Gender Potential in Italian Youth Activism: The Intersectional Assimilation of Gender Cultures After the Pandemic

The article focuses on the intersection of youth and gender studies, analysing the complex relationships between gender and youth identity as experienced both in individual biographies, and within the context of participatory practices. Thus, the focus is on the legacy of feminisms in current mobilization practices. In the article, we refer to empirical material collected in Italy from 2017 to the present. What emerges from our empirical material is that the pandemic accelerated the inclusion of gender issues in many youth mobilizations and in local youth activism generally, by highlighting the themes of care, inclusion and sharing. The paper is based on 150 qualitative interviews, and a number of ethnographic moments conducted in several Italian towns between 2017 and 2024, and therefore includes a period spanning the pre-pandemic, pandemic and post-pandemic phases; however, for this article we will focus primarily on the interviews conducted immediately after the Covid emergency, which best highlight the assimilation of the gender culture of care in activism practices. Interviews were conducted with young women activists, but also with young men, including representatives from national student organisations. The empirical findings collected testify to the manifold nature of young people’s participatory practices, which range from climate issues to gender identity, from student claims to antiracism. In this article we focus on the relationship between gender identity and participatory practices based on mutual care.