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In this article, I argue that contemporary theories of agonistic democracy offer provocative insights into democratic activism and protest but require a more robust account of intersectional gender to adequately theorize the challenges of disruptive dissent. To this end, I propose an agonistic and feminist account of "dissident citizenship," the democratic practices of disruption used to problematize and disturb the status quo when formal channels of democratic change are inadequate. My account foregrounds how intersectional gender formations pervade dissident practices, including activists' ongoing struggles with their critics over their democratic standing and performances of disruption. I illustrate these theoretical claims through a case study of dissident citizenship drawn from U.S. politics, the welfare rights movement of 1966–75. Intersectional gender formations assisted welfare activists in claiming democratic standing as loving, hardworking mothers and in becoming bold dissidents. It was nonetheless exceedingly difficult for the poor, usually minority "militant mamas" to remain intelligible as full citizens when critics rejected their claims as the greediness of "breeders" and "cheaters" and dismissed their democratic disruptions as offensive, violence-causing disorders. Attending to intersectional gender dynamics highlights critical dimensions of democratic contestation that agonistic theories must address more carefully.

Tea Party activists have proudly embraced anger and outrage as a distinguishing mark of patriotic dissidence, and have successfully exploited the contemporary politics of anger in the United States. Although much democratic theory casts anger as a hazardous impediment to democratic politics, these theories and the progressive critiques based on them participate in troubling efforts to discipline or even expel anger from the public sphere. Instead this article theorizes public anger as an agonistic, performative, and intersectional practice. Drawing on feminist and queer theory, it also demonstrates how intersectional formations of gender, sexuality, and race have played a central role in making Tea Party performances of anger politically intelligible and powerful. The analysis highlights not just how white men and white women are able to enact public anger, but also how some Tea Party activists of color have surprisingly circumvented contemporary affective norms that usually render racial minorities' public anger politically suspect. The article concludes with a discussion of the democratic implications of an agonistic approach to anger for democratic theory and practice. Adapted from the source document.

In this essay, I argue that contemporary democratic theory gives insufficient attention to the important contributions dissenting citizens make to democratic life. Guided by the dissident practices of activist women, I devefop a more expansive conception of citizenship that recognizes dissent and an ethic of political courage as vital elements of democratic participation. I illustrate how this perspective on citizenship recasts and rechims women's courageous dissidence by reconsidering the well-known story of Rosa Parks.