First Wave FeminismPapers

This 2000 article examines feminist agency through the lens of embodiment, drawing on Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology to analyze the British suffragette movement. Parkins focuses on Mary Leigh's suffragette career to argue that corporeal performance - the strategic use of women's bodies in daring protests - constituted a powerful form of feminist political agency that contested the boundaries of citizenship and the political domain.