Bra-Burning, Slut Walk and Night March: An Analysis of Feminist tools of Mobilization, Protest and Resistance

This paper looks at specific means of protest and demonstration that the feminist movements in India and the western world have used. It takes up a discursive analysis of these protest measures and reads them as signifiers of a certain political temperament, opportunism and negotiated agency. We read these protest means within the specific context of contemporary Feminist Movement within India: rise of Dalit Feminism and intersection of gender with caste/religion, emergence of a non-monolithic conception of 'woman' and the appropriation of feminist voice by ultra-right forces. These are some of the factors which shape the way demands are raised, conceptualized and articulated. Claims to power manifest themselves in a peculiar manner in the age of Third Wave feminism(s) and social media activism. This paper is divided into three sections - i) The politics of space and Feminism, ii) Having a 'voice' and breaking the 'silence', iii) Performativity and protests.