Understanding girls’ everyday acts of resistance: evidence from a longitudinal study in nine countries

Abstract

ABSTRACT In recent years, scholars of girlhood studies have begun to focus on the long-overlooked topic of girls’ political agency and activism. This endeavor has increasing urgency since several prominent girl activists have come to the attention of politicians, the media, and international institutions. Girls’ political agency is more visible than ever, and yet, in media and in policy, it is still understood in narrow terms, concentrated almost entirely on the Global North. The focus on Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg and their books, tweets, marches, and speeches frames girls’ activism as the high-profile work of a few spectacular individuals, ignoring the many everyday ways in which girls do politics. In this article, we analyze data from a longitudinal study with girls across nine countries in the Global South to show one way in which they are resisting conservative discourses about girlhood: through their friendships with boys. While the girls may not themselves identify as political, or indeed as feminists, we argue that they are gradually and subtly negotiating more opportunities for themselves in their communities and challenging sexualized discourses about their bodies. The findings offer insights into how we might begin to theorize girls’ everyday acts of resistance in feminist international relations scholarship.