ABSTRACT
Women's agentic participation has been recognized as a defining feature of the 2020 Belarusian nationwide mobilization for social change. The intention of this chapter is to provide an interpretation of women's agency in this contentious context. The suggestion is made that in the centre of the Belarusian uprising was the issue of “actual citizenship,” a new kind of a social contract which would ensure citizens actually partaking in power and decision-making. Women who rose up as equal citizens, asserted their agency by being in the streets on par with men. At the same time, they participated in the struggle for fair elections and citizenship in their capacity as women and resorted, at times, to some culturally established tropes through which they could reach their goals of making themselves heard and thus subvert the traditional power structure.
