The women who have emerged as leaders during the ongoing farmers’ protest have been featured on the international cover page of American news magazine TIME for its March edition.

Titled ‘On the Frontlines of India’s Farmer Protest’, the cover shows a group of 20 women at Tikri border on the outskirts of Delhi. The story talks about how women have come to the forefront over the last month or so after the Supreme Court suggested they should not be part of protests and should be persuaded to return home.

The article – ‘I Cannot Be Intimidated. I Cannot Be Bought.’ The Women Leading India’s Farmers’ Protests – states that the message from the apex court, as well as the government, to women who have joined the protests against the three farm laws has been clear that they should return.

“In response, women farmers—mostly from the rural states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh—scrambled onto stages, took hold of microphones and roared back a unanimous “No!”,” the article reads.

The women the reporters spoke to for the story said they were stung by the court’s suggestion that they were mere care workers providing cooking and cleaning services at the protest sites around Delhi, and not an equal stakeholder in the agitation.

“Why should we go back? This is not just the men’s protest. We toil in the fields alongside the men. Who are we—if not farmers?” Jasbir Kaur, a 74-year-old farmer from Rampur in western Uttar Pradesh, told the magazine. According to Oxfam India, 85% of rural women work in agriculture, but only around 13% own any land.

Farmers have been protesting at Delhi’s borders against the three reform laws for the last four months, and have demanded a repeal of the legislations.