Transformative and Feminist Leadership for Women’s Rights

OXFAM AMERICA RESEARCH BACKGROUNDER

Transformative and Feminist Leadership for Women's Rights

Shawna Wakefield

CONTENTS

Oxfam America's Research Backgrounders ........................................................ 2 Author information and acknowledgments ........................................................... 2 Citations of this paper.......................................................................................... 3

Acronyms and abbreviations ............................................................................... 4

Foreword ............................................................................................................. 5

Executive summary ............................................................................................ 7

Introduction ....................................................................................................... 13

Scan of trends in Transformative and Feminist Leadership ............................... 18 Transformational leadership concepts ............................................................... 18

Transformative Leadership for Women's Rights in action .................................. 34 A framework for analyzing transformative leadership for women's rights ........... 34 The practices of transformative and feminist leadership .................................... 37

Strategic implications, challenges and promising practices from literature and interviews .......................................................................................................... 64 Modeling feminist purpose and principles .......................................................... 65 Inspiring shared vision based on personal and collective reflexive learning (and unlearning) ........................................................................................................ 69 Empowering and empower others to act............................................................ 72 Challenging patriarchal norms and oppresive power ......................................... 76 Encouraging integration of heart, mind, and body.............................................. 82 Donors and transformative leadership ............................................................... 84

Moving forward: foundations of a research agenda ........................................... 89

Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 91

References ........................................................................................................ 93

Research Backgrounder Series Listing.............................................................. 99

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Transformative and Feminist Leadership for Women's Rights

OXFAM AMERICA'S

RESEARCH BACKGROUNDERS

Series editor: Kimberly Pfeifer

Oxfam America's Research Backgrounders are designed to inform and foster discussion about topics critical to poverty reduction. The series explores a range of issues on which Oxfam America works--all within the broader context of international development and humanitarian relief. The series was designed to share Oxfam America's rich research with a wide audience in hopes of fostering thoughtful debate and discussion. All Backgrounders are available as downloadable PDFs on our website, research, and may be distributed and cited with proper attribution (please see following page).

Topics of Oxfam America's Research Backgrounders are selected to support Oxfam's development objectives or key aspects of our policy work. Each Backgrounder represents an initial effort by Oxfam to inform the strategic development of our work, and each is either a literature synthesis or original research, conducted or commissioned by Oxfam America. All Backgrounders have undergone peer review.

Oxfam America's Research Backgrounders are not intended as advocacy or campaign tools; nor do they constitute an expression of Oxfam America policy. The views expressed are those of the authors--not necessarily those of Oxfam. Nonetheless, we believe this research constitutes a useful body of work for all readers interested in poverty reduction.

For a full list of available Backgrounders, please see the "Research Backgrounder Series Listing" section of this report.

Author information and acknowledgments

Shawna Wakefield is a women's rights and gender justice consultant, supporting personal, collective and social transformation through research, program and organizational strategy, development and group facilitation, and teaching mind/body practices. She was Oxfam's Senior Gender Justice Lead from 20082015.

The author would like to acknowledge the leadership of Alivelu Ramisetty and Kimberly Pfeifer in making this important and under-studied research possible. Also, the collaboration of Alexa Bradley of JASS, colleagues from Gender at

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Work, including Joanne Sandler and Srilatha Batliwala who provided extensive and hugely insightful comments on the draft; Michel Friedman for her consistent support and collaboration on this topic; Idelisse Malave for her encouragement, and Aruna Rao for providing keen advice on resources. The author would like to acknowledge the feedback of Jeanette Kloosterman and Chloe Safier on the framing of the research, and Supriya Pillai for her introductions to U.S. based organizations and groundbreakers in transformational leadership.

The author appreciates immensely the time and thoughtfulness shared by the interviewees for this research, including some of the above along with Ellen Sprenger, Hope Chigudu, Illana Landsberg-Lewis, Jackie Payne, Jane Sloane, Jessica Horn, Jodie Tonita, Joe Weston, Kristen Zimmerman, Lori Michau, Nani Zulminary, Patricia Ardon, Ruspa Mallik, Rusi Mohiuddin, Shereen Essof, Srilatha Batliwala.

Citations of this paper

Please use the following format when citing this paper:

Wakefield, Shawna, "Transformative and Feminist Leadership for Women's Rights." Oxfam America Research Backgrounder series (2017): . explore/research-publications/transformative-feministleadership-womens-rights.

For permission to publish a larger excerpt, please email your request to permissions@.

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Transformative and Feminist Leadership for Women's Rights

ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

AWID AWDF CEDOVIP FLMBaRI FLOW GBV IDS JASS LGBTI MEV PEKKA TLWR VAW

Association for Women's Rights in Development African Women's Development Fund Center for Domestic Violence Prevention Feminist Leadership, Movement Building and Rights Institute Funding Leadership and Opportunities for Women Gender-based violence Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Just Associates for Women Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex Move to End Violence Programme Pemberdayaan Perempuan Kepala Keluarga Transformative Leadership for Women's Rights Violence Against Women

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