"We need more feminist convening spaces where we can talk about our realities." - Marie-Bénédicte Kouadio (Côte d'Ivoire) 2/2

Our conversation with Riane-Paule Katoua, Marie-Bénédicte Kouadio, and Mariam Kabore continues.  In the first part, we talked about their feminist awakening, the realities and concerns they face, and how they live out their feminist convictions.

In this second part, they discuss their relationship with reading, feminist education, the importance of documenting African women's stories, and their dreams as feminists.

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How do you deal with the fact that people are always out there trying to attack feminists, bringing up the tough questions? 

Marie-Bénédicte: It was hard at first. Because I like to respond to everything. When I'm attacked, I immediately respond. So, I tended to be on the defensive all the time. When someone attacks me, I react. The more you engage in the movement, the more you see that there’s more to it than that. We’re indeed all human, and often some words are very strong. Some things are said that truly hurt and you wonder, should I answer, shouldn't I answer?

Now, I think you must learn not to respond to everything. At worst, you simply make fun of it and move on. Whatever you say, they'll keep attacking you, putting you down. So, it’s better to move on and focus on the important battles. The ones that will be useful for our mission and make women's rights move forward. The advice of my predecessors also allows me to take a step back. Sometimes it’s indeed really annoying and I still talk back, but these days I try as much as I can to stay out of debates that don't make the movement move forward in any way. 

It's not always easy, but we'll get there. Getting back to books, are there any feminist books you've read that have had an impact on you?

Marie-Bénédicte: Yes, many, many books have had an impact on me. For example, there's a French book called Féminisme et Pop Culture, by Jennifer Padjemi. It's a book I came across totally by chance, but it truly impacted me because it tackles feminist issues, the main issues. The author, a woman, does it with examples from everyday life. She chose pop culture, cinema, music, and TV series, and uses these examples to show the progress of feminist struggles. For instance, in the book, she talks about the representation of Black women in TV series. So before, you were in a pattern where there were no Black women at all in series, or if they were there, they had the role of the nannies or housewives. They were made invisible.

That’s really interesting. 

Marie-Bénédicte: This is one of the first books I recommend. It's an easy read, even though it's quite bulky. There's another book I read not long ago. It's a kind of autobiography by an Ivorian feminist, Madame Georgette Zamblé. It's a sort of autobiography, and at the same time, it deals with feminist issues, how she discovered herself as a feminist, how she managed, to effectively change things in her community, how she fought certain battles and all. I thought it was a very interesting read because it brings you comfort as a young woman, as a young feminist. It’s a confirmation that you're not actually crazy. If there are ladies in their fifties talking to you about the very things you're going through right now, the battles you're waging, it's clear that you're not crazy. You haven't made anything up as people say. You didn't bring it from the West, as they say on Facebook.

Would you say that the books you read contributed to your feminist education?

Marie-Bénédicte: Absolutely. Books, regardless of the genres we read, inevitably influence our culture and our personality. So, reading books that have to do with feminism, clearly shapes you. It allows you to go deeper into certain notions, to even learn about the history of feminism. In any case, it makes you realize that these are just battles, that they're worth fighting, and that you're doing the right thing by doing your bit. It's always good to have more culture and more arguments. You obviously won’t want to get into every discussion, but it’s good to know how to defend your opinions when necessary. And it's always good to have examples to back up what you're saying.

Mariam, did you have access to books and feminist content to educate yourself?

Mariam: Internet! Thank you, Internet. I’m someone who likes to research a lot and I found some books. I think the first one I read was a book by Simone de Beauvoir. There are books I couldn't get my hands on because even when you go to the library, you can't find them. I’ve also read a Nigerian author, I think. Otherwise, most of what I read to learn more was either articles or academic theses.

How do you think we can popularise more feminist content to enable more girls and young women to educate themselves?

Mariam: For me, the best thing would be to have books about feminism in libraries. Most high schools and universities have libraries. And you’ll never, ever find a feminist book on their bookshelves. If you find a feminist book there, it's because someone snuck it in. You might stumble across it. But if you look for a feminist section, you’ll never find it. So, if this kind of effort were already being made at a library level, we'd make progress. I remember that when I was in high school, I spent a lot of time in the library reading everything and anything. So, I think it would have been very instructive. And that was going to start from a young age. Now we also need more bookstores and specialised libraries, like 1949 Books. We need a lot more feminist bookstores because we need to highlight feminist messages. 

I see that more and more feminist associations have feminist libraries in their headquarters.

Mariam: Yes, we need book clubs, for example. We get together once a month and discuss books. And then there’s something that we can all do: share feminist messages, all the time, like evangelists.

A bit like Jehovah's Witnesses.

Mariam: Frankly, if I had the determination of a Jehovah's Witness, I would achieve anything in life. With that kind of determination, anything is possible. I can imagine what it would be like if feminists did that. We knock on doors, and people open. And then we say: “Do you know what feminism is? No? Let me explain” (bursts out laughing).

That would be amazing.

