Description
The 2024 Gen Z protests in Kenya have been celebrated as a youth-led movement challenging economic inequality, corruption, and state violence. Drawing on interviews with feminist activists, this paper explores the intersections between feminist organizing and the Gen Z protest movement, focusing on how each shaped and transformed the other. The findings show that feminist activists contributed to digital mobilization, the documentation of state violence, and the development of care and solidarity networks that sustained protest participation. Interviewees also describe how feminist concerns—including gender-based violence, femicide, and patriarchal governance—were linked to broader demands for social and political justice. At the same time, the protests reshaped feminist activism by fostering new solidarities, expanding activist networks, and encouraging more decentralized forms of organizing. The paper argues that feminist activism and the Gen Z protests should be understood not as separate movements but as mutually constitutive forms of contemporary political resistance in Kenya.