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To investigate these dynamics, this volume moves from examining how the sex and gender of participants shapes a movement, to gender as an ideology or social logic shaping movements and ends by exploring reactions and responses coming from gendered movements. In doing so, Chapters 1 through 4 focus on how the gender and sex binaries – male/female, woman/man, feminine/masculine – influence movements and activists. Since these binaries are a primary “sorting” mechanism in society with the potential to position people in certain ways, movements often reflect these binaries. However, examining how movements align themselves to these binaries does not mean that only the identities of women and men and males and females have been involved in movements. On the contrary, reviewing social movements can illustrate how non-binary, gender fluid, transgender, and intersex people are present and influential in movements. In Chapter 5, I take up some of these histories to illustrate the diversity of gender and sex identities in movements and how as understandings of gender change, so do the focus and goals of movements. My goal in this text is not to center the focus on cisgender activists but to take a broader view of how gender as a social logic organizing our lives is incorporated into social movements.

Throughout the book, I also bring a focus to what an intersectional perspective can bring to our understanding of social dynamics. I do so to note how identities beyond gender such as race-ethnicity, age, social class, religion, nationality, and other social identities also act as “sorting mechanisms” in society and intertwine with gender. I bring in this intersectional perspective to remind the reader of these forces and have included sources such as websites and books that will allow further investigation. At the start of each chapter, I introduce a vignette from a social movement and use that vignette to illustrate the concepts and dynamics of each chapter.

Chapter 1 – People in Movements: When Movements Focus on Single-Gender Concerns – considers how movements are shaped by participants’ gendered concerns. Here I examine how (mostly) single-gender movements work to change or resist change of societal gender norms. This chapter focuses on women’s and men’s movements and how they arise, what they focus on, and how they shift over time. I show how single-gender concerns can take a multitude of approaches with movement activists sometimes working in opposition to each other.

Chapter 2 – Gender in Movements: What Happens in Multi-Gender Movements – examines how gender shapes social movements that are not specifically organized to change gender norms and addresses how gender organizes movements containing multiple gender identities. Drawing on the ways in which societal gender norms sort people often into the binary, I examine how men and women can fare very differently from each other in the same movement. Here I show how participants in social movements bring their gendered understandings of the world into movements and act on gendered assumptions, expectations, and beliefs. I examine how gender shapes who is thought to be an activist and their abilities in movements.

In Chapter 3 – Coming to the Movement: How Gender Influences Pathways to Activism – I continue to draw on the dominant gender binary as a sorting mechanism to explore the different routes and processes by which people join and become active in social movements. How people come to movements is a core question for social movement scholars, and in this chapter I focus on how movements connect to people and how they convince people to join the movement as well as how people move from interested participants to activists. Just as people live gendered lives and are shaped by gendered constraints and expectations, the processes that bring them into social movements are also gendered. I end the chapter by discussing how emotions are central to all these processes and are again often shaped by understandings of the gender binary.

Chapter 4 – Guiding Social Change: When Gender Shapes Movement Trajectories – examines some of the key aspects of how social movements determine their course of action – through leaders, strategies, and tactics. As participants in movements draw on their understandings of gender, they also shape who is identified as a leader and how they lead. The work on the civil rights movement is particularly important here with feminist researchers identifying how women have led even if they weren’t identified as doing so. Shaped by the people within them, movements, strategies, and tactics often draw on conventional ideas of femininity and masculinity as well as transgressing them in the work for social change. I conclude by noting that some gendered strategies and tactics are hidden, and only emerge when viewed through a gender lens.

In Chapter 5 – Legacies of Rise and Resistance: How Gender Sparks Change and Backlash – I examine how gender identities shift and develop in society and how some work to resist those changes. Here I examine how gender as a personal identity does not always align itself to the binary. I start by examining some of the tensions around gender and same-sex marriage and then examine how trans, gender non-binary, and gender fluid people move beyond the binary and how social movements have played a role aiding those identities as well as resisting them. I then explore how challenges to conventional gender norms bring backlash and countermovements seeking to undo the changes. This resistance to undoing aspects of gender illustrates once again its power in shaping society. The final chapter – Conclusion: Where Do We Go from Here? – draws on the case of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo to examine the multiple ways that gender intertwines in social movements as illustrated throughout the book. The story of these grandmothers, abuelas, in Argentina, highlight the key themes of this book. Drawing on their status as grandmothers, the activists illustrate how gendered people organize in (largely) same-sex movements and draw on gendered networks, identities and ideas to organize protest. They drew on a strategy that infused non-violent protest with norms of chivalry toward the elderly and women. They were able to continue their protests because of gendered stereotypes about women and those stereotypes kept their movement alive. Overall, the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and their activism serves as a powerful example of the intertwining of gender and social movements. I conclude by noting where more research and attention is needed as scholars continue to intertwine gender and social movements.