Join The #GirlsResist Campaign!
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- Share your story of resistance on TikTok, Instagram, or any other social media platform from April 8th
- Nominate Nominate 2- 3 friends, family, and colleagues whose stories you want to hear by tagging them in your post asking them to share their story next
- Amplify by using the hashtag #GirlsResist and mention our account @girlsresistance so we can share and promote your story. Feel free to share your story in any format you prefer – video, audio, text, or image.
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It is no secret that history overlooks the stories of girls and young feminists. Stories of Girls’ Resistance is the largest-ever collection of adolescent girls’ activism, with over 150 individual stories from 90+ countries worldwide. It is a multi-year, multi-site project spanning regions, organisations and offerings with many contributors and co-conspirators. We know that movements are made up of stories and countless more, including yours, are waiting to be told.
We chose the term resistance because it is best able to capture the formal and informal, bounded and unbounded, spontaneous and organised, individual and collective ways in which girls push back and imagine better worlds for themselves and us all. There is no one way to resist- girls are resisting in big and small ways every day! Here are just a few ways girls are defining resistance from around the world (check this out for more examples!) :
Resistance means pushing back. It means standing firm for what you believe in and it doesn’t always have to be loud, but it’s always there. It’s a force to be reckoned with.
I think a part of our resistance, at least my resistance, does have to do with what I put on my body and how I present my body. We are in a natural hair movement and African prints are cute right now but I will say that for me walking into a board room or a meeting with my hair out and my African print – and a loud coloured nail polish – to me that is resistance because it’s saying that I don’t have to wear a suit and have a slicked-back hair-do or whatever the case may appear in order to be educated, professional, know what I’m talking about, all of that stuff.
I had it even since childhood, when they told me, “you are a girl, you should be like this …” Already back then I had this “why?” Already back then I wondered and did not understand it, and I was angry. Just because I am a girl I am not allowed to do something?! Sometimes I thought, “Being a boy would be so much better, they would not tell me all this. When you are a girl, you owe everyone.” Only in 2015 when I came to “New Rhythm” I began to gradually reflect and understand what was happening: why such restrictions exist; why we got these labels.
…I think resistance is just… some small acts, actually, I see them as resistance. Like at some point going out in the streets without a veil was a big act of resistance. Just continuing to have these mixed gatherings with male and female friends in public or in houses, that was resistance. Going out in public, that was resistance. But also just resisting the social norms and just standing your ground and questioning. So that of course came gradually but at the beginning, for me resistance was just to question whenever someone would say, but you should do this or you shouldn’t do this.
There was a big demonstration. I’d never seen so many people all together and they started shouting about freedom, their right to vote and the name of the leader. I was thinking I would never do this. I thought I was too shy, but then I started to shout and I was shocked! I realised I liked it and made a lot of friends. Together we became a young oppositional group. All of them were super young. Half were minors. I joined when I was 17. This is how my street activism started.
- In Sudan, Tahani was only nine years old when she challenged the unfair seating arrangement in her mixed school, where girls had to sit at the back and boys in the front. She spoke up to the headmaster and demanded equal treatment, and after weeks of discussion, she succeeded in changing the class shape and putting the seats in a parallel way.
- In the USA, Brayden was disturbed by the harmful chemicals and ingredients in the beauty products for black women. She woke up her mom in the middle of the night and told her she wanted to start her own natural beauty company. Her mom initially dismissed her idea but later agreed to talk about it. Now, she has a company which offers safe and healthy products for black women.
- In Mali, Adam refused to let her little sister be circumcised. So, at 18 years old, she ran away with her. Even though it upset their family, her little sister was never cut.
- In Nicaragua, María José’s first act of resistance was reading. She loved reading, but her grandmother ridiculed her for it, so she started to read under the bed in secret.
If you don’t think you have a story that is significant enough to tell, think again. Resistance can take many forms, and no act of resistance is too small or insignificant. Here are some examples of our team members have resisted in their own ways:
- In Kenya, Lolo refused to be ashamed of her curvy body and wore clothes that made her feel confident and beautiful, regardless of society’s opinion.
- In Australia, Rachel resisted when a guy at a party tried to hit her on the butt with a flyswatter. She patiently explained to him that although he thought he was being funny, it was one in a long line of sexist microaggressions they had to deal with all day, and how would he feel if someone did that to a woman he cared about? He ended up apologising.
- Share your story of resistance on TikTok, Instagram or any social media platform using the hashtag #GirlsResist and tag our account @girlsresistance. You can use any format, such as video, audio, text, or image. Let your creative juices flow!!
- Invite your family or friends to join the conversation and record it as an individual video or both on screen like a conversation. You can ask them questions, share your opinions, or challenge their views on topics related to gender and resistance. Remember, If girls have resisted since immemorial, so have sisters and aunties. You will be surprised to learn the different ways your strict aunt resisted as a girl
- Nominate or tag your favourite girls and young women, friends or people whose stories you’re curious to hear to join the campaign.
@solanathagreenfairy Our voices matter💞 Join the movement and share your #girlsresist story today!! @GirlsResistance #womensrights ♬ show me how - <3
For more information about the campaign and the book, visit our website: www.girlsresistance.org
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