When considering social change, two realities must be reconciled: social structure is usually reproduced and social change does occasionally happen. A useful theory of social change must be able to explain both actualities. Although central to understanding social movements, this quandary has received little direct attention in the social movements literature. In this paper I attempt to fill this gap and build a theory of consciousness raising and movement participation, in this case feminist resistance. I reveal a new perspective on social movements that avoids many of the problems associated with resource mobilization, new social movements, and cultural approaches to understanding social movements.In the first half of the paper I explain social inertia, in particular the maintenance of women's subordinate positioning. Randall Collins's interaction ritual theory suggests an emotional motivation for action that offers a base for explaining the resilience of power structures as well as the potential for social change. I combine Collins's interaction ritual theory, work in the sociology of emotions, and Wiley's model of the self to suggest how resistance from a subordinate position is possible. I delineate how the emotional dynamics of subordinate positioning operate to limit women's options in face-to-face interactions in such a way that the status quo is usually reproduced. This theory-building is supported by interviews with women about feminism and feminist activism. In the second half of the paper I build on the first half to explain the emotional dynamics that would likely produce critical consciousness and encourage resistance. At the end, I point toward empirical applications by suggesting social conditions that can provide the emotional dynamics necessary for generating efforts to bring about social change from disadvantaged positions.

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The purpose of this study was to analyze early breast developers' narratives of their experience of early development to understand the patterns of social interaction and resulting emotion that generated the meaning of their breasts and their bodies. Thirteen women were interviewed, and three of their stories were selected to tell in detail to demonstrate the various strategies of interaction that these women developed as girls in response to the social context of their early breast development. These results suggest that whether early breast developers rely on proactive or defensive strategies for managing their breasts has implications for their ways of thinking and feeling about their sexuality and their bodies. This research also helps to illuminate the significance of social interaction in generating the meaning of breasts and of femininity more generally. experience of early breast development very much depends on both the specifics of their social context and their strategies for negotiating interactions about their breasts. In this article, I explore the stories of women who developed breasts before their peers did, women who developed a woman's body when they were still little girls. I report on the analysis of narratives of early breast development from a sociological perspective, with a focus on interactional ritual. I provide a theoretical model for considering the experiences of early developers based in the theoretical tradition that addresses the role of ritual and its resulting emotion in shaping the power and meaning of symbols (Collins, 1990;Durkheim, 1995;Goffman, 1967). In the case of the early breast developer, an interaction ritual approach entails consideration of the role of social interaction and the emotion it produces in shaping the meaning the early developer's breasts have for her. The purpose of this study was to consider how repeated social positioning within specific social contexts generates the strategies early developers use to deal with the social implications of their early breast development. In turn, these strategies help to determine the meaning of their breasts for early breast developers. 29

Ritual theories assert that focused interaction, which these theories refer to as ritual, is at the heart of all social dynamics. Rituals generate group emotions that are linked to symbols, forming the basis for beliefs, thinking, morality, and culture. People use the capacity for thought, beliefs, and strategy to create emotion-generating interactions in the future. This cycle, interaction -^ emotions -> symbols -> interaction, forms patterns of interaction over time. These patterns are the most basic structural force that organizes society. Durkheim (1995) was one of the first to put forward a strong theory of ritual and emotion, building his theory on ethnographic accounts of the ritual behavior of aborigines in central Australia. Durkheim investigated the mechanisms that held society together from many angles throughout his career; in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life he focused on religious ritual, ultimately arguing that ritual is the fundamental mechanism that holds a society together. Although the aspects of his arguments that rest on his assumption that aboriginal groups are examples of the most primitive human behavior are untenable, he provided a powerful theory of the role of ritual in group life. He illustrated how religious ritual leads to increased interaction, especially focused, intense, and rhythmic interaction.Durkheim described how rituals generate emotional arousal, which he referred to as collective effervescence. Collective effervescence is experienced as a heightened awareness of group membership as well as a feeling that an outside powerful force has sacred significance. This sacred sentiment is attached to the symbols at the center of the group's ritual attention space. Through this association, the ritual symbols are made sacred in the interaction. Both the group and the sacred totem objects of the group have the capacity to arouse intense emotion that has a moral quality; those things that offer positive affirmation of the group and its sacred symbols are "good," whereas those that threaten the symbols or the boundaries of the group are "bad." Durkheim pointed out that groups must come together periodically to engage in ritual to renew both the sense of ERIKA SUMMERS-

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