Now an anti-colonial heroine and a role model for women and girls throughout Africa, Yaa Asantewaa was prepared to do whatever it took to protect her land and culture. As Queen Mother, she held a great deal of power in the relatively egalitarian Asante nation—power which she used to incite a war against one of the largest colonial forces in the world. It was not a war Asantewaa would necessarily win in body, but her actions and what they symbolised produced a type of victory out of defeat.