Manifestos as constituent power: Performing a feminist revolution

Women use a multiplicity of forms and methods to articulate harms and claim political spaces. Among these are manifestos. 1 Women’s manifestos are concomitant with both political convulsion and the enduring, mundane inequalities faced by women; they play a key role in feminist attempts to achieve political and legal ends. 2 Manifestos are overtly political acts of legal/political performance; they are in dialogue with each other, with counter and anti-manifestos, and with the legal-political infrastructures they inhabit. 3 Manifestos seek to fracture traditional understanding and practices of law, often in the guise of claiming constituent power and political space.