“My rebellion truly began because I’m very sensitive to injustice and inequalities” – Rachel-Diane Epoupa Mpacko (Cameroon) – 1/3

In our first interview with Rachel-Diane, she talked about her vision of feminism, fashion, and sisterhood. Click here to read the first part of that conversation. 

This time, Rachel-Diane shares what it was like to resist as a young girl. She tells us about the joy and the violence of her childhood, her resistance in her family as a young girl (Part 2), and the impact of this resistance on her life (Part 3).

Rachel-Diane was interviewed by Françoise Moudouthe in late 2019, as part of a global project documenting girls’ resistance. The conversation was also edited into this three-part interview by Françoise, Nana Bruce-Amanquah, and Edwige Dro for our #GirlsResistWA series. You can learn more about the series here.

Trigger warning: this conversation contains mentions of violence and abuse which may be triggering for readers. Kindly take a moment to decide if you want to keep reading. If you do proceed, we encourage you to centre your wellbeing and stop reading at any point, as you need.

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Rachel-Diane, thank you for taking part in our series about girls and their resistance against the patriarchal order. When would you say your adolescence started and why? 

My adolescence was between the ages of 12 to 18. I say 12 because this is probably when the chaos began (she laughs). Before that, I knew I was a girl, but I mostly felt like a child. I was a true tomboy: I ran around, climbed on trees, and played war. Girls played with boys; we would shower together. It wasn’t uncommon when I was a child, we didn’t see any difference. 

But when I turned 12, once my breasts appeared and I had my period, I discovered there was a difference: I was a girl and therefore I had to act accordingly. That meant that I couldn’t be outspoken anymore, I had to care more about my appearance, to be clean…at least that was how I thought a good girl had to behave back then. 

Generally speaking, how would you describe yourself as a young girl? 

As a child, I was very curious, I questioned everything. I also was the kind of child who wanted to discover everything, to discover the world, so, I spent a lot of time with adults. I was very happy, full of love for everyone. I was a dreamer so everything was all beautiful when everything was going well and when my parents were fine. The depression came later when I felt like my world was falling apart.

We’ll get back to that. Tell me about the end of your adolescence: what changed when you turned 18?

Around 18, I left my parents’ house and went to college. It was a step towards independence. At 18, I started envisioning the future by myself, making adult decisions, and living alone in an apartment…I felt more like an adult, more like a woman.

Thank you for setting the scene. Let’s go back to where it all started. Where did you grow up? What place do you call home? 

I grew up in Douala, where I was born. This is the place I call home. I lived with my parents, my siblings, one of my cousins, as well as my mother’s sister and younger brother. I grew up in a middle-class family, in a community setting. My paternal village is an urban village organized around the traditional village leaders and a church. I knew everybody in my village. Whenever I came home, I passed by saying hello to everyone: “Hello Auntie, hello Uncle, hello Grandma”. 

What was it like to grow up in such an environment?

It was a beautiful thing to grow up in my village with the whole community. However, it also came with a certain pressure: pressure from the community, from the family, from the village, and certain traditions. We could feel some traditional values weighing on us. Like the importance of having a son for instance, especially for someone like my father who was seen as successful in my village. Someone like him had to have an heir. My parents had five daughters before welcoming a son. It was after my brother was born that I said to myself for the first time: “OK. There’s a difference between boys and girls.”

Before my brother was born, it didn’t feel like there was much of a difference. My father was very proud of having daughters. He educated us in a pretty modern way: we went to school, and we could dress however we wanted. However, there was still pressure to have a son. I believe that came from the cultural pressure to have an heir. 

What made you happy? What brought you joy and enjoyment?

The community, truly. I liked spending time with my family and the people from the village. I always appreciated the simplest things. Like when all the kids from the neighborhood would go out to wash off in the rain. I liked the games we played together, the traditional cultural activities, and the tales the uncles and great-uncles told us. Eating together too, this a very Cameroonian thing to gather around a good meal. Yeah, that made me happy: family, community, and sharing.  

