Resumen de Women in groups can help each and learn from each other: The role of homosocial practices within women’s social networks in building local gender contracts

Natasha Alexandra Webster, Martina Angela Caretta

• Feminist scholars struggle to articulate gender relations in different contexts. Using the concept of local gender contract - a place specific agreement of gender relations, we explore how women’s networks challenge or shift gender contracts in their communities. Based on two empirical case studies of women´s groups from Eastern Africa and Thai migrants in Sweden, we show gender contracts are challenged through women’s homosocial activities. We highlight tensions between gender contracts and the women’s goals revealing a complicated process of assent and resistance. This study expands gender contract theoretically and provides a way to understand vulnerable women’s activities.