#6 JULY 2018 The Social Inclusion of Women and Challenges for a Contemporary African Feminist Activism Twasiima Patricia Bigirwa Gender based inequality and exclusion of women have proven intractable on the continent despite the proliferation of national and international development initiatives for Africa in the last decades. When so much is done in the name of gender sensitive social inclusion and so little result is felt by the women on the ground, we must ask ourselves: what went wrong? What makes it so difficult to redistribute power and profit to women, who greatly contribute with their sweat and blood to keep the capitalist system running? And what are the challenges for a contemporary African feminist activism to change the picture? To better understand the current debate about gender equality, inclusion and the struggle for power, we have to take a step back and look at the current realities in the light of the recent history, which ended colonialism with the promise to create a new society. African nationalism was once an ideology of liberation from oppression, which voiced the resistance against colonial regimes. Today, the national discourse is often used for exactly the opposite: as a tool for oppression against critique and – referring to cultural and religious arguments – especially against rebellious women. Conservative backlashes and the complicated reframing of nationalism We won`t understand the snail pace of socio-economic and political change in our countries, if we don`t consider the political environment of a massive conservative backlash, that we are dealing with as feminist activists. The environment that many of us work in is increasingly anti­women, anti-black, anti-LGBTI, anti-poor. Uncomfortable voices of protests, especially voices of women, that demand effective pro-poor policies and political inclusion, are silenced and disqualified with arguments of African moral and culture as well as the stigma of confronting the nationalist cause, that others(those in power) fought for. 1