Mariam: Let me explain. Do you know we live in a patriarchal society?

Hahaha. bell hooks, an African American author, brought up a similar idea. She said, “Imagine a mass feminist movement where people go door to door handing out texts, taking the time (like religious groups do) to explain to people what feminism is...”

Mariam: She's not wrong. Because when you're indoctrinated, it's hard to change if you don't get the information.

Riane, how did you end up working at 1949 Books?  

Riane-Paule: So, I had finished my studies. And I was scrolling on Facebook and following Edwige DRO, the director of 1949 Books. I was doing some research, because I wanted to interview her for a personal project. And so, I followed her Facebook page, and she put out the call for the internship. I thought, “Why not?” I was aware that I didn't know enough African women writers, Black ones too. So, I said to myself, “Okay, why not? It will allow me to understand, learn, and discover. To acquire knowledge.” I was accepted and started working there. 

Since you've been at 1949 Books, what have you liked the most about working there?

Riane-Paule: Many things. The first is to learn, to discover. Because each time, I discover the writings of Black women writers. Women who look like me. Black women writers, writings, stories. Through their stories, through their works, I learn about the other realities for Black women all over the world. Other theories, other women writers, other women writers from past centuries. Then there's also the fact that I’m working with the founder. I don't talk much about her, but she has a huge knowledge of history. So, I'm still learning from her. And finally, I like that I can share what I'm learning, what I'm discovering, with the people who come to read. Young people, children, they're used to coming here to read.

And what books have made the biggest impression on you at 1949 Books?

Riane-Paule: Well, the first one is "Les traditions-prétextes: le statut de la femme à l'épreuve du culturel" by Constance Yaï. I didn't know there were theory books like that. I didn't think some Ivorian women thought like that and could even write about it. There's that and Maryse Condé's book, "Moi, Tituba sorcière…", which I love. As time goes by, I think there will be several other books that will impact me through my reading.

Have books influenced the way you experience feminism?

Riane-Paule: Awareness is also knowledge. I think that as I've read more and more books, I've gained confidence. I've gained confidence now because I know, I'm learning. So, I know how to defend my feminism better. So, I don't know what people could say to try and discourage me, to make me think that what I'm doing is wrong. So that makes me more confident. I've also become aware of everything that women go through too, everywhere. Confidence and self-assurance. That's what it gives me.

That's true, yes. Knowledge is power.

Riane-Paule: That's why we must learn. Because when we learn, we can defend ourselves and we can try to share and attract other people who are in doubt. In other words, even feminists must keep learning. It's good to be an activist, but it's also good to acquire knowledge. We don't write much either. We need to write more. Books, articles. Write our history, write how we think, the life or society we'd like. Read, write, and then share. Always share. Even in the smallest corners. That's how I see it. 

It's a bit like sharing feminism, like Mariam said.

Riane-Paule: Yeah, exactly. I'll give an example of stories. I mean, if every woman wrote her own story, there would be fewer people talking for us. I feel that men talk too much for us. That's how we used to be. You see the guys on Facebook saying: “Ah, our moms. Our moms used to be like that.” The funny thing is, it's not true. If the moms of yesterday could write about what they went through, even if it was only in a home, recounting everything they went through, and their feelings, I don't think we'd be hearing all this nonsense.

You make a good point.

Riane-Paule: My cousin came to the library recently. The first question he asked me was: are there any books explaining feminism in Côte d'Ivoire? He's too much into his privileges, you see. Because he sees it as a Western thing, you know. So, he was looking for a book that tells the story of Ivorian feminism. I told him, “Brother, read. I suggested some books. When the girls, college girls, come to the library, I give them a book by Mariama Bâ first.

You're doing the right thing.

Riane-Paule: That's right. We must read what's going on here. I'm not going to start with feminist theories, by the way. I say read Mâriama Bâ. You'll find out. Then, beyond books, feminist content must be diverse, i.e., books podcasts, or articles.

Marie-Bénédicte: For example, there's ORAF, l’Organisation pour la réflexion et l'action féministe (EN: Organization for feminist thought and action), which has a library and some very good books too. These are places where subscriptions don't have to be expensive. You can spend part of your Saturday there, reading a bit, discovering new things. It's always very interesting to participate, to go to places like that.

That’s very interesting. In your opinion, how can we ensure that today, teenage girls can begin to have access to education about feminism?

Marie-Bénédicte: Teenage girls aren't necessarily on the Internet, many of them don't even have cell phones yet. They're in schools, they're at home, so it's really about creating small spaces, going out and talking to them. Not necessarily even about feminism, but already talking to them about their rights as young girls, talking to them about consent, talking to them about periods, trying to deconstruct the taboos within them. That's the first step.

