Strategy For Women

Developed in December 2000 by Prof. Laure Paquette, Ph.D., Visiting Research Professor, Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics. Rutgers University, and Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Lakehead University.

Contents:



  1. Description
  2. Definition of Strategy
  3. Learning About Strategy: including exercises, forms to walk you through the process of developing a strategy (proposal, planner and report), forms to assess your own progress and keep records (checklist, meeting log, phone log).
  4. Resources and Suggestions for women and women's groups: suggestions of guest speakers, lectures, political films and/or tv shows , and readings.

Description

This website provides tools and workshops on strategy specifically designed for women. For professors who wish to include political strategy in their classes, there are the additional resource of a work plan over a single term, grading tools, topics for lectures, and classroom resources such as films and readings.

Contents

Definition of Strategy

As any activist will tell you, it's not just how well you write a letter or plan a protest, it's how you put those actions together to reach your goal. Strategy is the idea that helps you and whoever you are working with put it together really well. Strategic action is a planned series of acts that are carefully thought out and then carried out in order to change something in an organization or society. It can also help you deal with a particular individual or even exploit an opportunity or tackle a problem to the best of your ability. It is a way of doing things that is particularly helpful to women who have little power or moneyy, or whoever suffers from a disadvantage. It calls not just on a woman's analytical skills, but also on her creativity and her non-rational forms of knowledge. It makes for better citizens or employees, but it doesn't make life necessarily easier for a rigid supervisor or self-interested political leaders.

Contents

 

Components of political action:



  1. Goal: what women would like to see changed. Examples: having a change in subsidy eligibility for day-care, getting a bike lane on a street, having more money for books of interest and use to women in the school library, getting the provincial voting age lowered, asking for a recount in an election.
  2. Tactics: what women actually do to get something changed. Examples: presenting their case to a meeting of the city council, asking the principal or the school board to change the budget, writing the Attorney General of a province or state, writing the Chief Returning Officer of Canada, organizing a protest, putting up a website to take a poll, etc.
  3. Core idea: this is the image or slogan that women use to help them remind themselves of what they are trying to achieve, and be better able to roll with the punches without losing track of the goal. Examples: "Votes for Women" for the suffrage campaign in Great Britain, "Why Not?" for the Year of the Woman in 1977.
  4. Values: what is motivating women, what is important to them. Examples: extra-curricular activities were important to Montreal high school students, and they had massive demonstrations in the streets. Gro Bruntland was concerned about the environment, and came to head a UN commission on that subject.

Contents

Learning About Strategy



Developing a Proposal

Advocating a cause

Contents



Developing a proposal

In order to be inclusive, you may want to consider:

-discussing confrontational Western as opposed to Eastern consensus based decision-making

-propose differential roles within teams to focus on individual women' abilities

-use collages, drawings, videotapes, etc. to communicate a proposal

-use the planner form instead of the proposal form for those who wish to work visually as opposed to using written language

Developing A Proposal

Proposal Form: In Italics are instructions and questions designed to help you fill out the form



Proposal
Level of Government

Is the change organizational, like in a school, or hospital? Is the change local, like at city hall, town council or band council? Is the change provincial/ state, like welfare, about cars, or about hunting and fishing? Is the change federal, like about income tax or about national parks? Is the change international, like about the United Nations or the Red Cross?

Level of Government should be short: Either 'Local', "National', etc.

Goal

What frustrates me, what bothers me? What would I like to see changed?

Be as specific as you can. Goal should be short, and as specific as possible. Example: I want to make sure the day care in Prospect school stays open. Not: I want someone to improve my neighborhood. Make sure there is only one goal, not several. Example: I want to increase my salary by 50 cents an hour. Not: I want to increase my income by increasing my salary and starting up a new business and improving my benefits.

Steps to Goal

Who makes the decision to change or not change? Is it the person formally in charge, like the mayor or premier, or is it actually someone else? When have decisions to change been made in the past? What influenced that decision? What argument can I make that will make the decision go my way? When are they going to make another decision? How can I convince them to think about another decision? Where can I get the facts that will make the decision go my way? What techniques (letter-writing, presentation, one-on-one lobbying, focusing attention, protesting, etc.) can I use to change the minds of the people in charge? Who do I try to communicate with, the administrative, executive, legislative, voters, media?

