The FEMPOWER dataset: Mapping the fragmentation of women’s organizations worldwide

Abstract The ideological fragmentation of women’s organizations is central to debates about the unity and effectiveness of global feminist activism. Existing datasets capture organizational presence and networks, but they neglect ideological orientations of women’s organizations. This article introduces the FEMPOWER dataset, covering the period 1980–2023 for around 9,000 women’s organizations active worldwide. FEMPOWER provides yearly country-level data on organizations’ size, reach, strategies, and ideological orientations, including neoliberal versus social justice, sameness versus difference, and intersectionality. Descriptive analysis illustrates regional and temporal variation in fragmentation as well as comparisons with other datasets from the same research domain. The dataset enables researchers to systematically examine how ideological fragmentation influences women’s empowerment and transnational feminist mobilization.