Then there's reading. We've talked about it. Many of us have been educated on these issues through reading as well. There are more and more books intended for this age group, teenage girls, which give them the first tools to understand what feminism is all about. I'm thinking, for example, of "Nous sommes tous des féministes" (We should all be feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie), which was produced as a comic strip. It is much easier for them to read the comic and understand it. There's also "Dear Ijeawele, the Manifesto for a feminist education". There are little books like that, which aren't difficult to read, which aren't very long, and which will already give them the basics of what feminism is. The older they grow, the more these notions will be a part of them.

That's right. How would you define feminism in your own words?

Marie-Bénédicte: As I see it, feminism is the fight to consolidate women's rights and a fight to welcome new rights, because the acquisition of rights is not yet complete. Many things are still denied to us as women. Being a feminist means ensuring that women's rights today are not violated, that we don't backtrack, and fighting to welcome new rights.

What are your dreams as a feminist?

Marie-Bénédicte: My greatest dream is that feminism in West Africa will reach a point where women are no longer seen solely through the prism of marriage and the household. That they are truly seen as human beings, and that from then on, they are recognised as having all the rights that should be recognised. I want the weight of African tradition on the status of women to be lifted. My other dream is that the bonds of sisterhood that Ivorian and West African feminists have forged should not, for whatever reason, deteriorate, and that we should continue to make these bonds strong because it's together that we'll be able to achieve the ideal we want.

You talk about sisterhood. How do you think we can consolidate this sorority?

Marie-Bénédicte: I think we've already understood a little and we're making progress. For example, we had our small conversation circle here at the 1949 Books. So, you don't need 100 or 1000 people for bonding. Whenever we can get together, we shouldn't hesitate to come, whether it's for a book club, a conversation circle, or an activity organized by another organization. You always must be where your sisters are, to support them, to let them know that you know how hard they're working for the cause. I'm there to support them in case they get tired or need me. So, I think we need to multiply feminist meeting spaces and make more single-sex spaces, where we can talk about our problems and our realities. That can only strengthen our ties.

Being a sister means being connected.

Marie-Bénédicte: Exactly.

Riane, what does sisterhood mean to you?

Riane-Paule: So, sorority is a bit of a complicated term for me, you see. I don't know how to say it, but it means "being together". I think that, first, women don't all have the same experiences. Even in the feminist context, we don't all have the same experiences. So, being aware that we're different and trying to understand others while remaining united on the same objective. You see, the ultimate goal is women's liberation. That's how I see sisterhood.

How would you define feminism?

Riane-Paule: Simple: women's freedom of choice. That's how I've always defined feminism, or at least that's how I define it. Freedom of choice, the freedom to let women choose what they want, and how they want to live their lives. How they want, without forcing them to follow societal rules. Freedom of choice for women.

Do you have a dream that's close to your heart as a feminist?

Riane-Paule: Yes, I have a dream that's very close to my heart. I'm planning to host a podcast on the representation of women. I've always been interested in women's representation. So, my feminist fight is more about representation. I'd like to have more women in different spheres who inspire us as young girls, even those younger than me, in different spheres. Free women. More free women. More women with clear goals. More women who don't follow society's dictates. That's my dream.

That's what you started doing with the Meet Her Podcast.

Riane-Paule: Yes. It's early days, so I'm taking it slow. 

Congratulations! What about you Mariam?  

Mariam: One of the things I love about cinema is that you can express yourself through it. And when you can express yourself, you can say anything. I'm very keen to do that in my future work. Through what I'm going to create, maybe create representation for young girls. Because there's really no representation here. There's very little representation, even in cartoons. I would have liked to see a woman in the cartoons I used to watch, who doesn't want to have children. A representation of a woman who says, "Okay, I don't want to have kids. I'll do what I want." But there's no such thing. Maybe in foreign films, but here, you won't see any film where a woman says she doesn't want to have children.

The film I made this year is a bit about that. The title of the film is "Memoirs of a Mother". I haven't uploaded it online yet. It's about a woman. Because we live in a society where women are pressured to have children. Whether it's outsiders you don't even know or family, this is exhausting. And that’s how nervous breakdowns happen. It forces some women to do things that put their lives at risk.

Definitely! To wrap up, there's a question we often ask in our conversations. What's your feminist motto? Is there a thought, a phrase, or something that particularly animates us or is close to our hearts as feminists?

Mariam: I don't know. But personally, in everyday life in general, I like to go by what I feel. So, when I can fight, I fight. If I can change something, I do my best to do so...

Marie-Bénédicte: Well, I wouldn't say I have a motto per se but I do have a phrase that sums up everything I think as a feminist about what surrounds us. I usually say, for example, that the patriarchy is lying to you. That's my phrase. There are many, many inequalities today in male-female relations because the patriarchy lies to us and doesn’t stop. And until we get out from under its lies, many people still won't be able to understand what feminist struggles are about. It would be more than that, but my phrase as a feminist, which I won't stop saying, is that the patriarchy is lying to us.

Riane-Paule: For me, it's learning, reading and sharing.

Thank you, Mariam, Riane and Marie-Bénédicte. It’s been delightful to talk with you.

