Gender and Occupy Wall Street

Abstract

On September 17th, 2011, thousands of people descended onto Wall Street in New York City. They tried to take the Wall Street bull but were pushed back to the privately owned Zuccotti Park, thusly starting a worldwide economic protest that stood in parks or other public spaces throughout the world. Despite this being an economic protest women were still involved and tried to have their voices heard despite adverse conditions such as not being able to share their ideas and perspectives, or being scared away with fear of violence.

Table of Contents / Navigation

Introduction <= You are here!

Historiography

Analysis

Works Cited

What is Occupy Wall Street?

The Occupy Movement kicked off on September 17th, 2011 with the Occupy Wall Street Protest. which, according to Andrew Fleming was in part prompted by the group Adbusters. [1] However, this was a protest brought about by the Internet. Without the internet and social media, Occupy would not have become the worldwide phenomenon it was. [2] This is due to how the protest was spread across social media, and the whole movement was crowd-sourced. This is a key element as this protest was not backed by an interest group, instead it was backed by people with ideas and sometimes radically different ideas. [3]

Below is a map and timelines just covering the Protests that had over 1,000 people. There are a lot more protests that are listed on Wikipedia. There are also international protests that occurred throughout the world that are not covered in this writing, simply for brevity and limitations of the embedded tools. Further links are below to explore the other protests.

Note Just because a point on the timeline states that there is no end date it doesn’t mean that it is still going. After looking at these interactive elements I invite you to have a look at these lists for further details. As there are many international protests as well.

“List of Occupy movement protest locations”

“List of Occupy movement protest locations in California”

“List of Occupy movement protest locations in the United States”

A bit about Occupy and the Main Point of this Project.

There are so many protests with their own methods and individual reasons for protest. It makes one wonder, what were the goals of the movement? Well, this video from Business Insider explains what some of the rallying points of the protest were. There is a story here that goes until the 7-minute mark.

(Warning, mention of sexual assault at 6:10)

Why Occupy Wall Street Failed 10 Years Ago | Rise And Fall

So as seen the basis for the protest was the call to action by adbusters and people disgruntled over the growing economic gap between the top 1% of earners and the 99% of the other earners. [4] That is an oversimplification, the goals will be gone over in the analysis more thoroughly. However, as Business Insider stated the prospect and goal of the protest changed as the demonstration went on and more ideas were added which lines up with the above points. However, with the analysis, the focus will be on more issues of gender involving the protest.

With that thought in mind, did gender have a role in the Occupy protest? Only in a minor sense for the issues at the forefront, though the topic of gender would cause controversy as seen at 6:11 in the above video with a women’s only sleeping area. [6] This will be iterated later as well but there is a content warning as there will be discussion of sexual assault. Though the argument is that Occupy Wall Street did not have much impact for gender though it did raise the issue of gender in urban protest situations.

With this point made, I would recommend moving to either of these two pages. If you want to know about me, some information is below.

Historiography or Analysis

Creator Biography

Scott C. DeHart is an undergraduate social studies and history double major senior at Cleveland State University. Scott has made it through the CSU Teach program with the intention of becoming a high school teacher in the state of Ohio.

In-Page Citations

[1] Fleming, Andrew. Adbusters Sparks Wall Street Protest. (Vancouver Courier, September 27, 2011.) https://web.archive.org/web/20121011160015/http://www.vancourier.com/Adbusters+sparks+Wall+Street+protest/5466332/story.html.

[2] Ibid

[3] Bennett, W. Lance, The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization of Contentious Politics. (Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics, 2013. doi:10.1017CBO9781139198752.) 7

[4] Why Occupy Wall Street Failed 10 Years Ago | Rise And Fall. (Business Insider, YouTube, September 14, 2021.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGgZvjdaYhg. 1:00-2:00

[5] Ibid

[6] Ibid 6:11