Feminist Resistance Through the Lens of Everyday Lived Experiences of Young Women in India

In this article, I examine the lived experiences of two young women from urban slums in India who participated in an after-school program focusing on issues of gender inequality within their homes, communities, and schools. Through unstructured and semi-structured interviews and observations, this paper argues that young women from marginalized spaces resist patriarchal structures of society through everyday acts of resistance. Using narrative inquiry, the data reveal that young women use different yet interconnected means to resist oppression in their daily lives. The article makes a case for expanding feminist resistance scholarship to be inclusive of young women at the periphery and their everyday resistance for finding a voice.
Keywords: youth activism, narrative inquiry, lived experiences, pedagogical praxis, feminist resistance