How do we do feminist systems change?

Tatiana Fraser & Rachel Sinha

Aligning feminist lens with systems practice

Our new publication launched today, lays out how we combine an intersectional feminist lens with systemic practice.

In summary, we do this by first shifting power and centering lived experience and then, bringing in systems frames to move into strategy.

Shift the power and start with lived experience

We center the conversation on lived experience first, theory second.

Intersectional Feminist practice gives us a way to weave in power and intersectional analysis throughout a systems change initiative in an authentic and real way. It offers us a guide to de-centre the dominant narratives as a starting point and to re-centre and listen deeply to the experience of people.

Whether it’s allocating resources, finding the leaders in a system or convening an ecosystem, our work begins with: whose perspective is centred and whose is resourced? These first steps are an important moment to ensure that the experiences and voices of community, first voice, those living the harm of a system — will be leading the way. It also begins with a clear intention to shift resources and power from dominant systems to multiple and decentralized community leadership.

Bring in systems frames

From here we bring in systems frameworks to reframe the challenges we see and develop strategies for change based on this new understanding and knowledge. We build community and connect ecosystems that are wiser in their collective actions.

Systems practice helps us to sense-make and move to action and strategy that could create the conditions to shift the system.

These strategies emerge through learning and from people who are motivated and in the position to act on them.

Our methodology merges together feminist practice with systems change and we believe it is the combination of both together, that helps to create interventions that are built on understanding, trust and deepened relationships across difference.

We demonstrate a culture that honours our full, messy experience at home and at work as part of the change work we are trying to do. We take time to build out a collective strategy for systems change over a significant period of time, so that when we do emerge ecosystems with new connections and ways forward, or potential collaborations, we have the foundation of relationships that run deeper and are more authentic.

Our practice

This is how we do it in practice:

Convene small cohorts for peer learning

We support systems practitioners leading an initiative or cohort of leaders working collectively across an ecosystem,

Invite the full human

Centering conversations on the challenges that leaders are facing at work, allowing a lot of room to weave in the personal challenges that intersect and exacerbate these issues.

Centre Care and Healing

By creating connection and sharing our challenges, we break isolation and silos, reframe issues that illuminate pathways for transformation.

Weave power analysis

We integrate a power analysis in everything we do.

Intersectional lens

Intersectionality means that we recognize how meta systemic issues like colonization, racism, sexism, homophobia, classism cut across all the systems change work that we do. With this lens we acknowledge how these play on a personal and systemic level.

Facilitate collective seeing and sensemaking

We host conversations about what participants are noticing in the system, how they practice care for themselves, what ideas are growing, stagnating or need to be let go of in their field. We transcribe everything and highlight, cluster and track emerge themes from the conversations.

Systems mapping/track the ecosystem

We bring in systems frames as a way to see the systems, deepen understanding of the issues, make connections and to strategize about how we might cultivate the conditions to create change

Emergent strategy and collective action

We adapt as we go, shifting as needed to meet the needs of who shows up, rather than what we planned to do when we began.

You can read more about our practice, learning and feminist systems change frameworks in our new publication Feminist Systems Change.

Interested in learning more, get in touch! tatiana@systemsanctuary.com