ABSTRACT
Domestic and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs/INGOs) for women’s rights have their origins in the transnational women’s movement that emerged at the turn of the 20th century (Ferree and Mueller 2004). Over the last 50 years, NGOs/INGOs have contributed massively to the construction and travel of global norms like gender equality, women’s autonomy, and economic independence now associated with women’s rights (Merry 2003). Yet, as feminist IR scholars have shown, though gender equality has become a legitimate global policymaking concern, social equity and justice remains elusive for most women and many men as militarization, securitization, and economic globalization become dominant concerns (Tripp, Ferree, and Ewig 2013; Runyan and Peterson 2014, 2). Can feminist mobilization through NGOs/INGOs degender global governance, effectively challenging the historical and contemporary symbolic and material processes underpinning global gendered power relations (Runyan and Peterson 2014, 256)?