And fashion, of course! My mother is a seamstress, she passed the appreciation of clothing onto us. So, very early on, I would say: “Mom, I want this fabric, I’d like you to make my dress this way.” As soon as I knew how to draw, I started designing my clothes: I drew them and my mom sewed them. This is the environment I grew up in: fashion, beautiful clothes, but also a sense of community and sharing. 

Fashion is undoubtedly important to you. When I asked you to prepare for this interview by bringing items that embody your story, you brought the image of a mannequin. 

The mannequin alludes to the values I carry as well as the causes I’d like to defend with the women’s clothing I create through my brand, Niango. I promote positive feminine messages, craftswomen’s expertise, and the training and empowerment of women through textile or other crafts in the African textile industry. The mannequin reminds me of my creativity and that my project is alive.

Who were the most important people in your life when you were a teenager? What kind of relationship did you have with them? 

I was very close to my father. A little less so as a teenager, while my parents had a rough time. That’s when I became closer to my mother. She became very important to me because I had this need to protect her. So, I spent a lot of time with my mom, and with my siblings as well.

One of my cousins who lived in Italy was very important to me too, we wrote each other letters all the time. I spent the holidays in Italy when I was 13. This trip allowed me to have a new taste of freedom and to access a different type of thinking. It was exactly what I needed. Going back home to Douala after this trip was a shock to me, especially because I came back right when the violence started.

When you say “violence”, what do you mean?

I mean the growing insecurity in Douala. I was 13, it was a time when there were many break-ins in homes. Women were raped, and children were kidnapped. I remember before all of that, the adults would let us walk home from school. It was great for me as I liked walking and wandering. I felt free. But with the growing insecurity and the kidnappings of children whose organs were sold, all of that stopped. 

Everyone knew about it. When the criminals were caught, they were burned alive. I saw people being burned alive on my way home. We also had break-ins in our home. During one of them, we heard one of the burglars threaten to rape my mother, my father was severely beaten and even talked about it on the radio. Yeah, it was a nightmare for a sensitive girl like me. It was this violence, the insecurity, and everything else that were at the root of my depression.

So, I started writing a lot. I found refuge in my diary, it helped me. My need to talk was even stronger. I needed to feel safe, to be comforted, but people around me didn’t understand that I was going through depression, and anyway I hid my uneasiness. Because of the insecurity, but also because of trouble with my parents and issues in my village: alcoholism and domestic violence, I realized that my world was shifting, it was falling apart.

Wow! So, your home went from being peaceful to something more traumatic? 

Yes. And yet I can say that I grew up with a progressive father. Despite the pressure from the family to have a boy and the negative comments he received when he cooked for his wife, he would say: “These are my children”, “Leave my wife alone”. And then he suddenly stopped doing these things. My father is a real paradox, sometimes even to me. But yeah, everything changed. The two of us had several issues and a strained relationship.

I also grew up in an environment where domestic violence was the norm. The domestic violence I witnessed in my village was all-encompassing: physical, sexual, financial, and psychological. There wasn’t a woman who hadn’t experienced it at least once. It was like a plague but the women couldn’t even talk about it as such. They themselves had internalized it as a normal thing, and I did too. And if my father wasn’t the most violent man on the spectrum, his violence wasn’t any less destructive. 

As for myself, I was once the child who always wanted to please her parents, to be well-liked. It got me many favors from the adults. I did what I was told to do. I was this child who behaved too well sometimes. My rebellion truly began because I am very sensitive to injustice and inequalities.

I didn’t feel like my feminization was an injustice. I just went with the flow, it seemed like it was the right thing to do when becoming a woman. No, the real injustice to me was when I saw how the women in my village were treated. That’s when I began to rebel. 

In the second part, we’ll talk about that rebellion. Click here to read Part 2 of our conversation.