 71, 863–874. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0040345.
Savaş, Ö., & Stewart, A. J. (2018). Alternative pathways to activism: Intersections of social and personal pasts in the narratives of women’s rights activists. Qualitative Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000117.
Schmitt, M. T., Miller, D. A., Branscombe, N. R., & Brehm, J. W. (2008). The difficulty of making reparations affects the intensity of collective guilt. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 11, 267–279. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430208090642.
Sears, D. O. (1986). College sophomores in the laboratory: Influences of a narrow data base on social psychology's view of human nature. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 515–530. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.51.3.515.
Simon, B., & Klandermans, B. (2001). Politicized collective identity: A social-psychological analysis. American Psychologist, 56, 319–331. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.56.4.319.
Simon, B., Loewy, M., Stuermer, S., Weber, U., Freytag, P., Habig, C., … Spahlinger, P. (1998). Collective identification and social movement participation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 646–658. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.3.646.
Smith, J. A. (1996). Beyond the divide between cognition and discourse: Using interpretative phenomenological analysis in health psychology. Psychology and Health, 11, 261–271. https://doi.org/10.1080/08870449608400256.
Smith, J. A., & Osborn, M. (2003). Interpretative phenomenological analysis. In J. A. Smith (Ed.), Qualitative psychology: A practical guide to research methods, pp. 51–80. London, UK: Sage.
Stewart, T. L., Latu, I. M., Branscombe, N. R., & Denney, H. T. (2010). Yes we can!: Prejudice reduction through seeing (inequality) and believing (in social change). Psychological Science, 21, 1557–1562. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610385354.
Stroebe, K., Postmes, T., & Roos, C.A (2019). Where did inaction go? Towards a broader and more refined perspective on collective actions. British Journal of Social Psychology, 58, 649–667. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12295.
Stürmer, S., & Simon, B. (2004). Collective action: Towards a dual-pathway model. In W. Stroebe & M. Hewstone (Eds.), European review of social psychology (Vol. 15, pp. 59–99). Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
Swank, E., & Fahs, B. (2017). Understanding feminist activism among women: Resources, consciousness, and social networks. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, 3, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023117734081.
Swim, J. K., Hyers, L. L., Cohen, L. L., & Ferguson, M. J. (2001). Everyday sexism: Evidence for its incidence, nature, and psychological impact from three daily diary studies. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 31–53. https://doi.org/10.1111/0022-4537.00200.
Thomas, E. F., McGarty, C., Lala, G., Stuart, A., Hall, L. J., & Goddard, A. (2015). Whatever happened to Kony2012? Understanding a global Internet phenomenon as an emergent social identity. European Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 356–367. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2094.
Van der Graaff, J., Branje, S., De Wied, M., Hawk, S., Van Lier, P., … Meeus, W. (2014). Perspective taking and empathic concern in adolescence: Gender differences in developmental changes. Developmental Psychology, 50, 881–888. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034325.
Van Stekelenburg, J., & Klandermans, B. (2007). Individuals in movements: A social psychology of contention. In C. M. Roggeband & B. Klandermans (Eds.), The handbook of social movements across disciplines (pp. 157–204). New York: Springer.
Van Stekelenburg, J., Klandermans, B., & Van Dijk, W. W. (2009). Context matters: Explaining how and why mobilizing context influences motivational dynamics. Journal of Social Issues, 65, 815–838. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2009.01626.x.
Van Zomeren, M., & Spears, R. (2009). Metaphors of protest: A classification of motivations for collective action. Journal of Social Issues, 65, 661–679. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2009.01619.x.
Van Zomeren, M., Spears, R., Fischer, A. H., & Leach, C. W. (2004). Put your money where your mouth is! Explaining collective action tendencies through group-based anger and group efficacy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 649–664. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.87.5.649.
Van Zomeren, M., Postmes, T., & Spears, R. (2008). Toward an integrative social identity model of collective action: A quantitative research synthesis of three socio-psychological perspectives. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 504–535. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.134.4.504.
Williams, R., & Wittig, M. A. (1997). “I’m not a feminist, but…”: Factors contributing to the discrepancy between pro-feminist orientation and feminist social identity. Sex Roles, 37(11–12), 885–904. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02936345.
Wright, S. C. (1997). Ambiguity, social influence, and collective action: Generating collective protest in response to tokenism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 1277–1290. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672972312005.
Wright, S. C., Taylor, D. M., & Moghaddam, F. M. (1990). Responding to membership in a disadvantage group: From acceptance to collective protest. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 994–1003. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.58.6.994.
Yardley, L. (2000). Dilemmas in qualitative research. Psychology and Health, 15, 215–228. https://doi.org/10.1080/08870440008400302.
Yoder, J. D., Tobias, A., & Snell, A. F. (2011). When declaring “I am a feminist” matters: Labeling is linked to activism. Sex Roles, 64, 9–18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-010-9890-3.
Zucker, A. N. (2004). Disavowing social identities: What it means when women say, “I'm not a feminist, but…”. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 28, 423–435. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2004.00159.x.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
None of the authors has a conflict of interest.
Data for the present study are available by request from the first and second authors. The authors have no potential conflict of interest pertaining to this paper.
Research Involving Human Participants and/or Animals
The study was approved by the authors’ university Institutional Review Board at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, USA (IRB#E19–45) as Exempt Category. The University of Kansas IRB deferred oversight to the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh IRB for this project.
Informed Consent
All participants provided consent for their participation in the study and for the audio-recording and use of audio-recorded and questionnaire information for research purposes for this study.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Electronic supplementary material
ESM 1
(DOCX 24 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Fieck, M., Miron, A.M., Branscombe, N.R. et al. “We Stand up for Each Other!” An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Collective Action among U.S. College Women. Sex Roles 83, 657–674 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-020-01144-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-020-01144-y