by Sylvia Tamale
Editorial
AFF: The Unshakable Baobab
We often hear the provocative remark: “the feminist movement is dead!” If feminism were truly dead, we would not see a global, ultra-conservative movement rising specifically to undo five decades of feminist achievements. Incubated by the crises of neoliberalism and imperialism and evolving into a new “hyper-imperialism,” the anti-gender movement has placed feminism firmly in its sights (The Tricontinental 2024).
An organised, transnational and decentralised ecosystem, the anti-gender movement is well-funded and able to influence power centres around the world including the United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU) and heads of state (Ramos et al. 2025; Corrêa et al. 2023). Closely associated with conservative religious groups and far-right extremists, its reactionary agenda is to attack feminist ideologies of gender and sexual democracy. If the feminist movement was a relic, it would not pose such a threat to the neoconservatives and fundamentalists working overtime to roll back the revolutionary tide, manufacture moral panic, manipulate the feminist narrative and influence policymaking on gender and sexuality. All these are key normativities defining contemporary social hierarchies. There may be challenges and contradictions in the African feminist movements, but the toyi-toyi drums continue to pulsate and intensify every passing day. Like the enormous African baobab, Pan-African feminism is both resilient and a political force to be reckoned with (Kabira 2019).
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