In many of the stories, girls can point to a specific catalytic moment where something cracked, split, sparked, ignited – a moment where she pushed or hid or fled. Although most often hidden from outside view, there is nothing everyday about this kind of resistance. For many of the storytellers in this collection, simply to survive, to birth and raise children of their own, to work, to read, to tell their stories out loud, to represent small revolutions that have reshaped lives everywhere. And sometimes these catalytic moments in the lives of individuals – imperceptible to the outside eye – have set off chains of action, sparked revolutions that have swept whole communities and nations along with them.

Underpinning and reinforcing interpersonal violence are the systems and structures of patriarchy, imperialism and white supremacy that shape all of our lives. For time immemorial these systems have been sites of resistance, and it is within these sites that girls are coming into a consciousness about the world around them, connecting their individual experiences with broader struggles for justice. When girls begin to act in consort with an analysis about the world around them, a process of politicisation begins that shapes and remakes the very nature of their resistance. Here we see the role of older allies – most often mentors, sisters, movement mothers – and politicising texts – feminist, revolutionary, liberatory in orientation – as the most critical components of her politisation journey.

Whilst some girls continue to shape and remake the contours of their own individual existence through their resistance, many more begin to move in consort with others, resisting collectively as they organise with other girls, and connecting with broader movements for justice locally, nationally and transnationally.

It is important to remember that the relationship between these sites and states of resistance are not unidirectional. Whilst some girls enter politicised spaces through their own individual stories of violence, others grow up in countries or family contexts where the political is foregrounded – especially those living through occupation, revolution and armed resistance movements. It is through these collective experiences that she begins to understand and expand her understanding of what it means to resist as a girl, often making sense of the gendered nature of the violence she has experienced in the world, through the lens of other identities or issues. Here we see a dynamic interplay between the political as personal, and the personal as political, depending on her entry point and orientation.

Ultimately there is no linear trajectory of girls’ resistance – but rather an ever reinforcing interplay between individual acts of resistance, the strategies and tactics of politicised actors, and the impact of collective action on the wider world.