How Diversity Management Strategies Affect Latinas’ Support for Feminist Effort

• In Event: Contemporary Latina/é Politics, Participation, and Representation

Abstract

Historically, the women’s movement has been marked by tensions between Women of Color (WoC) and White women. Previous work, however, fails to identify and empirically test the psychological mechanisms that facilitate cooperation among different racial groups of women. I argue that diversity management strategies (DMS)—i.e., practices employed to regulate racial differences within a movement—that center the voices of minority women and embraces differences in lived experiences increases WoC’s support for mainstream feminist policies. Using a survey experiment with about 603 Latinas, I explore the psychological mechanism that creates the effect of four different combinations of DMS (e.g., ignoring racial differences while having descriptive representation of minorities) on WoC’s support for mainstream feminist policies. I find that a message in which a White woman activist asks the reproductive rights movement to embrace a diverse group of voices decreases Latinas’ sense that women have the ability to address the issues experienced by women. This decreased sense of group efficacy then results in a lower support for mainstream women’s policies (e.g., Latinas’ support for increasing federal funds used to cover the costs of women’s wellness exams for all U.S. citizens).

Author

• Bianca Vannessa Vicuna, University of California, Davis