"I don't want to convince anyone. I simply want to act in my own feminist way" - Riane-Paule Katoua (Côte d’Ivoire) 1/2

Riane-Paule Katoua, Marie-Bénédicte Kouadio, and Mariam Kabore are young feminists from Côte d’Ivoire who advocate for women's rights. Marie-Bénédicte is a trained lawyer and a feminist activist in the Ligue Ivoirienne des Droits des Femmes (English: The Ivorian League for Women's Rights). Riane-Paule is also a trained lawyer and a librarian at 1949 Books the library of women's writings from Africa and the Black world. She is also a host of the “Meet’Her Podcast” podcast. Mariam is a young filmmaker, and a photography and art enthusiast who loves discovering new things.

We met them in Abidjan, Yopougon, during a gathering organized by Eyala at 1949 Books. Chanceline Mevowanou engages them in conversation about their feminist awakening, their journeys as young feminists, and their experiences of living feminist values and struggles at a personal level.

This conversation is in two parts. In this first part, they speak about their concerns, the realities that prompted them, and how they live with their feminist convictions. In the second part, they discuss their relationship with reading, feminist education, the importance of documenting African women's stories, and their dreams as feminists.

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Hi Riane, Bénédicte and Mariam. I was delighted to meet you at 1949 Books a few weeks ago. It was a wonderful moment of connection with in-depth exchanges. Thank you for agreeing to share your feminist journeys with Eyala. Could you introduce yourselves?

Marie-Bénédicte: I’m Marie-Bénédicte Kouadio. I’m a trained lawyer and a feminist activist. I work with the Ligue Ivoirienne des Droits des Femmes (English: The Ivorian League for Women's Rights), precisely in their legal department. Apart from that, I love reading. All kinds of genres, feminist literature and literature in general. It truly is my favorite pastime. I have a blog where I share my reading notes with my followers.

Mariam: Mariam Kabore. I’m a young filmmaker still in training. I've just finished my degree. Yay!

Riane-Paule: Hey, I'm Riane-Paule KATOUA. I'm 24 years old. I studied law. I work as a librarian at 1949 Books. I love reading, too. I love discovering content, i.e. films, books, and authors. I love learning about new things.

You're all passionate about works of the mind and books. We met in a library, and that makes perfect sense, haha! Riane, where did you get this passion for reading, books and all?

Riane-Paule: As far back as I can remember, I've always loved reading. Ever since I was a little girl. I remember that in primary school, the pupils were rewarded with books at the end of each year. I always got books, and my mother also bought me books. So, that’s how I discovered the stories. They were more stories about pharaohs, that sort of thing. That's where my love of reading and history started. When I got to secondary school, it began to get on my nerves because the books we were offered were boring. So, I stopped reading in middle school. It was just after graduating high school that my feminist spirit kicked in. I said to myself that I had to read, I had to understand more about what it was all about. That’s how I started reading again.

Indeed, the books on the college syllabus weren't always the most interesting.

Riane-Paule: Not at all. In any case, I couldn't find myself. I spent all that time thinking that I didn't like reading anymore. And it was only after high school that I said to myself, well, I've got to start asking myself some questions. What books would I like to read? What would I like to learn? And that's when I started reading again, and so on. So, I read feminist books, sometimes historical books. There are different types of books, but it's all about my interests and what I'd like to learn and discover.

And you, Bénédicte… how did your passion for books, literature, and writing come about? You read a lot and even share your book reviews online.

Marie-Bénédicte: I'd say since I was very young too. I cannot say exactly when it started, but as far back as I can remember, I've always loved to read. I used to ask for books as Christmas presents, and as soon as I was old enough, I started going to the library. So, I've had this passion for reading ever since I was a little girl. And logically, the more you read, the more you develop your writing skills. So, writing came much later, but that's okay. I quite like it too.

So how did your feminist journeys begin?

Mariam: It all started at home. I'm the youngest child of the family. And when you're the last in the family, you're everyone's “slave” in a way. And at one point, I realised that there were certain tasks that I was being asked to do, that my brothers weren't being asked to do. My brothers, like my cousins, are older than me, but I believe we all have the same body parts. Why do I have to do this for them? At home, I intentionally refused to go near the kitchen. I have no problem with cooking. It's important to cook because you need to be able to feed yourself. But I intentionally decided to stay away from there because I was told “Because you're a woman, you have to know how to cook”.

Also, when I was little, I wanted toys. I always loved video games. People used to buy me dolls. What for? I asked, I cried, and eventually, they stopped buying me dolls. They only bought me mixed toys. I was given Legos, game consoles, and these sorts of things. Well, I can say that my fight started there, unconsciously when I was a child.

And outside of home, was there anything that struck you about how women were treated?

Mariam: Yeah, it happens all the time. For example, the film industry, which is my field, is a very sexist environment. I know a girl in my class who’s a production major. And every time she goes for an interview, she's offered sex. Automatically. There are no half-measures. In other words, each time she goes for a job, she's offered something else and told: “If you don't want it, leave it. And you won't have a job”.

