The Everyday Feminist: The Key to Sustainable Social Impact Driving Movements We Need Now More than Ever
Latanya Mapp Frett
240 pages, Wiley, 2023
We are seeing a wave of rights rollbacks—from the repeal of Roe v. Wade in the United States to systematic rights violations in Afghanistan to attacks on trans rights globally. Yet, even these same countries, along with a host of corporates and influencers, profess to prioritize gender equality. What is one to do with these consistent juxtapositions?
In The Everyday Feminist: The Key to Sustainable Social Impact–Driving Movements We Need Now, I tell the stories of grassroots activists, or “everyday feminists” who are powering social change and demanding that reality match the rhetoric on gender equality.
Grassroots feminists are loudly standing up like never before, joining the protests in Iran or saying “me too” worldwide. These grassroots activists and movements are one of the most effective levers for progress on gender justice as well as other social issues—but they and their work are often overlooked.
It shouldn’t be this way.
Everyday feminists are often Black, Indigenous, and other people of color who began their activism without ties to an organization. They are uniquely positioned to come up with solutions because they have direct experience with the issues at hand.
Everyday feminists represent their communities in struggles for justice, equality, and transformational social change using their voice and other personal resources. They are relatable and perfectly imperfect in a way that makes them human. They are not the once-in-a-generation, lightning-in-a-bottle charismatic leader. Rather, they are mostly ordinary people with extraordinary passion and commitment working toward lasting transformational change. Everyday feminists lead movement work and drive the emergence, growth, and maintenance of social movements. They are the ones who show up, push forward, and who get the hard stuff done. They can be from any sector, and they work toward justice for all genders, as the excerpt below shows.—Latanya Mapp Frett
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When I met Pula during an official visit to Mafeteng, Lesotho, she was wrapped in a traditional Basotho blanket. I’d been in the landlocked South African country for several months, but I was still getting used to the cold mountainous weather. In her early thirties, she looked young for her age, despite the sorrow she’d already endured. It had been four years since she had lost her only son at age 12, while he was out herding cattle. The custom of sending boys to take care of cattle has long roots among the Basotho people, the ethnic group that makes up over 99 percent of the population of Lesotho. It is considered a huge responsibility and a path to becoming a man that was revered by families both rich and poor. Thousands of young boys—from the startling age of three until about 17—are put into the fields and hills to ensure that the family cattle are fed and cared for. According to a 2021 UNICEF report, about 22% of children in Lesotho between ages 5 and 17 are engaged in some form of child labor.
These are mostly boys working to herd their families' livestock. Most “herd boys” are sent out on their first herding trip when they turn five or six. These escapades typically last three or so months at a time, depending on where there is available grass. The boys were sent with very little incidentals, making the task extremely difficult. They are often malnourished as food is not always easy to find. The weather is harsh in the winter months with appropriate lodging unavailable, especially with herds of cattle sometimes numbering more than 20 cows. Being a herd boy meant delaying the initiation of school. Depending on the availability of another brother to take over these duties, a herd boy might not enter a formal academic setting until around 12 years old and would often have to return to herding at 16 years old. The younger boys were often victims of violence—robbed, raped, and taken as servants to older boys to herd their cows as well. Pula’s son had been herding for just a couple of years when he was robbed of his blankets and other essentials and died of hypothermia before he could return home to get replenished. They found the cattle he was caring for before they found her son.
I’d come to Lesotho to spend two years working for the United Nations Volunteer program, which was administered by the Peace Corps for US volunteers.
After weeks of cultural and language training, we were required to stay in a village with a family to put our learned skills into practice. At the final ceremony, each volunteer was paired with their hosts and went on their way after a great deal of applause and celebration from the community. I probably learned more during that week than most of my colleagues. Despite my beginner language skills, the people in the village would give me no breaks, speaking in fast Sesotho until I caught up. I was expected to do all the things my fellow Basotho age-mates (most married with children already) had to do. Wake early, use remaining water from the day before to wash, get more water from the well to cook breakfast, do chores around the house, go to the market, meet with neighbors, cook dinner, eat with the family, and discuss my day.
After my training was complete, I got my assignment: As the first “child protection officer” in the UNICEF office in Maseru, my job was to help the country implement its commitments under international treaties it signed—specifically, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Among my first assignments was assessing how gender roles in the country impacted children. Our goal was to figure out what categories of children in the country needed special protection. Typically, the children most in need were young girls experiencing gender-based violence, child marriage, female genital mutilation, domestic servitude, etc.
But in Lesotho, it was different. After my assessment, I discovered that the children most in harm’s way were the herd boys, like Pula’s son.
Her son’s death had turned Pula into a change agent and advocate. She opened a school for herd boys in the pasture areas, which also served as a place of refuge. She provided meals, a warm place to sleep, and a practical education in skills, like reading a map, to make their jobs easier. She would scour prisons looking for boys who committed crimes during their tenure herding the family cows, reuniting them with their families, in addition to providing care and support throughout the process. And she was a fierce advocate with both her own government and international agencies like the UN.
At first, it was difficult for the UNICEF regional gender office to see that boys required special protection in an African country. But armed with the information and stories that Pula collected and catalogued, we showed a pattern of gender discrimination that segregated boys. Of course, there were various cultural practices that harmed girls as well, as Pula could personally speak to. But the story of herd boys was often romanticized by the broader community, making the deadly truth harder to recognize.
