Protesting like a Girl: Embodiment, Dissent and Feminist Agency
Abstract This article examines feminist agency through Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological account of the body subject, stressing the importance of embodiment to feminist agency while arguing that bodies inhabit specific social, historical and discursive contexts which shape corporeal experience and opportunities for political contestation. The article examines a historical instance of feminist agency where women's bodies were central to political dissent - the British suffragette movement. Focusing on Mary Leigh's suffragette career as representing feminist agency derived from corporeal performance, Parkins argues that suffragettes contested the constitution of the political domain and citizenship through daring protests that drew attention to the comportment and capacities of their bodies.
Wendy Parkins / Read paper