“Resistance means refusal to abide by rules or laws that go against our interests” - Fati Hassane (Niger) 3/4

Our conversation with Fati Hassane continues. Fati is a feminist activist from Niger, working in development. 

After discussing what it was like to grow up surrounded by other cultures (Part 1) and then moving to Niger as a teenager (Part 2), Fati now talks to us about gradually resisting social expectations for women by building her financial independence. 

Fati was first interviewed by Françoise Moudouthe in late 2019, as part of a global project documenting girls’ resistance. The conversation has been edited into this four-part interview by Françoise and Edwige Dro for our #GirlsResistWA series. You can find out more about the series here.

I’d like to talk about resistance. First, how would you define that word?

For me, resistance means refusal. The refusal to abide by rules or laws that go against our interests. I'm talking about laws and rules in a broad sense; it can be from a legal point of view, and it can be from a social point of view, or in the family context.

When you were a teenager in Niger, did you have role models for resistance around you?

Around me, and especially among women, I saw a lot of compliance and not much resistance. I did, however, see a lot of women trying to negotiate with the existing rules to some extent.

Let’s get back to that word “negotiate”. It’s the second time you use it to talk about resistance. Are “negotiation” and “resistance” the same to you?

There are many ways to resist. You can just throw it all away and be completely against your family. For me, it wasn't something I considered because I didn't want to hurt my parents' feelings, and I didn't want to antagonise the whole community either. I didn't see the point. So, I asked myself: how far can I go? And I would go, and from there I would push a little further and a little further and a little further. I would push the boundaries so that I would be comfortable enough to pursue these goals that I had for myself. You can be willing to resist, but to protect certain people, to preserve a certain order, you can decide to resist in a less frontal way. So, that's what I call negotiating.

For instance, at one point, I felt that I was old enough to leave home. My sisters and I had started to make plans. We were going to get an apartment in a neighbourhood, buy second-hand furniture...then reality caught up with us: a woman can’t live on her own. In Hausa, which is a very colourful language that uses a lot of metaphors, instead of using the word “prostitute”, we say “she has her own house”. So, does this culture allow you to live alone? I could have done it but the social and emotional cost to my family would have been extremely complicated to deal with.

That said, I'm an introvert by nature and needed to spend some time alone, so I found a room on the campus of a large school right next to the university and moved in. It was still acceptable as long as it was seen as a need for my studies. That's what negotiating is all about: getting where I want to go without necessarily stirring up a hornet’s nest.

I understand. Can you tell me about one of your first acts of resistance during your adolescence? 

One of my first acts of resistance was to get my first odd job. It wasn’t anything crazy, but it was completely liberating. Right after graduating from high school, I found an internship in one of the first private radio stations to be created in Niger, then I was hired there. I was doing a little bit of everything: host, director, producer, freelancer. I had a small salary, but it was a guaranteed monthly income that came from the work I was providing. 

That didn’t go well with many, many people. People thought that it wasn’t a good idea. And by people, I mean everybody: people I knew, strangers, people that knew me but I didn’t know, some who knew my father but to whom I had never spoken. And all these people allowed themselves to share their opinion and to pressure my father to make me stop working. A young girl working wasn’t appropriate, especially in a public job… at an age when she should be thinking about marriage. Moreover, by being in the public eye, your worth decreases a little in the marriage market. 

That’s when I resisted. I had a real adult conversation with my father and we cut a deal: as long as having a job didn’t interfere with my college grades, I could go on.

I feel like financial self-sufficiency was very important to you at the time.

What you should also know is that in Niger, there is a tradition called falkaré. I don't know if it's still done today, in this way, with social networks and WhatsApp. But in my time, when a boy was interested in a girl, he would come and visit her in the evening at her parents' house, and the two would talk in a corner of the courtyard, in full view of everyone. As they left, it was customary for the boy to give her some money. He would give some money that she could use to buy clothes, hygiene products, or to pay for transportation. I could’ve never been in a dynamic where I had to show a man how good of a wife I would be in order to make him want to give me money or even marry me. So, for me it was all about self fulfilment and relying on myself.

A young girl working wasn’t appropriate, especially in a public job… at an age when she should be thinking about marriage.

Was this desire of self fulfilment fuelled by your being a girl? Or was it just a personality trait?

That’s funny. I didn’t perceive myself as a girl. I thought of myself as an individual with abilities, skills, and ambitions. It was when I was faced with an obstacle, or when someone tried to limit my options, that I was referred to as a girl. I thought it was weird for others to highlight my status as a girl first.

You brought a savings booklet as your object to this interview. I imagine it was valuable to your mission for financial freedom?

After graduating from high school, I opened a savings account. This little booklet is my savings book. I also rented my post office box, to receive my mail without having to go through a family member. I saved very small amounts when I could, and the price of the post office box was completely disproportionate to the amount of mail I received, but I wanted to be independent. This anecdote makes me smile because it already bears the beginnings of where I wanted to go in life.

During your teenage years, who were allies of your resistance? And who was against it?

My two sisters were my main allies. My mom was in the middle of the tension between all the good she wanted for me and everything people said, so it was not easy. My father was pretty neutral. He tried to accommodate society a little bit, but he trusted us - and most importantly, he always said, “In the end, she's just going to do her own thing anyway”. He called me the quiet force because I very, very rarely argue. I didn't go through any adolescent crisis. But in the end, I get to do what I want.

As for who was against me, it was pretty much the rest of the world! I was shocked, almost physically, to hear that a teenage friend of mine was getting married. It even gets you down. I didn’t see myself married at all, I didn’t think about it, but was I right? Was everybody else wrong? 

I wanted more than what I saw around me, I was sure of that. But I had to manage the balance between this impulse, this certainty on the one hand, and then all the messages that the world was sending me every day or the other. I just got my high school degree with honours, but that's nothing extraordinary. The real news is that what's-his-name's little sister got married to a billionaire! All these people who adhere to this vision of society also contribute to being opponents of our life project.

I wanted more than what I saw around me, I was sure of that.

I understand completely. And what were you afraid of?

My biggest fear was that my family would say, “That’s it, you can’t go on like this. You have to stop everything.” What reassured me was the little economic power I acquired through my job. My father was a state employee back then, so salaries weren’t guaranteed. I had a regular income, so I could say “I’ll take care of this”. I would also remind my parents that I wasn’t doing anything wrong, nothing that could put me in danger or seriously tarnish my reputation.

My other fear was that I wouldn’t be able to carry out my projects, despite all my efforts. That I wouldn’t be able to study, to travel, and eventually, to find somebody whose way of thinking was compatible with mine.

Looking back, what would you have needed to support or foster your adolescent resistance? Do you think that there are things you should’ve done differently?

First, what would have made it easier for me would have been to have a role model: an older woman who chose a path similar to mine and succeeded. But this person would have had to be unanimously supported. That would have been truly helpful. 

What would I have done differently? I don't know. I knocked on a lot of doors that did not open at all, but I'm also glad I had those “failures” because it also allowed me to understand who could help me. That is to say, practically nobody. I want to rely on myself. It also allowed me to look at the job market, and to understand that even though I had just graduated, I had something to offer employers. I could get paid for it, and that was where my independence would come from.

In the fourth and final part, Fati talks more about the evolution of her resistance and its impact on others today. Click here to read the next part.