Women's political action : an integration of three perspectives

In the present study, an examination of definitions of feminist consciousness led to the suggestion that double deprivation would be strongly related to political action. In addition, it was hypothesized that perceptions of the availability of resources and double deprivation would co-occur. Finally, it was suggested that past social psychological measures of feminist consciousness (Gurin & Townsend, 1986) do not adequately represent the qualitative experience of a feminist consciousness. Regression analyses showed that double deprivation was associated with political action. Furthermore, both the perceptions of resources and double deprivation were uniguely related to action. Finally, one dimension of feminist consciousness, namely, legitimacy, as well as perceptions of common fate were associated with both double deprivation and political action. Implications for these theories were discussed.