It's infuriating to see how sexism and gender-based violence are everywhere.

Mariam: And that's one case among thousands. I've spoken with many other women in the film industry. And it's very common. There's one thing I've noticed again at work. I was an intern on a series here. I had a position where we were with the photography team. With this team, there's a lot of stuff to lift. There are tripods. There's a lot of stuff, you know. And I felt like my natural abilities were being minimised. I mean, I can carry a tripod. It's not heavy. I don't know about that. They intend to help you… except that you don't need help and you didn't ask for help. And in the business, that happens all the time, all the time. It's like good intentions. But really, you feel like... I don't know if you know what I mean.

Yes, I understand. It's ordinary sexism. When did you start talking about feminism, using specific terms to address these realities?

Mariam: Actually, I started putting words to it very recently. It was during the first year of my cinema degree. I knew about feminism from afar, but I'd never fully gone into it in depth, reading and informing myself. I hadn't done it. I just knew the definitions. And then, for me, it was just common sense. So, really, everyone should be a feminist. When I was a freshman… this must have been in 2020, there was a thing called 16 Days of Activism. And it was right next to my university. I decided to check it out. That's where I first met Riane actually. She was already in an association called Mouvement Femmes et Paroles (English: Women and Words movement). When I went there, I discovered a whole universe. I saw women and people who talked about various themes. They talked about gender-based violence and period poverty… And that's when I realised just how big the issue was, and how much there was to do. After that, I even joined an organization

And Riane, you mentioned talked about your feminist awakening. How did that happen?

Riane: So, feminism was something within me before I even knew it was feminism. I was frustrated by everything I was going through. In our house, there's one really popular dish: foutou. Every lunchtime, we had to mash the plantain. And my grandmother would always get offended: "Why don't you mash it? Why don't you go and sit next to your aunt and mash the foutou?" It annoyed me. So, I had to force myself to go and sit down to watch how to mash the foutou. But as time went by, I couldn't pretend anymore. So, I stopped cooking. It was truly boring to me. I was always told that I had to know how to clean and cook because "your husband...", that I had to know how to do everything assigned to women, that I had to know how to wear dresses... It annoyed me.

Obviously.

Riane: At school, too, the teachers had sexist words at every turn. "Why do girls outperform boys in such and such a subject? Why?" Sexism all the time. Misogyny and harassment bothered me. And the looks on the outside, the inappropriate gestures that were commonplace. It all frustrated me.

I thought I had to find out what it was all about. And strangely enough, I did some research. I didn't know what I was looking for, but I did some research and came across videos, for example, of Christiane Taubira. I think that's how I discovered feminism, through her too. I learned about her struggle, and what type of politician she was. I said to myself, ah yes, that's feminism. I continued my research, read books, and so on. Actually, I read more articles than books at first.

The first feminist content I read was also articles.

Riane: I read a lot of articles to try and understand it step by step. At first, I saw it as a European movement. I didn't know it was a movement here. In other words, I didn't think there was a feminist movement here. The more I read, the more I saw writings and theories coming out. That's where my awakening to feminism began.

What about you, Bénédicte?

Marie-Bénédicte: I'd say it came from certain inequalities I witnessed in my own home, even before I had social media. There were a lot of unfair treatments at home. Men had a lot of privileges that I didn't have, and I always wondered why. For example, in my house, boys didn't wash the bathrooms, simply because women showered there too. My dad used to say that a boy couldn’t clean where menstruating women also showered. So, right from the start within our family, we were already locked into these shackles of gender roles, a woman's place, a man's place. I didn't think it was normal.

These stories of women's place, men's place, hum...!

Marie-Bénédicte: And the more you grow up, the more you have access to social networks, and to the media, you see that there are women who are killed simply for being women. Or that some women are raped, beaten by their partners. We don't have to go through that. Because there are very few men who experience this kind of situation simply because they're men. This kind of inequality and trampling of women's rights that I noticed in our society pushed me to get involved too.

So how did you start to speak out about these realities?

Marie-Bénédicte: At home, long before I defined myself as a feminist, I didn't follow all these rules about what boys and women should or shouldn’t do. I was a bit stubborn. People back home were already used to it. When I started identifying as a feminist, it didn't really surprise the people at home. It's more the people outside, the friends, the people who will tell you that you've joined the feminist group, the girls who hate men club. You've joined their group, you're going to start waging war against men. But actually, that's not it at all.

This is just absurd, eh?

Marie-Bénédicte: People start to see you as a man-hater, someone out to fight against the established rules of society. It was more difficult when it was in the eyes of my friends. Even now, there are some people I can't talk to about this because they're closed off to conversation. They don't even try to understand. They immediately say that when you call yourself a feminist, that means you hate men, and that you want all men to disappear from the face of the earth.

I've noticed that you express yourself a lot online. 