When I asked her what more the UN could do to support her work, Pula said we needed to expose the harms herd boys experienced to the broader community within the country and the region. So, I developed a communications campaign including an animated book series geared toward school-aged children that documented the ills of herding and other human rights violations that children experienced in the country. We also supported her in asking the government to intervene by enforcing compulsory education laws in the rural areas of the country. There was huge resistance to changing the practice; many people claimed it was more than a cultural tradition, but an economic necessity that could decimate families if upended. I stayed on to work with UNICEF and Pula even after finishing my volunteer assignment. Pula continued with her crusade as the country went into a crisis after a failed election in 1998. Claiming the ruling party corrupted the voting process, the opposition party bombed the government and some commercial buildings downtown. I was evacuated to Bloemfontein, where I stayed and worked with restrictions on re-entering Lesotho. Shortly thereafter, I received an assignment from UNICEF HQ to go to Ethiopia.
I learned a great deal from Pula about the courage it takes to challenge cultural practices that have been around seemingly forever, as well as the importance of following the lead of someone from within the community affected to bring about change. Herding is still a common practice in the rural areas of Lesotho, but there has been increasing policy advancements to ensure herd boys’ safety and education. Pula is what I call an everyday feminist—the ordinary women committed to doing the continuous work to transform their communities Pula’s work on behalf of the herd boys taught me a major lesson I learned while listening to and observing everyday feminists in action across the globe for more than three decades … Men and Boys matter too.
Historically, gender equality has been defined as mainly about “women’s issues.” Certainly, women’s oppression within patriarchal societies has made women a driving force behind struggles for gender equality. But gender (in)equality concerns both women and men. Gendered norms, pressures, and expectations impact the daily lives of men and boys too—often to their detriment. I learned early on in my career that a good analysis of gender equality in a country or region would identify some issues that disproportionately impact men and boys—like the plight of herd boys in Lesotho—in addition to some that impact women and girls.
For example, men are more likely to smoke and drink too much, take unhealthy risks, and engage in violence, which may contribute to their lower life expectancy compared to women. When it comes to their mental health, men are less likely to seek professional help or talk about their problems with friends or family. In the U.S., they are nearly four times more likely than women to commit suicide. While many men increasingly want to be more involved in parenting their children, many workplaces don't offer men extended parental leave or flexible hours, making it difficult to balance work and family responsibilities.
In my experience, including men and boys in feminist work comes naturally to everyday feminists. They recognize that work on gender equality is interconnected and ultimately benefits all genders. Deeply attuned to the needs of their communities, they don’t approach an issue with preconceptions about who should be centered. Rather, they seek to serve the most marginalized. Funders, in contrast, tend to view programs for “men’s issues” and “women’s issues” separately. Throughout my career, it has been a perennial question: should we mainstream an awareness of gender inequality across the sectors and siloes, or should we have programs specifically for women? In my opinion, we should do both—and more. And we should resist the impulse to separate and box the intersectional work of everyday feminists.
Not only do everyday feminists recognize that gender equality brings benefits to both women and men, but they also recognize that engaging men is critical to achieving feminist wins. For example, toxic masculinity is a term often used to describe the negative aspects of exaggerated masculine traits. It refers to the idea that many cultural norms of “manliness” perpetuates domination of women, homophobia, and aggression. Toxic masculinity has negative effects on men—for example, by discouraging them from expressing vulnerability—and harms women by contributing to sexual and gender-based violence.
In recent years, feminist movements have increasingly recognized that men can be important allies in making progress toward gender equality. Global networks have formed to support this work. For example, MenEngage is an alliance of more than 600 organizations in 30 countries whose mission is to dismantle patriarchal systems by transforming rigid, harmful norms around ‘being a man.’ HeforShe, which was formed as part of the United Nations, is a global solidarity movement made up of more than 2 million men and people of all genders that stand in solidarity for gender equality.
As funders, we must dismiss the notion that gender equality is only important for one gender, or that everyday feminists only work on issues that affect women. In fact, the intersectional nature of feminist work means that the issues they work on affect everyone. To practice intersectional organizing and funding across issues and populations, the work to include men and boys is essential to challenging gender injustice. Typically, everyday feminists support male issues as well as male-led organizations within their movements. And there is growing recognition that male-led and focused organizations, assuming they are allies on gender equality efforts, must do the same. If there is no apparent connection between feminist groups and male-led groups, then our job is to help find one. In GFW’s approach and experience, you don’t have to look hard. Feminist movements tend to have male allies to get the work done. Depending on the topic, they may have alliances with more formal labor unions, mosques or churches, community-based structures, and even governments. The former list may very well still operate within the context of patriarchal norms, but some have committed to change that will support both women and men. This commitment to change is essential to allowing everyday feminist space to center those who identify as women and are often the most marginalized. And in the case of countries where gender injustice includes abuse of men or boys, supporting everyday feminists ensures that inequality directed towards them are identified and centered.
Excerpted with permission from the publisher, Wiley, from The Everyday Feminist by Latanya Mapp Frett. Copyright © 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. This book is available wherever books and eBooks are sold.