When members of the Bay Area group Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT!) heard about the imprisonment of 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi for slapping the Israeli soldier who had shot her cousin and was now invading her family’s home, they wanted to see her picture prominently displayed during January's Women’s Marches. QUIT! teamed up with artists from the queer arts collectives, Street Cred and Bay Area Art Queers Unleashing Power (BAAQUP), to create a powerful image that has now spread around the world.

"Mainstream feminists talk about 'empowering' girls and young women, but often it’s understood as an apolitical, individual type of empowerment" said one QUIT! member. "Ahed is a symbol of what real empowerment for looks like."

QUIT! distributed hundreds of signs with the artist’s rendering of Ahed at the Women’s March in San Francisco, while members of Jewish Voice for Peace carried them in the Oakland march. The posters include part of a statement Ahed made while at a film screening in South Africa, "We may be victims of the Israeli regime, but we are proud of our choice to fight for our cause, despite the known cost….[W]e chose the struggle and our struggle is just."

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