Radical democracy is key in any area of activism, from fighting climate change to defending social rights or implementing a more diverse economy. It puts decisions in the hands of those directly affected by them and, in general, are excluded from the decision-making process. In this context, feminising politics emerges as a sine qua non condition for radical democracy.
If organisations continue to be hierarchical and patriarchal, they will keep on excluding some people because they simply cannot or do not want to adjust to masculine ways of doing. They also will also exclude values and practices that have traditionally been underestimated in political life and need to be promoted, such as the search for consensus, empathy and cooperation, non-academic experience, collective leadership and care. By putting the feministization of politics as one of the key elements of the municipalist movement, there will be a real contribution to systemic change. However, the project envisioned to promote the identification of each organisation’s needs and weaknesses, thus different solutions are likely to emerge. The sum of individual changes would trigger the necessary systemic change. While it would be subtle and, therefore, more difficult to measure, it would encompass the overall strengthening of democracy in the platforms/organisations/cities involved.
