The “institutional turn” in political science reflects a wider consensus among both feminist and mainstream scholars that institutions—broadly defined as the formal and informal “rules of the game”—deeply shape political life. Political institutions are also profoundly gendered. Yet, despite significant advancements in institutional analysis over the past few decades, gender politics scholars continue to grapple with how to “capture” the gendered character and gendering effects of institutions. This contribution explores how insights from feminist institutionalism (see, for example, Kenny 2007; 2013; Krook and Mackay 2011) can help us address these methodological challenges. It argues that a feminist institutionalist approach provides useful insights into the gendered foundations of political institutions, the operation and importance of informal institutions, and the general and gendered mechanisms of continuity and change.

In my Sex, Power, and Politics class it is often easy to convince students of the ways in which feminist political activism is radically different from the women's movements of the 19th century. Grappling with how “slut shaming” has changed from Hawthorne's story of Hester Prynne (The Scarlet Letter) to Emma Stone's ironic performance in the film Easy A to pop star Miley Cyrus' “twerking” in an MTV performance with singer Robin Thicke is an easy feat for my late-millennial generation students. They are far less comfortable, however, with the idea that there are troubling continuities in the topics of that political activism. It is thus harder for them to see the continuities and ongoing challenges as part of a longstanding rationale for a perpetual women's movement. These continuities are seen more clearly by baby boomer feminists, the bulk of whom came to consciousness as second-wave feminists.

Despite its popularity as a conceptual framework, institutionalism is characterized by a deep methodological uncertainty. Doctoral students struggle to pin down the actual institutions that they wish to study, and, in the work of many established scholars, the operationalization of institutionalist concepts is frustratingly vague or surprisingly flexible. It has been 30 years since “new institutionalists” March and Olsen (1984) argued that “the organisation of political life makes a difference.” They were reacting to “undersocialised” perspectives like behavioralism and early rational choice theory and asserting that informal conventions were as significant as formal structures and procedures. This broad conception of institutions has been both the strength and the weakness of the wave of research that followed. It has enabled new institutionalists to build a more fine-grained and realistic picture of what really constrains political behavior and decision making. But an expanded definition of “institution” runs the risk of “conceptual stretching” (Peters 1999, 216). March and Olsen (1989, 17) themselves make no clear distinction between institutions and social norms in general, while Douglas North (1990, 83) goes as far as to include tradition, custom, culture, and habit in his definition. Researchers also operate at radically different temporal and spatial scales—from microlevel studies of decision making to analyses of whole government systems (like legislatures, for instance) or historical accounts of policy change. Bo Rothstein (1996, 145) cautions that if the concept of institution “means everything, then it means nothing.” Guy Peters (1999, 145) argues that institutionalists need “more rigour in conceptualisation and then measurement of the phenomena that are assumed to make up institutions.”

Regardless of the country where one lives, gendered discrimination and outright misogyny are commonplace. In particular, violence against women remains one of the most widespread and pervasive challenges to women's rights. It crosses all boundaries, geographical and social. Economic inequalities within and across countries continue to expand with gendered patterns. Significant gaps remain in education, employment, and healthcare, among many other things. So, the answer to the question, “Do we need a women's movement?” seems obvious. But what form should the mobilization take? Is it the work of a women's movement? A feminist movement? Where do other social justice movements fit in? Where should mobilization take place: locally, nationally, transnationally, or globally? How do we deal with difference? Can universal messages that unite across borders also deal with the unique circumstances of particular locations? In this piece, I pick up on some of the themes raised by other participants in this forum and elaborate on them in global perspective. My intent is not to apply logics of the United States movements elsewhere, but instead to propose insight gathered from broader comparative and transnational studies that might be applied to this discussion.

Consistent with feminist scholarship more broadly, feminist legal methodology is more clearly unified by a common objective—revealing and challenging the role of law in exacerbating women's inequality—than specific methods per se. Nevertheless, common methods and approaches to the feminist legal study of institutions can be discerned. This brief intervention will focus on describing these common methods and approaches, explaining how they differ from feminist political science, and conclude with some reflections on how feminist legal studies might enrich feminist political science study of institutions in order to inform strategies for change.