Marie-Bénédicte: Yes. I discovered some Ivorian activists like Carrelle Laetitia, Meganne Boho, and Marie-Paule Okri on social media.  There was a woman who had been a victim of violence. So, they all got together, and as they say, they raised hell. At one point, they were the only ones you could see. Although not everyone liked what they were doing, they were the only ones you could see. I said to myself that I wanted to do what they did because there's a lot of inequality in our society. Women’s rights are disregarded. And that's why I wanted to get involved as a feminist activist. I joined the League. 

Mariam, when you started talking about feminism, how did people react? 

Mariam: At home, it's a bit of a problem. People disagree. But I’m used to it. We don't stop talking just because some people disagree. So, sometimes, I get into endless debates with the people at home. I stand firm in my opinion, on my position. Frankly, it's like every day outside. It's all the same. I cut ties with some friends of mine because I found out I couldn’t stand them. So, for the sake of peace, I left. There are others too… maybe they do it to tease me, but as soon as something comes up, they tell me: “Yeah, the feminist will have something to say now.” They do it all the time. Sometimes there are negative connotations to it. I don't know why. Anyway, you know how people are.

The sloppy jokes, the bizarre allusions... Anyways!

Mariam: But there's nothing negative about being a feminist. 

Would you say that feminism has changed you and how you live or do things?

Mariam: Yes. As I was learning more and more about feminism, I realised that there were a lot of things I was unconsciously doing and thinking, “Wow, this is wrong!” For example, you can say things and unconsciously exacerbate rape culture.

That’s very serious. There are certain things that, now, I wouldn't allow myself to say at all. So, yes, there was a huge reassessment, even professionally. In the films I watch, I've realised that there are more male directors than female directors. And yet, there are as many female directors as male directors. It's just that female directors are made invisible. Now I’m mindful, and I watch movies made by women. It also came with a wave of independence. The independence I had before is stronger now. 

Ah, that's great.

Mariam: Yes. Even in my way of watching films, especially African ones, I'm very judgmental. For example, I remember seeing an Ivorian film. I don't think anyone saw the problem. Maybe it was just me. How do you say again? I am probably paranoid. In the film, there were two children. They were sitting in the back, and the parents were there saying something like, “Ah, he's your husband, you'll be a good wife, you'll cook.” And I thought it wasn’t the kind of message children should hear. I thought it was inappropriate for children.

You're not paranoid. What you say about movies is important. Society shapes us through the mass media, and films often convey messages that need to be questioned. What do you think it means to be a feminist in Côte d'Ivoire?

Mariam: Being a feminist in Côte d'Ivoire? It's a 24/7 battle. First, because it's easy to get into situations where you meet people who make inappropriate comments. We're also in a country where, from my point of view, for example, pedophilia is very trivialised. There was a case of a little girl in primary school who became pregnant by one of her teachers. And in an article, they wrote that they had a relationship. I was outraged. A minor. Anyway, like I said, it's a constant battle. There are misogynists everywhere.

I read some articles about this case, and it was rather unfortunate. Riane, you said that you initially didn't know there was a feminist movement here. How did you later discover this movement?

Riane-Paule: It's also through social networks. I saw that there were associations. And there were quite a number of them. There was the League, Stop au Chat Noir, and Mouvement Femmes & Paroles, the organization I'm currently working with. It's an association that works to combat sexism and gender-based violence through education. So, I found myself more connected with their work. I think education is the best tool to try and change people's mentality. So, I felt more comfortable with the association I'm part of. I joined them in 2021-2022, I think. And that's where I started my activism.

And when you started naming yourself as a feminist, what was the reaction of those around you? 

Riane-Paule: I remember once, someone asked me “Ah yes but are you a feminist?”. I said, “Yeah, I'm a feminist”. They replied, “But why are you a feminist? You can't call yourself a feminist with all the jokes you see on Facebook.” I asked what they knew about feminism. No answer. And that's the funny thing.  You see people misunderstand feminism. And then there's dishonesty. Dishonesty, in the sense that there’s the option to look things up. People could decide to be informed about it, to understand it, but they have no desire to do that. They choose to do nothing and say: “Oh, they're frustrated, that's it”. A parent told me once:  “Oh yeah, those frustrated girls aren't going to get married. So, you want to stay in that group too”.

The reactions are almost similar everywhere!

Riane-Paule: This won’t change anything about how I feel or my activism. I prefer actions anyway. Yes, you must try to convince people. But I don't want to convince anyone. I simply want to act in my own feminist way.

In the second part of our conversation with Riane-Paule Katoua, Marie-Bénédicte Kouadio, and Mariam Kabore, we talk about their relationship with reading, feminist education, the importance of documenting African women's stories, and their dreams as feminists. Click here to read part 2.

"Being a feminist artist means using your art to help the movement grow." - Mafoya Glélé Kakaï (Benin) 3/3

This is the third and final part of our interview with Mafoya Glélé Kakaï, feminist lawyer, painter, and poet from Benin. 

In the first part we explored her childhood, marked by a love of reading and writing, and her questions about gender inequality. In the second part, she shared her reflections on her relationship with her mother and gender stereotypes, particularly the social expectations associated with the role of women. In this final part, we explore her personal and artistic journey, her conception of artivism, her creations, her feminist vision, and her future plans as a feminist artivist. 

