Protest through a Feminist Lens: Theoretical Provocations

Abstract

This essay uses feminist protests and feminist engagement in popular demonstrations and uprisings as a lens to make five observations about protest in turbulent times. These observations are the product of fieldwork with feminisms and other social movements in Brazil over more than two decades, collaborative research with the Colectiva Protesta, which includes researchers from various parts of the Americas, and an extensive review of secondary and primary sources, the latter the product of virtual accompaniment of the feminist field in the Americas. I propose that a feminist perspective allows us to see that feminist protests helped to launch the latest wave of protest. The engagement of feminist and anti-racist activists in the protests is then discussed. The scope of social struggles articulated within feminisms, I suggest, explains their presence in recent popular uprisings and the significant influence of feminisms in these processes. I maintain that, today, a new global imaginary drives protests and I explore the “extended now” of protest, the continued living presence that protests gain online far beyond the protest event itself. I conclude with a discussion of the political-cultural productivity of protest, emphasizing that it is urgent for us to explore theoretically how they are permeated by feminist practices and discourses.