What can a movement do when its participants have a negative image in the culture at large? How would that apply in the case of feminism? Which of the relationships, social habits, or pathways to power in Duhigg and Andrews does the movement need to activate to change its image?
Movements are often unsuccessful when its participants have a negative image in society. The best action to take when this occurs is to step away from generally labeling the group and instead focus on the issues that the movement is working to change. This can be done by educating the public, defining terms, and stating what the group is fighting for rather than what the group is. For example, with feminism, instead of labeling participants as feminists, the group could either define feminism, saying that it is the advocacy for women’s rights based on the equality of all sexes or they could instead focus on the issues such as wage-equality, freedom of choice for women regarding their bodies, etc. Making these specific claims would take away all ambiguity about the movement and its participants. In order to change a movements image, the participants need to make use of relationships and organizational and cultural powers. Relationships and organization are useful because they both help to educate society about the movement. Strong ties can work together to share organized, well thought out ideas with weak ties and this will help to give people the true image of a movement. Cultural power is also important because for the movement to become effective again the social climate surrounding it needs to be altered.
