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In the 1970s, nonviolent feminist thinkers were trying to define what power meant. His call was to move from traditional notions of dominance and control to authenticity and integrity, and to align oneself with one’s deepest values. Reconnecting inner faith with public action is what Lynn Blakemore saw as the process of “rediscovering one’s authentic power.” Anne-Marie Fearon points out that empathy systems foster violence because they thrive on men hiding their emotions, viewing empathy as a flaw. Jill Sutcliffe expands on this theory by suggesting that men have been delegitimized and that this aggressive mindset has fueled environmental injustice through science and technology. Collectively, these feminist scholars have drawn upon nonviolence as an actively engaged ethical practice connecting self, society, and earth.
Over the decades, women leading various nonviolent movements have tried to suggest a way to maintain the moral authority they stand up against without turning them into symbols. Audre Lorde notes that activists can easily lose their moral roots when they gain public recognition because of the “master tools”. This results in flattening messages into slogans for global news consumption. However, there are others who choose the road less traveled, rejecting the comfort and privilege of staying with their cause even if their efforts are not recognized. Both approaches show how gender expectations deeply influence what is celebrated and what is ignored.
The literature on feminism offers three explanations for these dynamics. First, authentic nonviolence depends on personal harmony. Fearon says that boys are taught not to associate empathy with identity, and that tenderness is seen as shameful. As non-violence, thoughts, feelings and actions have to be connected. To maintain credibility in social movements, leaders must mirror their principles. Greta Thunberg’s climate justice activism is a powerful example of such moral consistency. That’s why his influence is not international celebrity but his unwavering conviction.
Another important lesson is that social movements cannot combat one form of injustice while tolerating another. Sutcliffe’s analysis of nuclear power reveals that the logic that justifies war also drives environmental damage and rampant consumerism. Opposing one structure of dominance while benefiting from another is a moral contradiction. Some institutionally sanctioned activism falls into this trap, treating issues like gender, education or the environment as separate, isolated issues. The feminist approach to nonviolence, long before “intersectionality” became a buzzword, insisted that peace could not be partial. It has to spread across systems and scales from home to planet.
Nonviolent leadership, then, is not about who speaks the loudest globally. It is about who is true to the struggle that defines our survival.
In the end, collective power is more radical than heroic suffering. Helen Mikalowski’s Army Will Make a Man Out of You shows how militarism breeds obedience by degrading individuality. In contrast, feminist peace organizers, from the Greenham Common Women’s Camp to Lima Gubi’s Liberian movement, replaced hierarchy with compassion and harmony. Their power was undermined not by a single face but by collective denial. As Gobi later wrote, “Our strength was in our unity.”
In this framework, the public contrast between famous and neglected women activists becomes less about personality and more about structure. When the image of a movement is concentrated in an individual, it risks slipping from participation to representation. Media narratives prefer an icon they can project onto a network they cannot control. The result is what feminist theorists call the commodification of conscience, that is, moral energy is packaged for visibility rather than transformation.
It helps to explain why some audiences, including some in Pakistan, are alienated by figures who seem to have transcended the struggle, while they are attracted to voices who are collectively accountable. This rejection is not of women’s leadership itself but of its perceived detachment from the reality of life. As Ferron observed, the power that pleads for acceptance ends with power. It becomes a performance.
Yet the answer is not to reject exposure altogether. As Gobi reminds us, moral authority can circulate through storytelling, ritual, and solidarity if it remains relational. The task for contemporary nonviolent leaders is to maintain that relative integrity in a media environment that rewards spectacle.
Finally, feminist theories of nonviolence teach that change is neither glamorous nor immediate. It requires harmony of life, mutual vision and collective courage. When any of these clashes — when activism becomes branding, when justice becomes selective, when the movement itself eclipses it — moral power is lost.
From local peace activists to global climate strikers, the women who keep it up express a quiet defiance: they refuse to separate the personal from the political, or the human from the planetary. As Lorde wrote, their power lies, “using sensuality as power,” an energy not rooted in control.
Nonviolent leadership, then, is not about who speaks the loudest globally. It is about who is true to the struggle that defines our survival. Some movements forget this and indulge in symbolism. Others, based on harmony and community, endure. Not because they are celebrated, but because they are fulfilled.
The author is a doctoral student at Kent State University, USA. Her research interests include gender, media, social movements and technology.
