History provides a guide to the meaning and measure of a movement.Nearly everyone today takes for granted the obvious justice of a woman's right to vote.This movement took a long time-70 years.The first meeting to seriously discuss women's suffrage took place in 1848.The 19th amendment was solidified in 1920.Over those many years there were rallies and writings and political setbacks, but progress was made slowly and the torch was passed from one generation of women to the next.A cause backed by passion and justice will eventually be accepted.Because current movements do not immediately gain traction does not mean that they are a lost cause.
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Genuine social movements can be explained in a marxist/weberian framework. They are a species of peaceful conflict over the status quo: The Republican Party started as a social movement against slavery and in favor of free labor. The suffragist movement began in the 19th and early 20th centuries as a protest against treating women as chattel.
If social movements are suppressed and their goals ignored, they can lead to revolution as we see today in Latin America and other places that have rigid class and social structures which are unequal and unjust.
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