Feminists, popular feminists, and transfeminists: young Argentine activists define their own identities

Abstract

From Iran to Uruguay, young feminist activists have taken to the streets in unprecedented numbers demanding changes to the gender status quo and its intersections with a host of oppressive social and economic hierarchies. This study addresses a foundational aspect of the upsurge of young feminist mass mobilization: feminist identity itself. To understand the feminism of this highly motivated younger generation, we ground our explorations in the lived experience of young Argentine feminists. We employ a mixed-method approach based on 31 in-depth qualitative interviews to ask: What do they consider to be the fundamental dimensions of their feminist identity? And what have been their pathways to feminism? Their interviews reveal three distinct identities, namely, feminists, popular feminists, and transfeminists, each one feeding into their intersectional and collective orientation, as well as different pathways for feminist becoming. Because of its global relevance and regional contagion effect, an analysis based on Argentina promises key theoretical insights about how youth around the world construct new meanings of who the feminist subject is and, by extension, what feminism as a movement entails.