National Associations – Report from the Conference Meeting

ATGENDER members discussed during this meeting the possibilities and complications of cooperation between National Associations connected with Gender/Women’s & Feminist Studies and ATGENDER.

1. Which organizations?

All associations that bring together members via individual membership and those who are committed to the aims of ATGENDER connected with:

Gender & Women’s Studies, Feminist Research and the related fields (such as: postcolonial, migration, anti-racist, queer, sexualities, labour & care studies, masculinities)

Documentation (librarians, documentation & information specialists, women’s centers)

Gender Equality & Diversity (equal opportunity agents, women’s and feminist activists, HR, employers)

The group discussed the wide diversity of such membership associations.  Until now the institutional membership of ATGENDER has been rather limited and few associations based on individual membership have taken the decision to join ATGENDER. Issues here are: costs involved and gains for the members of such associations. One ATGENDER institutional membership offers three 3 (three) votes, 3 entitlements to reduced conference fees and 3 entitlements to reduced subscriptions. For many boards of national associations this is not enough to warrant spending 500 or (reduced 250) on the fee of ATGENDER membership.

The group agreed that it is crucial to unite such associations and that a focused effort should be made to increase the number of membership of National Associations.  These associations bring linguistic diversity to ATGENDER and will lower the threshold for networking. When they are united in ATGENDER, it will be easier for ATGENDER to represent their perspectives from Europe (not restricted to EU, not restricted to borders, not restricted to those who carry full European citizenship!) in World Organization of Women’s Studies. For ATGENDER it is the continuation of the work of one of its founding mothers: WISE.

In addition to national associations there are sub- or supra national associations, bringing together members from part of a country (Flemish or Wallonian in Belgium e.g.) or from several countries (NIKK bringing together members from different Nordic countries).

The group advises the ATGENDER board to:

·         To undertake such a focused membership drive that focuses on associations with individual members (this does not exclude membership-based associations that also receive other funding, or have forms of institutional membership).

·          To be extremely generous in offering reduced membership fees to such associations, or even forms of partial fee-waivers to such associations.

·         Think about other benefits that may entice national & regional associations to join ATGENDER (website space in own language, an advisory council of membership-based associations)

·         To participate actively in the panel devoted to global cooperation of women’s/gender/feminist associations at the Women’s World Congress in Ottawa, July 2011.

The board-members Pat Treusch, Aino-Maija Hiltunen en Berteke Waaldijk promised to bring these suggestions in the ATGENDER Board.

The group decided to compose a list of names & email addresses of associations in different countries that could be targeted.