The consensus among many feminists on the composite concept of violence against women signaled new opportunities, perhaps even an obligation, for feminists from the Global North and West to attend to women and women’s organizing in other places. They believed that “all women face gender violence,” albeit different forms, and the solidarity created by the new consensus, especially following on the heels of some bitter North-South disagreements, led many activists to believe that they ought to help out. Armed with the new norms of inclusivity (Weldon 2006), Northern transnational feminists imagined that they could now get involved without being patronizing. Instead of coming in as experts analyzing the local gender problems, they could help foster local women’s organizing, to promote the development of local gender expertise.
These transnational feminists’ interests were also flamed by the fall of the Berlin Wall (Funk 2007). Eastern European women, while different from Western women, were less unfamiliar than women in many other places. Some Western feminists had genealogical ties to the region. Others whose feminism was grounded in Marxist critiques wanted to understand firsthand, without ideological blinders, what had been the actual experiences and daily life of women in state socialism. Many, including me, wanted to have a direct look at the world historical transformations underway, particularly from the position of women in that society (Funk 1993). The elimination of the once substantial obstacles to travel to the region also created a new frontier for Western feminists. Often unable to act effectively in their home countries, they were hopeful of being able to support women’s activity elsewhere and to play a role in preventing the entrenchment of Westernized gender injustice. Some, as Croatian writer Slavenka Draku — lic (1993) alleged, may have gone solely to advance their own careers.
To reflect the new consensus, global feminists sought new organizational forms. Similar to the transnational advocacy networks becoming popular for other human rights issues, they created transnational feminist networks (TFNs) (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Moghadam 2005). These feminist forms of transnational advocacy networks are “structures organized above the national level that unite women from three or more countries around a common agenda, such as women’s rights, reproductive health, violence against women, peace and antimilitarism, or feminist economics” (Moghadam 2005, 4).
In contrast to social movements that—traditionally understood—mobilize masses and take up confrontational tactics, these networks “mobilize smaller numbers of individual activists who use more specialized resources of expertise and access to elites” (Sperling, Ferree, and Risman 2001, 1157). They organize through communication technology and informational gatherings to exchange information and ideas rather than host mass demonstrations or dramatic confrontations with authorities. According to Valentine Moghadam (2005), TFNs are most notable for the following activities since the beginning of the 1990s:
— “TFNs create, activate, or join global networks to mobilize pressure outside states,” such as by participating in the yearly World Social Forum (13).
— “TFNs participate in multilateral and intergovernmental political arenas,” such as the U. N.’s Committee on the Status of Women (14).
— “TFNs act and agitate within states to enhance public awareness and participation” (14).
— “Whether working at the state, regional, or global levels, TFNs have framed issues and introduced new concepts” that U. N. agencies, development agencies, and donor organizations have adopted (17).
TFN activists imagined and attempted new kinds of “sister to sister” or “joint- venture” projects (Sperling, Ferree, and Risman 2001, 1160). This “transnational organizing is not a unidirectional process,” but a global-local intersection where resources, ideas, and benefits can flow both “in” and “out” (Sperling, Ferree, and Risman 2001, 1155).
In terms of promoting mobilization, TFNs can provide what social movement theorists call repertoires for action, models of activism that activists can transplant to help them structure mobilization (Merry 2006a). Across varying contexts, activists tend to appropriate and replicate the same repertoire: the “social service approach inspired by feminists and social workers, largely middle-tier professionals and academics” (138), developing shelters, hotlines, support groups, legal aid, and batterer treatment programs. By 1997, the crisis center—an amalgam of this approach—had become “the international standard,” a “kind of [transnational feminist] do-it-yourself NGO kit” (Hemment 2007, 101, 95). This transplantation is most effective if activists translate these initiatives, that is, adjust “the rhetoric and structure of these programs or interventions to local circumstances” (135) but not so much that they lose the challenge to the sex/gender hierarchy (Ferree 2003). Sometimes crisis centers become so professionalized, so well integrated into the state, and so well aligned with cultural norms and traditions that they lose their radical critique of the gender injustice (Matthews 1994).
Even as transnational feminists struggled to be more inclusive, the term “network”—implying equality of organizations—was more a hope than a reality. Reflecting the unequal access to financial resources, most TFNs are based in the Global North with member organizations in the Global South. Even well — intentioned transnational feminists who continually reflect on their involvement may find themselves in a particular script where they provide expertise to “thankful recipients” (Rivkin-Fish 2004). This script is especially compelling in contexts where most interactions have historically been hierarchical and because intervention can bring resources to foreign transnational feminists and their organizations, raising their international profile and fostering their own organizational growth (Sperling, Ferree, and Risman 2001, 1159-60).