Including ourselves in empowerment: women's experiences of working in feminist domestic violence and sexual assault organizations

Abstract

Many domestic violence and sexual assault organizations developed out of the feminist movement and continue to hold feminist values and ideologies. This research examines the experiences of women who work in these organizations from a feminist sociological perspective in order to explore experiences of empowerment. Nine women from collectivist-democratic organizations in New Zealand and hierarchical-bureaucratic organizations in the United States were interviewed using open-ended questions. By categorizing organizations into archetypes, collectivist-democratic and hierarchical-bureaucratic, this research seeks to determine if and how organizational structure affects experiences of empowerment. Results indicate that there are specific factors for which organizational type does influence experiences of empowerment differently. Decision making practices, influence of individuals with power, and ethical communication practices were found to be important in hierarchical-bureaucratic organizations. Collective accountability and governance processes, decision making processes, organizational sustainability, and institutional knowledge and documentation were found to be factors in collectivist-democratic organizations. Although the two organizational types manifested different factors which influenced experiences of empowerment, these specific factors were linked with two common underlying themes of power and accountability. Additionally, several similarities in experiences were found across organizational types. Being in the organization and support from co-workers was found to contribute to experiences of empowerment. Conflict between individuals, workload and staffing issues, and remuneration were often experienced as disempowering. These results indicate that there are factors which influence experiences of empowerment that common to all of the organizations in this study. It is therefore important that feminist organizations work to balance autonomy and accountability, and engage in regular dialogue about how well they are empowering the women who work in them. Future research should expand beyond arguing whether one organizational type is better than another, and instead focus on the practical day-to-day life of organizations and seek to discover what specific factors make an organization empowering or disempowering.