I wasn’t always a feminist but must have subliminally ingested feminist values from my mother during my upbringing and early life. My mother would not have called herself a feminist but she was a strong woman who believed in justice for women and fought for these beliefs. She was the provincial leader in one of the most respected women’s organisations in Kenya at the time, Maendeleo ya Wanawake. I watched her speak and act with passion on women’s issues. Later on in life, I got married to a man who was an only son, and became a mother to four daughters. I put my foot down when I was asked to drink some herbs that would make me give birth to a son. I began to understand what many women went through when they were made to feel responsible for things that they had no control over. I became a stronger woman for this experience and after 15 years I walked out of my marriage with my four daughters. Nowadays no one can mistake me when they meet me because I exude my feminism in what I say and in what I do. I walk the talk. My eyes were truly opened to sexism when I was involved in electoral work and civic education. I researched and wrote reports on women’s political participation in Kenya, and what I saw was hair-raising. I was shocked by the lack of respect for women, the vulgar language, and the cultural and negative lens that was used to portray them as inferior or as loose women. I watched as some politicians got divorced because their husbands and clans could not stand the thought of a woman wearing trousers. I was made a stronger woman through these experiences and I credit them with the turning point when I became a truly baptised feminist. I became very angry. I am still angry. I moved to Uganda in 2004 to work as Executive Director for the Eastern African Sub-regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI), a feminist organisation that was founded in 1996 to monitor how governments in the region are implementing the 12 critical areas of concern of the Beijing Platform for Action. It is EASSI that opened my eyes to the broader perspectives in the continent as I interacted with women from all walks of life. Over the years I have seen acceptance of lesbian, bisexual and transgender women coming out of the closet, and fellow feminist allies fighting for their human rights, I have seen language change from calling women “ prostitutes” to “commercial sex workers”, I have seen funding to support the human rights of these groups of sisters. I have seen a move towards inclusivity rather than exclusivity, and I have seen the revival of the women’s movement in Africa. This is what we need to sustain- a movement for African women, which reflects and is supportive of the diversity within this population. This includes younger feminists, feminists in the private sector, in the villages and in religious organisations.