Revisiting Everyday Activism for Gender Justice and Expanding on Its Communicative Dimensions

"What is everyday activism? What does it have to do with women? What does communication have to do with it? And why does it matter?"

Editor's note: The below summary was written by The CI team.

This peer-reviewed, open access article revisits the concept of 'everyday activism', formulated by political scientists in 2005, and expands on its communicative dimensions based on findings from an online qualitative survey conducted with women in Argentina during the late stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. In so doing, it clarifies how agency and its communicative dimensions are understood and practiced by women seeking gender justice under ordinary circumstances, analyses their potential and limits considering structural obstacles, and proposes a definition of everyday communicative activism.

Everyday activism refers to the specific ways in which women talk to other women "to describe and sometimes try to change the disrespect" they encounter from certain men (Mansbridge & Flaster, 2005). This way of talking is understood to operate as a relational mechanism of diffusion for social change. This mechanism matters because, although the discrete acts of women who engage in everyday activism are not explicitly coordinated, they do in a sense function collectively. Mansbridge and Flaster (2007) drew on analysis of empirical data to argue that practices observable at home, in the workplace, and in the street constitute a route to change that deserves study as an element of social movements. The everyday activism documented in this article is oriented toward gender justice.

The article unpacks the meaning of "everyday communicative activism" by sudying the lived experiences of women in Argentina in 2021. The context of the research is the following: Women constitute almost 52% of the population but are disproportionally affected by poverty, discrimination, and violence: They are a minoritised social group, actively devalued, and oppressed. However, according to the article's author: "They are vulnerable, but not powerless." 

For the study, the author conducted an online qualitative survey to explore what the 158 women who answered it think and feel about the problems that affect them, and how they communicate about those problems in everyday life. Participants were aged between 20 and 80 years.

Overall, replies to the survey question, "Do you consider yourself an activist for women's rights?" reveal two significant findings. First, there is a shared perception that an activist must meet certain conditions, but the significance assigned by different women to those same conditions varies. Communicating for gender justice matters, although doing it without belonging to an organisation is considered by some respondents to be a shortcoming. Exerting influence among one's close circles counts but is not considered to be enough. Second, committing time is considered a significant attribute of being an activist. Struggling for their rights in everyday life is a practice that takes time, but time is a very scarce resource for women, since they do double the care work than men on a regular basis. Thus, "women's lack of control over their time - a scarce resource - limits their agency."

Participants communicate about women's issues in three outstanding ways: through interaction with others (i.e., in relational terms), by paying attention (i.e., by informing themselves in varied but specific ways), and via expression (i.e., by having a say in and through digital realms). Participants inform themselves about women's issues through channels other than mainstream news, and expressing themselves also has to do with sharing information. That is, information matters for women's agency in more than one way. The findings show that everyday communicative activism goes beyond digital expression; in fact, several survey respondents consider in-person communication especially valuable. Interaction takes place at the meso level, partly in friendly groups where concerns can be discussed, and partly in spaces where struggle is necessary. Workplaces come into view as a hotspot in which gender inequality requires attention and is addressed.

Three findings arise from answers to the question, "What do you communicate about the problems affecting women that move you?" First, communication is intentional, guided by what survey participants want their messages to convey or to bring about in response or reaction. Second, they communicate about women's issues thoughtfully in distinct ways akin to "implicit activism": Women think carefully about which approaches may be more productive in terms of getting the reaction sought. Third, women frequently attempt to communicate in a balanced way, taking more than one aspect into consideration. Hope is part of their balancing act.

Survey participants think communicating for or about women's issues can make a difference by: rendering visible the problems women face; informing others about those problems; generating awareness among the women affected, on the one hand, and within society at large, on the other; leading to concrete solutions to specific problems; bringing people together and linking individual circumstances to collective struggles; and adding to the efforts of others, pointing at the connection between the micro and the macro.

Asked if there is anything they would like to change about how they communicate about the issues that matter to them, women referred both to their agency and to the structural conditions in which that agency unfolds. For example, participants call attention to the country's problematic information infrastructure, characterised by misinformation, information overload, and deficient attention to gender issues in mainstream news media, as well as to democratic shortcomings, including political polarisation, the absence of listening when they raise their claims, and the persistent lack of progress toward equality.

Based on this analysis of the views of Argentinian women, the author defines 'everyday communicative activism' as "the diverse ways in which women communicate for and/or about their rights in the context of their daily lives, resorting to digital mediations and to in-person engagement with friends and foes to seek change. This activism, which is an element of everyday activism more broadly defined, can and does effect changes at the micro and meso levels of everyday life but is insufficient to address gender injustice at a macrostructural scale. It is at the macrostructural level that entrenched communicative injustice must be addressed."

In conclusion: "By foregrounding the everyday as the agentic-though-structured terrain in which women effortfully seek gender justice, even if they do not necessarily achieve it, and linking it to the notion of communicative injustice, this article contributes to broadening the theoretical and practical scope of what feminist activism is, what it can do, and under which conditions of possibility."

The research project on which the article summarised in this post is based received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 897318.