Introduction
Whether you are an organiser, a curator or a participant, this Feminist Influencing Basket of Resources is intended to guide you through proven tools and exercises.
The resource is a go-to guide on ways of working and engaging at different levels using an intersectional, feminist, participatory approach, where women, gender non-binary and marginalised or silenced groups can:
- Unpack power dynamics through personal and collective reflection, learning and action to strengthen collective power.
- Propose an ethic of care through practical feminist rituals for safety, wellbeing, vulnerability, and creation of safe spaces.
- Enhance feminist narratives in joint actions to create “a bigger us”.
- Design practical feminist influencing strategies and actions.
- Use feminist, participatory monitoring, evaluation and action learning.
The resource aims to make visible the many systems of oppression, understand how they reinforce and support each other, and strengthen strategies to challenge them together and separately using the Feminist Influencing Basket.
About
The Feminist Influencing Basket of Resources emerges as the world continues to burn with multiple and protracted crises and conflicts (economic deprivation, war, climate change) that severely and unevenly impact most Global South countries.
As the world is restructuring, the forms and types of power are evolving, while the geopolitics seems to be shifting and taking new forms in the process. Gender inequality has increased as the pre-existing vulnerabilities have resulted in accelerated poverty and marginalisation of women, gender non-binary people and other marginalised groups. However, the desired transformative change did not live up to its promise, leaving root causes of vulnerabilities and marginalisation unaddressed, therefore accommodating with patriarchal structures and systems of oppression.
This Feminist Influencing Basket brings in a transformative feminist approach to influencing by challenging the status quo in small and big ways, through disrupting power and privilege, and bringing in radical healing, love, and care to shift dominant narratives and strengthen our movements.
It draws on Oxfam’s work on “The Principles of Feminist Influencing” and other Oxfam and external publications that are intended to build feminist ways of working within the organisation, its partners, friends, and allies. Several activities in this resource promote and foster feminist popular education and collective analysis to transform both the individual and the collective by creating a “unique bigger us” space where individual struggles are connected to the collective.
The resource is based on the premise that feminist spaces expose, analyse and confront negative powers, therefore due care has to be taken to accompany it with activities that address the emotional and psychological wellbeing of participants.
Several tools and activities unfold what can be done and how, but leaves participants free to adapt it to their culturally and socially appropriate context. We hope that our advocacy efforts, campaigns and influencing processes are sensitive to the realities of women, gender non-binary people, marginalised or silenced groups as part of our efforts to bring about transformative change.
In using this resource, we support its users dismantle the commonly held notions around knowledge, honour the practices and processes for healing and create communities of care in the spaces where we work, as we pursue the change that we want to see.
We have woven this Feminist Influencing Basket of Resources together, taking fibres we thought were important and cross-weaving them over and between each other to create something that stands on its own. It can be taken as it is or can be used as a pattern to weave your own basket.
By using popular education feminist exercises, we hope to make real and tangible how power operates, how intersectionality can strengthen our advocacy and how narrative power can support our collective actions.
The Baskets are not empty. They are full of makers, their stories, their thoughts while making. All of the thoughts jump out of the baskets onto all of us. – Aunty Verna Nichols – Advancing reconciliation through her Art, Basket Weaver – Tasmania
Contents
Meet Our Curators 2
Acknowledgements 5
Note of Caution 6
Executive Summary 7
Introduction 12
Introducing our Feminist Influencing Basket of Resources 13
Part 1: Designing The Pattern 18
Choosing Feminist Facilitation 19
Creating The Conditions For Care And Participation 20
Activity 1: Speed Dating 22
Activity 2: Meaning of My Name and What My Name means to me? 23
Activity 3: Relating To One Another 24
Creating Safe(r) Spaces 26
Activity 1: Agreeing The Commitments We Make To One Another 26
Activity 2: Opening And Closing Rituals 28
Active Listening And Learning 30
Activity 1: The Art Of Listening 30
Activity 2: The Learning Process – Setting Up A Learning
Environment 33
Activity 3: “Planting” Your Tree Of Hope 35
Part 2: Opening Our Eyes – The Personal Is Political 37
Activity 1: The 24-Hour Clock 39
Activity 2: Understanding Feminism 41
Activity 3: The Personal Is Political 43
Activity 4: The Power Flower 46
Part 3: Opening Our Hearts – Healing Our Self And The World 48
Essential Oils 52
Activity 1: Acts Of Gratitude 53
Activity 2: Grounding Exercises 55
Activity 3: Understanding And Dealing With Trauma And Stress 60
Activity 4: Tai Chi Meditation, Pal Dan Gum And Body Movement 65
Activity 5: Visualization And Breathing Work 67
Activity 6: Acupressure And Body Holds For Alleviating Pain,
Stress And Balancing Emotions 70
Activity 7: Journaling/Journal Therapy 77
Part 4: Opening Our Minds And Awareness 79
Power 80
Transformative Power 82
Oppression, Privilege, Participation, Liberation 83
Activity 1: Power Walk 85
Activity 2: The Master’s House “Power & Patriarchy” 89
Activity 3: Visible, Hidden and Invisible Power 93
Part 5: Opening Our Narratives And Stories 95
Building narrative power through collective action 96
Activity 1: Who Came Before You?/ On Who’s Shoulders Do You Stand? 98
Activity 2: Herstory Shall Be Told 100
Activity 3: Crowdsourcing What “Narratives” Mean 103
Activity 4: “Counter” or “Transformative” Narratives 105
Activity 5: A System Of Stories 107
Activity 6: Radical Reframes 110
Activity 7: Following The Narrative Thread Emerging From Collective 113
Actions 113
Part 6: Opening Our Actions And Influencing 115
Activity 1: Problem/ root tree analysis and solutions 116
Activity 2: Visioning Fearless Feminist Futures 120
Activity 3: A Power Analysis 124
Activity 4: A Creative Collective Action – Stitching Our Basket. 129
Part 7: Feminist Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability And Learning 132
Introduction 133
Purpose and Scope of the MEAL framework 134
The Framework 134
Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability & Learning 135
Learning And Knowledge Management Agenda 138
Annexes 139
ANNEX 1: Draft Agenda For Workshops Of 1-2-5 Days 139
ANNEX 2: Brief Review Of Some Feminist Resources 142
ANNEX 3: Power Walk Characters 144
Excerpts
Here is a sneak peek into the guide and its many activities.
Access Full Resource
Feminist Influencing Basket of Resources (PDF)
Note
The material, Feminist Influencing Basket of Resources, is adapted by the Commons with the permission of Oxfam, Oxfam House, John Smith Drive, Cowley, Oxford OX4 2JY UK www.oxfam.org.uk. Oxfam does not necessarily endorse any text or activities that accompany the materials, nor has it approved the adapted text.
Explore Further
- Feminist Popular Education Manual: Sowing Gender Justice to Dismantle Patriarchy, Friends of the Earth,
- All in For A Feminist Recovery
- No More Gendered Violence: Resources to Support Campaigning
- Leaderful Organizing Tool: Mística
- bell hooks – Ideas for Social Justice
- Films about Women and Social Justice and Change
- 5 Films about Fighting for Gender Justice and Human Rights
- Empowering Leaderful Organizing: Competencies & Tools
- Narrative Power and Collective Action: Conversations with People Working to Change Narratives for Social Good
- Narrative Change Hub Collection