Rarely do the general public and scholars share a wrongheaded stereotype. Often scholars feel as though they shout into the wind of public indifference with their facts and analyses. The populace believe scholars to be indifferent to "what everyone knows." But in the case of the women's movements in the United States, or more properly said, the large-scale social action and social transformation occasioned by demands for gender equity, both scholars and citizens frequently share the same stereotyped definition of activism: street protest. When street protest is visible, then social movements are active. When all is quiet, when neither police nor cameras are present, social movements are believed to be ebbing.
Part of this definitional problem is scholarly and part has to do with the need for action in the drumbeat of reporting. A scholarly and media bias in what constitutes social movement activism remains. Scholars and journalists not only promote the street-protest definition of social movement, but also ignore the male bias implicit in this definition. Specifically, if men were the main political actors and men-really white men for much of American history-have special access to public space, then public protest by men is seen to be the sine qua non of social movement activism. Hence whiskey rebellions, antislavery protests, labor organizing, and even civil rights strategizing are often viewed as both mostly male and the markers of "real" social movement activism, notwithstanding the complex role of women in these movements. This emphasis obscures women's efforts, in the streets and in organizations, sometimes alone and sometimes with men, to enforce temperance, gain the franchise, express their frustration about consumer costs, and gain social and economic voice for gender equity in the last quarter of the twentieth century.