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As an artist, activist, and feminist, how would you describe the way all these roles are interconnected in your daily life? 

I'm a woman who grew up in a patriarchal society and my art is a bit of a diary in some ways. I have a lot of abstract stuff, but I have a lot of work that expresses what I see. I'm very sensitive to the status of women, and quite often when I paint, I transcribe how I feel about being a woman and what I see around me, regarding the treatment of women in society. When you're a woman living in a patriarchal society, when you talk about yourself, it’s impossible not to talk about the realities of women. You cannot avoid talking about the pain that comes with being a woman. Being an African woman is full of pain and difficulties.

So, even without wanting to, even without looking for it, my art naturally becomes a way for me to resist. There's poetry too. I tend to link some of my paintings to poems. I can write an activist poem and then paint a canvas that corresponds to that activist poem. So, I sometimes have paintings linked to poems. 

If you had to talk about the themes at the heart of what you create, at the heart of your artistic work, what would they be? 

First, women. The way I see women, especially African women, because I'm an African woman. I also talk about the way society sees women. I have a painting that can be found on my Instagram page that’s called: Femmes invisibles (Invisible Women). I think that's how I called it. It's a canvas that, for me, expresses the way women are present in the world. They make the world, but they're also invisibilized and ignored. I'm also talking about myself, my feelings, my emotions. Many of my paintings simply reflect my feelings at a given moment. 

What do you think artivism is? 

Artivism is about using art to express our vision of society, to express what we'd like society to be, not just what we see. What we see, yes, but what we'd like to see in society. It's a way of using our art to denounce what we find wrong with society and to use that art to fight oppression. And that's what I do. I call myself an artivist, a feminist artivist. As I've already said, I create works that show women's experiences and, at the same time, the change I want to see. 

I also run art workshops with feminist activists in Benin. In November 2023, the Fondation des Jeunes Amazones pour le Développement (FJAD), a women's and feminist organization, organized LA TRÊVE FÉMINISTE (The feminist truce). This was a safe and soothing space where women could participate in wellness workshops, therapy sessions and relaxation activities, promoting their physical and emotional recovery. I led an art therapy workshop. Art therapy allows us to externalize our feelings and recharge our batteries. I know that for me, for instance, when I'm very angry and I go into my studio, paint, and put that anger on canvas, I feel much better afterward. I feel reborn, alive again.

Having done art therapy with activists, I know that it's an activity that truly allows us to relax and express ourselves. I think we need to use art more often in the activist community as a means of expression or regeneration. It's an interesting idea because, as you know, activism is extremely exhausting. We're trying to navigate an environment that's not favorable to us. 

How do you think art can be used to further feminist causes? 

Art has never been separated from feminist struggles. As far back as the 70s, there were plenty of artists who used art to talk about the violence women experienced and to denounce the way society treated women. Art is a tool, a reflection of society. And when you use art to denounce society, you manage to reach layers that you wouldn't necessarily have reached outside art. There's graffiti, for example, which is an art form that was originally used to subvert society, but which women artists have also used to denounce gender-based violence, sexist and sexual violence.

Art also provokes discussion. I have a lot of work right now that I've painted for an exhibition that is fully feminist. I've shown them to my private circle for the moment and the works have generated a lot of discussion. These works can create feminist conversation and I look forward to showing them publicly. I'm bubbling over with anticipation just thinking about it because, among these works, there are themes and things that are truly specific to me in my personal history and that I know many women share. This is how art serves the cause. 

Beyond that, many artivists have used part of their income as artists to fund feminist collectives. Personally, it's an idea that appeals to me a lot, and one that I'll probably do when I can really make a living from my art.  Actually, being a feminist artist is a way of using your means of expression to help the movement grow. 

LE SEXE FAIBLE | Artwork BY MAFOYA GLELE KAKAÏ

Very inspiring. How would you describe your creative process? 

I have different creative processes. Often, it starts with an impulse. You could say an intuition. I see the final work taking shape in my head and then I go into my studio and paint. Or if I can't be in my studio, I always have a little sketchbook with me and I make little sketches of the idea and then I go and paint. With poetry, it's the same. It starts with an impulse, an intuition, a feeling, and then I start writing. 

And sometimes, a situation presents itself to me and I want to create something out of it. That's when I do my research. I gather my thoughts. I define the medium with which I'm going to express my idea based on the situation I've seen or heard. And then I do the research. I take out my little notebook and try to imagine how I'd like to express what I've witnessed. Then I take my time. It's no longer like an emergency, whereas my first process was really based on urgency, i.e. I must externalize it at that moment. It's like a pressing need. I have to get it out, so I don't lose it. If at that moment, it's poetry and I'm in the middle of a conversation for example, I stop the conversation and ask the person to excuse me. I take out my phone or my notebook, write or draw my little picture and come back to it later.. 

