Page 44 - Q1 2021

FEATURE

The secret is that we Leader: Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti

are in charge…always Movement: Kerala’s “Womens Wall”
have been, always will Movement (India)

be. Whether you want In January 2019, 5 million women in Kerala made a
385 mile human chain to protest gender inequality.
to admit it or not, you The “women’s wall” made headlines around the
know I am right. world, with millions of women forming a line across
the state. The protest centred on the exclusion of
women from the Sabarimala Hindu shrine – the
shrine’s ban on women of menstruating age was
overturned in September 2018, but women trying
to enter the temple had been attacked by mobs,
pelted with stones, and arrested under spurious
charges. The Indian government called attempts
to give women access to all praying spaces
‘an attack on Hindu values’. In a country where
women are rightly furious at the misogyny peddled
by conservative Hindu nationalists, and where
gendered violence is epidemic, the Sabarimala
protest was an incredible reminder of the power
and conviction of Indian feminists.
Leaders: Indian Women

Movement: School Strikes 4 Climate Action
(Sweden)
School Strikes 4 Climate Action started in
September 2018 when 15-year-old Greta
Thunberg protested outside the Swedish
parliament. (YES 15 years old!!) This movement
has grown rapidly since then, with tens of
thousands of children participating in weekly
school strikes across the world to call for radical
action on climate change, as well as mass youth
mobilisation on an unprecedented scale in the
form of marches and occupations. Thunberg
herself has spoken around the world at events like
COP 2019, calling for radical and immediate action
to stop climate change before there’s no future at
all.
Leader: Greta Thunberg

Movement: Black Lives Matter (International)
The Black Lives Matter movement is a
decentralised political and social movement

44 | The Lion King | Jan - Mar 2021