Imagine a Kenya where the courage of women never shaped its history. A Kenya where Mekatilili wa Menza never raised her fists against colonial oppression, where Field Marshal Muthoni never picked up a rifle, where Wambui Otieno never ran through the forests carrying intelligence for the Mau Mau.
It is 1963, and the Union Jack is still fluttering over Nairobi. There is no Uhuru. The British settlers, comfortable in their estates, rule over a broken people. The Mau Mau never gained traction because half of its backbone—its women—never showed up. Without women secretly smuggling food, messages, and weapons, the fighters in the forests were starved, exposed, and crushed.
With no Priscilla Abwao in the Legislative Council, there was no one to argue for women’s rights in post-colonial Kenya—because there was no post-colonial Kenya. Education remained a privilege of men. No girls were allowed in schools beyond primary levels, and women’s names were absent from political rolls. The phrase ‘Honorable Madam Speaker’ was unheard of in Parliament.
By 1974, land disputes had reached a boiling point. Without Chelagat Mutai, there was no one bold enough to challenge unjust land policies. Families were pushed off their ancestral homes, and women had no legal ground to inherit land. The cities swelled with displaced communities, crushed under the weight of an unjust economy.
There was no Wangari Maathai to plant the first tree of resistance. The forests were bulldozed without protest. Nairobi’s rivers dried up, its air thick with smog, its parks paved over with glass towers. A wasteland of greed.
By 2006, the Sexual Offences Act did not exist. Without Njoki Ndung’u to fight for it, rape was still a footnote in Kenya’s legal books—dismissed, unpunishable. Women had no recourse for justice, trapped in a society that never recognized their suffering.
By 2010, the Constitution was drafted without gender provisions. The two-thirds gender rule was a myth. The judiciary, the executive, the parliament—all belonged to men. Women’s names never made it onto ballots. The laws written did not see them, and society followed suit.
By June 2024, Kenya’s democracy was crumbling. Attempts to roll back constitutional gains were met with silence, for there were no women to fight back. The streets were empty of protest, the courtrooms quiet, the news cycles void of resistance. Without the voices of Faith Odhiambo, Wanjira Wanjiru, Hanifa Adan, and the countless young women on TikTok and social media who had once educated the public and called out injustice, the Constitution of Kenya 2010 was easily decimated. There was no digital activism to expose corruption, no bold legal minds to challenge illegal government actions, no leaders to demand accountability.
It is 2025, and Kenya is unrecognizable. The faces in government are the same ones from a century ago—only aged and replaced by their sons. The dream of democracy is still a whisper, a wish left unfulfilled. Women continue to suffer femicide, intimate partner violence (IPV), sexual harassment, and unfair wages—but there is no one left to fight. The cries for justice go unheard.
Would we even be here?
No.
The Kenya we stand in today—imperfect, flawed, still struggling—is, at the very least, a Kenya of possibility. Because women stood, fought, resisted, built. Their names may not always be printed in bold letters, but their fingerprints are everywhere—in the laws that protect, the trees that stand, the girls who dream, the voices that demand change.
The world without them? It isn’t one worth imagining for too long.
The world around us floods with color. Trees sway, rivers flow, and the sounds of laughter and debate fill the streets. There is no colonial flag over Parliament. The Constitution carries the fingerprints of women who fought to be seen. Girls walk to school, books in hand, heads held high. The courts recognize injustice, the laws offer protection. The land breathes because Wangari planted trees. The halls of power echo with the voices of women who refused to be silent.
We are here because they were there. They dared, they dreamed, they did.
But history is still being written.
Sixty years from now, how will your name be remembered? What world will exist because you stood for something? Will future generations speak of you as a guardian of justice, a voice of change, a defender of the powerless? Or will they wake up in a world where your silence allowed history to forget you?
The women before us fought so we could stand. Now that we are standing, what will we fight for?
The next sixty years are unwritten. Pick up the pen.
Until the next doodle – stay curious!
Yours, the Doodling Lawyer.
