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Guest post: What is Feminist leadership and why is it needed in cultural organisations?

Over the last few months, EMCC has been hosting placements for Applied Gender Studies MSc students from the University of Strathclyde. As part of her placement, Ursula Grant has been researching feminist leadership. Here she writes about feminist leadership in cultural organisations. 

What is Feminist leadership?  

One of the first questions I encountered at the outset of my research was: What is feminist leadership? Early on, it became clear that there is no singular, fixed definition or universal model. Instead, feminist leadership is shaped by the specific context, culture, and objectives of each organisation or movement. Scholars, practitioners, and institutions interpret and apply feminist leadership in ways that reflect their own values and priorities. While definitions may vary, there are a number of shared attributes and principles that consistently emerge across contexts. Below, I have included a brief overview of what feminist leadership can look like in practice, drawing from examples that illustrate its core characteristics.  

Dean and Kawahara stress that feminist leadership must begin with an intersectional framework that centres the experiences of the most marginalised, while Perez-Jordan frames feminist organising (for feminist leadership) as a continuous cycle of inquiry, accountability, and mutual respect, shaped by race, gender, class, and intergenerational perspectives. Batliwala, drawing on definitions from feminist organisations, highlights features such as leadership being “a process, a goal, a practice and a means” and notes that “feminist leadership is sustainable only when women are able to balance all aspects of their lives”. She also outlines five key expressions of power - power over, power to, power with, power within, and power under - as critical tools for engaging with power dynamics inside organisations. Wakefield defines feminist leadership as a practice that begins with analysing gendered and social inequalities and seeks to transform both formal and informal structures from within. Complementing these approaches, ActionAid outlines ten core principles of feminist leadership in practice, including self-awareness, care, dismantling bias, inclusion, power-sharing, and respectful feedback.  

Why is feminist leadership needed?  

While women’s representation in the Scottish cultural sector has improved, statistics often don’t include deeper, structural inequalities - particularly in leadership positions. Women of colour remain significantly underrepresented, and the legacy of male-dominated institutions continues to shape who holds power. Feminist leadership offers a necessary intervention, not simply by increasing representation, but by transforming how leadership is defined and enacted. It embeds values such as care, collaboration, and accountability into the everyday workings of cultural institutions.  

Cultural leader and co-founder of Glasgow Women’s Library, Adele Patrick, has been instrumental in articulating the need for feminist leadership within the cultural sector. In her Clore Leadership Fellowship provocation paper, Patrick critiques how mainstream Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) efforts have failed to dismantle entrenched hierarchies, arguing that “the ‘stuckness’ of inequality can be seen and felt both within institutions and in the systems of patronage and ‘guardianship’ of culture”. She calls for feminist leadership to be “acknowledged, named and claimed” as a means of driving innovation, community relevance, and institutional transformation. Her research highlights the transformative potential of feminist leadership- describing it as dialogic, values led, inclusive, and capable of reshaping the cultural sector from within. 

What Impact Has Feminist Leadership Had on Cultural Organisations?  

Having established what feminist leadership entails and why it is urgently needed in the cultural sector, it is crucial to examine how this framework has tangibly transformed organisations. Across a range of cultural institutions, feminist leadership has inspired internal and external shifts toward more equitable, inclusive, and values-driven practices.  

The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum integrates feminist leadership principles by using exhibitions and public programming to foreground feminism’s cultural legacy. Similarly, the Jessie Street National Women’s Library in Australia ensures the preservation and accessibility of women’s cultural histories, actively promoting engagement through learning and research.  

In the UK, the Feminist Duration Reading Group (FDRG) applies feminist leadership through collective, participatory learning. By focusing on underrepresented feminist texts and movements outside the Anglo-American canon and practising communal reading - one paragraph at a time - they foster connection, care, and shared knowledge-making.  

In Scotland, Glasgow Women’s Library exemplifies feminist leadership through its emphasis on collective ownership, accessibility, and relevance - leading to strategic growth and positioning the institution as a key driver of cultural change. These examples show that when feminist leadership is meaningfully applied, it reshapes not only institutional structures but also the lived experiences of those working within them.  

Feminist Leadership in Action  

Reflecting on my research as a Gender Studies student, I hope this blog post has provided a clear overview of what feminist leadership is, why it is urgently needed, and the transformative impact it continues to have on cultural organisations. What I have taken away most powerfully is that feminist leadership is not only a theoretical framework but a necessary and evolving practice - especially in the current climate. Its influence extends beyond community engagement to the internal dynamics of organisations, shifting power structures, centring intersectionality, and embracing the feminist principle that the personal is political. Feminist leadership is ultimately about collective care, accountability, and building structures that work with and for the people they serve.  

I end with a quote from Adele Patrick, which captures the essence of feminist leadership’s potential: .  

“It is through action - embedded in values and sustained in practice - that real, transformational change takes place.”  

- Adele Patrick, Feminist Leadership in Action 

Reference List

Actionaid’s ten principles of feminist leadership | actionaid international (no date). Available at: https://actionaid.org/feminist-leadership (Accessed: 20 April 2025).

Batliwala, S. (2010) Feminist leadership for Social Transformation: Clearing the Conceptual Cloud. Available at: https://creaworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/feminist-leadershipclearing-conceptual-cloud-srilatha-batliwala.pdf.

Dean, K. E. and Kawahara, D. M. (2025) ‘Feminist leadership: Bridging Vision to Reality’, Women

& Therapy, 48(1), pp. 1–6. doi: 10.1080/02703149.2025.2455823.

Feminist duration reading group (2025) Feminist Duration Reading Group. Available at: https:// www.feministduration.com (Accessed: 20 April 2025).

Feminist leadership directory (no date) Glasgow Women’s Library. Available at: https:// womenslibrary.org.uk/moving-mountains/feminist-leadership-directory/ (Accessed: 20 April 2025).

Glasgow women’s library | celebrating scotland’s women (no date) Glasgow Women’s Library.

Available at: https://womenslibrary.org.uk/ (Accessed: 20 April 2025).

‘Jessie Street National Women’s Library |’ (no date). Available at: https:// nationalwomenslibrary.org.au/ (Accessed: 20 April 2025).

Moving mountains: visioning intersectional feminist leadership (2023) Glasgow Women’s Library. Available at: https://womenslibrary.org.uk/moving-mountains/ (Accessed: 20 April 2025).

Patrick, A. (2018) ‘Feminist leadership: how naming and claiming the F word can lead the cultural sector out of equalities “stuckness”.’ Available at: https://womenslibrary.org.uk/gwl_wp/wpcontent/uploads/2020/02/Adele-Patrick-Feminist-Leadership-Clore-Fellowship-ProvocationPaper.pdf.

Perez-Jordan, C. (2025) ‘Intersectional Feminist Organizing: An Intergenerational Epistemology

Rooted in Liberation Movement’, Women & Therapy, 48(1), pp. 62–87. doi:

10.1080/02703149.2025.2455828.

The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art (no date) Brooklyn Museum. Available at: https:// www.brooklynmuseum.org/collection (Accessed: 20 April 2025).

Wakefield, S. (2017) Transformative and Feminist leadership for Women’s Rights. Oxfam America.

Available at: https://s3.amazonaws.com/oxfam-us/www/static/media/files/ 

Transformative_and_Feminist_Leadership_for_Womens_Rights_1.24.17.pdf.