Resources

What do I need to get the job done? Do I need money? How much? Where I am going to get it? What am I going to spend it on? What is absolutely necessary? What would make the job easier? How much time do I need? How much from me? How much from the teammates? How much time from people not in the team? Do I need someone's permission for any step along the way? Who? When? To do what? Do I need anyone's cooperation? Who? When? About what? How do I get it? How do I make sure I don't make a pest of myself? How do I make sure I only bother them when I absolutely have to? Do I need anyone to stay of my way? Who? When? About what? How can I get it? What else do I need? Make a list. Where do I get it? How do I get the information I need? Library? World Wide Web? Newspapers? Elsewhere? How do I get advice when I hit a roadblock? Teammates? Friends? Teachers? Others? How do I make sure I am getting good advice?

Team Members :

Make a list of everyone on your team.

Roles and Responsibilities of Each Member

For each member: What are they particularly good at? What do they want to do? What are the jobs no one wants? How are you going to assign these jobs? What are the jobs everyone wants? How are you going to decide who gets those jobs? How are you going to keep track of everyone doing what they are supposed to?



 Planner

This form helps you to assign the various things to be done and keep track of deadlines.



Task why how when who



       



        



        

Developing a Proposal



Checklist



Level of Government
I understand each part Yes/No All facts are accurate Yes/No
Everything you need to do is listed Yes/No Goes with rest of proposal Yes/No
Specific enough Yes/No Everything is relevant and necessary Yes/No

Goal
I understand each part Yes/No All facts are accurate Yes/No
Everything you need to do is listed Yes/No Goes with rest of proposal Yes/No
Specific enough Yes/No Everything is relevant and necessary Yes/No

Steps to Goal
I understand each part Yes/No All facts are accurate Yes/No
Everything you need to do is listed Yes/No Goes with rest of proposal Yes/No
Specific enough Yes/No Everything is relevant and necessary Yes/No

Resources
I understand each part Yes/No All facts are accurate Yes/No
Everything you need to do is listed Yes/No Goes with rest of proposal Yes/No
Specific enough Yes/No Everything is relevant and necessary Yes/No

Presentation

Grammar is good Yes/No Spelling is good Yes/No
Needs to be polished Yes/No Easy to read Yes/No


Strengths







Developing a Proposal

Advocating for a Cause

In preparation for your advocacy, you may wish to role play for the following situations:

Questions for discussion after each role play:

-what did the women do well?

-what could the women also do to improve their chances of success?

-what would other women have done differently in the same circumstances?

-where the women sincere? Believable?

Advocating a Cause



REPORT/PLAN

___________________________________________________________

Goal

____________________________________________________________________________

Sub-Goal for __________________(day/week/month)



















Advocating a Cause

Checklist

Women have enough of the information. Yes/No Notes:
Enough information could be used in the plan or action. Yes/No
Sources were reliable enough. Yes/No
Actions were sufficiently effective. Yes/No
Action was organized enough. Yes/No
Actions was thought out properly in advance. Yes/No
Contacts remembered and used enough of the information later. Yes/No
Questions could be answered satisfactorily. Yes/No
Good judgment was used on what to include and what to exclude Yes/No
Presentation held the contacts' attention Yes/No





Advocating a Cause

Other Tools : Phone Log, Meeting Log

Phone Log
Date: Time:
Name: Persons Called:
Phone Number:
Topic Discussed:


Notes:















Advocating a Cause

Meeting Log
Date: Time:
Name: Persons Met:
Location:
Topic Discussed:




I said: S/he said:

















Advocating a Cause



Resources and Suggestions



Contents

Themes for Classroom Lectures



Contents

Political Films



Contents

Readings for the Political Strategist

Available as a collection from Canadian Scholars' Press for $35.95. Edited by Prof. Laure Paquette, Ph.D.

Contents

Classroom guests

Women who are:

Contents

This document was created by Professor Laure Paquette, Ph.D. of Lakehead University. Forms may be duplicated with acknowledgment of authorship for individual use. Workshops on political action are available from Laure.Paquette.com or e-mail at Laure@Paquette.com. All rights reserved. Last updated January 5th, 2001.