Lesson 5.5: Joy as Resistance

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This topic focuses on joy as the emotional and cultural energy that fuels collective agency. Care protects; joy amplifies. Together they create the conditions for endurance and imagination.

3. Joy in public space

Across Europe, collective joy manifests as a visible challenge to ‘anti-gender’ narratives:

  • In Poland and Spain, street protests such as the Women’s Strike and 8M marches use music, humour, dance, and creative slogans to transform anger into empowerment.
  • In Switzerland, queer activists mocked a far-right slogan (‘Stop Gender Terror’) by organising a satirical ‘Gender Terror Party’ – reclaiming language meant to intimidate them.
  • In Belarus, where public protest is banned, joy takes quieter but no less political forms: a shared song online, a rainbow sticker, humour in encrypted chats – each gesture a spark of solidarity under repression.
Joy sustains courage. It counters the demoralising effects of surveillance and fear. It creates ‘breathing spaces’ where people can recover the energy to resist.

Mural on La Rambla in Barcelona Spain presenting various feminist icons and rebels

Photo by Red Dot on Unsplash

In 2020, amidst Covid-19 restrictions, Poland experienced two significant waves of protests: summer LGBTIQ+ protests sparked by the arrest of LGBTQ+ activist Margot from the anarcho-queer collective Stob Bzdurom, reflecting wider discontent with the homophobic and transphobic political climate. In the fall, pro-abortion protests erupted following a Constitutional Tribunal ruling that banned abortion in cases of fetal abnormalities.

Read the "Women's Protests in Poland" text available for the Ohio State University’s Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies.

The text discusses the Women’s Strike protests in Poland. As you read, reflect on the following uestions:
  • What modes and artefacts of creative expression are mentioned in the text?
  • How do creative elements, such as music, dance, slogans, and visual art, contribute to collective joy in situations of resistance?
  • How do older and younger generations differ in their methods of protest?
  • Thinking of your own context, can you identify other forms of creative expression used in past protests or other events?