Elite Feminist Adherence and Framing: Women Nobel Laureates Speak Out against Gender Inequality

As feminist movements have become more diffuse, feminisms have increasingly emerged from and thrived within unexpected, “other” spaces. Elites have the potential to be powerful feminist adherents in social movement organizations as well as in these “other” spaces, yet we know little about the heterogeneity of their feminisms. We examined an understudied group of elites – women Nobel laureates – and the ways they forward a variety of feminisms across a range of historical and professional contexts. Drawing on a content analysis of 76 speeches, we examined if laureates express feminist adherence, how adherents frame gender inequality, and how adherence and framing vary over time and across award categories. Of all women Nobel laureates analyzed, nineteen expressed feminist adherence, framing gender inequality as: 1) women’s underrepresentation among laureates, 2) women’s oppression under patriarchy, and/or 3) not just a women’s issue. Feminist adherence became more common over time, and use of the third, most expansive and intersectional frame was especially concentrated within recent decades (more so than the other two frames). Peace and Literature laureates were more likely than Science laureates to express feminist adherence and to frame issues beyond the gender disparity among laureates. We argue that the variation in adherence and framing correspond to differences in laureates’ historical context and field of work. Our analysis responds to calls for more comparative research on framing, and we contribute to scholarship about variation in feminist attitudes by showing how historical conditions and professional communities can both influence adherence to and articulations of feminism.