Becoming Feminists: Identity Deployment as Individual Activism

For decades, scholars have examined to what extent each new generation of college-aged people (18–24) identifies with feminism, with scholarship documenting the various factors that foster and inhibit feminist identification. However, less is known about how the current cohort may choose to strategically invoke feminist identity in their interactions; research has also not adequately explored the decision-making process underlying their strategic invocation of feminist identity. Using data from semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 28 college-aged women and nonbinary people in a Midwestern city, and following Mary Bernstein’s “identity deployment” framework, I show how these college-aged feminists carefully considered their audiences and weighed potential consequences before deploying feminist identity. I also demonstrate how some interviewees deployed identity verbally while others deployed identity through action. I argue that, although the majority of the sample was not engaged in traditional feminist activism (i.e., they were not members of a feminist organization or participants in organized direct actions such as protests), by deploying feminist identity on the individual level, they effectively became part of the feminist movement.