What moves young women to participate? Gender activism and identity becoming in student of secondary school from Córdoba, Argentina

Abstract: This paper addresses participation in feminist mobilizations of youngsters that attend secondary education in Córdoba, Argentina. It aims at comprehending their concurrence to public manifestations, issues of concern and demands. The theoretical interest spins around her identity becoming from their participation in actions oriented to the transformation of sex and gender relationships. Considering identity as a matter of becoming implies that it is incomplete, in process and open to transformation. For this purpose, we carried out twenty-eight brief recorded interviews with youngsters during the public manifestations (in 2017 and 2018) and seven group interviews with students who participated in mobilizations. Some inquiry axes were: knowledge and positioning about the slogans proposed by the organizing collective; reasons to mobilize; organization and affective experiences during the manifestation; issues and situations regarding gender and sexuality to which they are concerned in their everyday realities. Two analytical topics are developed in the paper: (a) reasons for attending manifestations; this implies a variety of situations interpreted as inequalities, discriminations, injustices and violence, that come into to the narrative interlaced with feelings of discomfort, anger and pain they fight to transform. (b) The predominant markers through which they construct their identity throughout the narratives: gender, generation and feminist positioning. Finally, we discuss the identity becoming considering three interrelated processes: agency, intersubjectivity and conscience.