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

Abstract

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? In this article, I revisit the concept of everyday activism formulated in the United States by Jane Mansbridge and Katherine Flaster in 2005 and expand on its communicative dimensions based on findings from an online qualitative survey conducted with women in Argentina in 2021. I consider if, to what extent, and why, survey participants consider themselves activists for women’s rights. I moreover examine how they communicate in daily life about the problems that affect them, what difference they think/hope their communicative practices will make, and what they would want to change about communicative practices. The article clarifies how agency and its communicative dimensions are understood and practiced by women seeking gender justice under ordinary circumstances, analyzes their potential and limits considering structural obstacles, and puts forward a definition of everyday communicative activism.