Community mediation and gender ideology

Abstract

The community mediation movement has arisen in response to criticisms of the American judicial system. Advocates claim it can counter the role of law in reproducing ideologies that disadvantage subordinate groups, such as women. But this potential relies in part on the ideological positions of the mediators themselves. This study evaluates the counter-hegemonic potential of community mediation in regard to a gendered social power structure through an ideological analysis of sixteen male volunteer community mediators in Tucson, Arizona. Arguing against a narrow economic or gender reductionist analytical approach, this study relies on a neo-Gramscian perspective to uncover the multiple factors that determine this ideology. What emerges is a gender ideology that at once contains a "feminist" critique of social power structures yet is filled with contradictions. This implies that the community mediation movement must continue to struggle if it is to become a genuinely counter-hegemonic movement.