All-female choirs are playing a prominent role in contemporary protest. Here are some of the campaigners taking songs to the streets

Broadly, feminism rallies for women’s voices to be heard. This year, one International Women’s Day event sees this realised on a literal level: an equality-espousing “superchoir” is set to create a wall of sound at the Women’s Strike Assembly in central London on 8 March. Led by Rebel Choir, the singing group of the Focus E15 housing activists, ranks will be swelled by like-minded members of the local music community. One number planned is Peggy Seeger’s Reclaim the Night. “It’s important to have a very strong, angry female song,” says the choir leader, Rebecca Morris.

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The south London-based cohort, which is helping to form the strike choir, specialise in songs about gender and inequality. I’m Not Dancing by vocalist and producer pair Tirzah & Micachu is a favourite, says the musical director, Jenny Moore, thanks to lines such as: “I’m not dancing / I’m fighting” subverting traditional interpretations of female behaviour. Moore reckons music’s tendency towards repetition means the singers are essentially armed with empowerment mantras. “Suddenly, something you thought you’d never be able to say, like the Tirzah lyrics, you can access any time.”

The friskily named, all-female east London collective has rabble-roused at festivals including Green Man and Wilderness and released its first record, Be OK, last year. Loudly occupying space in the male-dominated music industry “feels like a feminist act in itself,” says the founder, Luisa Gerstein.

With branches in cities including Manchester, Newcastle and Berlin, SHE blend pop with politics. It has raised funds for charities such as Refuge. Italian working women’s protest songs sit in the repertoire alongside buoyant Destiny’s Child covers.

The 80-strong Islington outfit, which goes by the strapline “Political. Not Pious!”, supports immigration injustice campaign group Women Asylum Seekers Together (Wast) and has performed with the Wast choir outside Yarl’s Wood detention centre in protest at the treatment of asylum seekers. It has also collaborated with Music in Detention, a charity that helps immigration detainees to make music, covering Rihanna’s Stay. “We try not to speak for people, but use our platform in a positive way,” says one of the choir’s founders, Geraldine Smith.