Do you intentionally practice any rituals to stimulate your creative process? 

Yes, there are activities or situations that I intentionally create to trigger a creative process. For example, if I want to make a purely feminist piece, I'll get in my studio and start listening to a feminist podcast. And it often inspires me. I can listen to the podcast, and the host or guest will say a word or a phrase that will give me the idea I need to work with. 

What materials do you use for your artistic creations? 

I create with acrylic paint, sand, shells, cowrie shells, flowers, objects, beads, and papier-mâché́ that I make myself. I use quite a lot of beads in my work. 

Do these tools have specific meanings in your work in general? 

Yes, they do. When I use the cowrie shell, for example, every time I use it, it's to symbolize the female sex. The cowrie's shape already resembles a vulva. So, every time I use cowries in my work, it's to express the female sex. It's true that I've drawn it before, but I often express it in an abstract way, trying out cowries in select pieces of work. 

And the flowers, depending on the flower… I've been using isaora a lot lately. The isaora is a flower that symbolizes strength and courage. And when I use isaora in my work, it's very much to symbolize the strength and courage of women in the face of adversity. Because to live as a woman is to live in adversity all the time. The beads… if you notice, I use tools that are quite socially associated with femininity. We African women wear beads on our hips, we wear beads on our ankles, we dress in beads. I really like these reminders of femininity when working with beads. The sand and shells are simply a reminder of the earth and nature, to which I'm very close in my work. 

I saw that you have a lot of creations with Afro hair. Does this have a specific meaning in what you create, like the elements you just mentioned? 

Yes, absolutely. I have to say that when I discovered natural hair - it’s very funny even for me to say that because it's something you're born with. It was in late 2015 when I was caught up in the wave of transition back to natural hair. I was passionate about it. I had a certain fascination with Afro hair because it's rooted in our history. Today, I would say that wearing natural hair is a total political act. Incorporating this into my paintings is a way of recalling the naturalness of the African woman, which is her Afro hair. It's a way of living in a society where standards of beauty are not necessarily set by us, but we subscribe to them. I want to show in my art that Black women are beautiful with their natural hair, and even beyond beauty, that it's acceptable to wear your Afro hair. 

How do you feel about all this personally; talking about yourself and women through your art? 

That's a good question because I haven't really asked myself this. For me, it's much easier to express myself through art than to sit down and talk to someone. I'm a very private person. With art, I don't ask questions, I don't think, I just express myself. It's my own state of expression, actually. When I started painting again, it was often on impulse, and it was like my secret garden, but not so secret. Especially since I don't do figurative work and that it takes a bit of interpretation to understand, especially the paintings that have to do with my own feelings. How do I experience it? I experience it as liberation. 

“ For me, it’s much easier to express myself through art than to sit down and talk to someone.”

Who are the women artists who inspire you? 

There's Frida Kahlo. Honestly, how do you put it? It's a bit of a cliché to love Frida Kahlo when you're an artist, but her work, the way she was, the way she expressed herself in her art, the way she made herself vulnerable in her art, it's something I've always been drawn to. Even back when I didn't know her, there were certain works of hers that I'd seen on the internet which fascinated me. When you talk about artists who reveal themselves totally in their art, Frida Kahlo embodies that. She talked about fairly sensitive subjects like the loss of children, in other words, things that many women can experience, but which we rarely see women talk about because of the taboo that surrounds them. 

Among African women, there's a Senegalese painter I truly like: Younousse Sèye, because of her pioneering work. She's one of the forerunners of contemporary African art, and I love the way she arranges the cowries on a canvas. I think those are the two I can name right now. 

What challenges do you face in living, creating, and living as a feminist artist? 

For the moment, the challenge is to be visible and make myself known. It's quite complicated for me, as I'm not naturally an extrovert. But I do try to get out as much as I can, to show my work and, there's this intimate side to my work. Given that a lot of what I do comes from deep inside me and that I'm an introvert, I tend not to necessarily want to... I find it hard to show what I do because I feel I'm being exposed. But I know it's important for me to show because I don't have that much to share. I don't have that much to share to keep it to myself. I must get it out there. So, I'd say for now, those are the challenges I have. 

What are your projects, not only in the field of art, but also combining art and feminism? 

I already want to put together exhibitions and show my work. I want to evolve more in the art world and make myself better known. Secondly, I want to use the artistic influence I've gained to influence the feminist cause, to feed it some more, and to give a greater voice to my sisters working in the field. I also want to work with communities that need art, to draw inspiration from women's stories to create art and show their experience through my art. 

You'll get there! Do you experience a certain sisterhood with other women in the practice of your art? 

I'd say I've met a lot of women artists and it's always a pleasure to talk to them, to realize that we have so much in common. I have a project and I've already talked about it with a few Beninese women artists, and I hope we'll be able to pull it off. It's to create an organization of Beninese and African women artists because I don't think we're going to close ourselves off with activism. And it will be an interesting way of living and building our sisterhood. I'm always talking to other women artists, and that's been a real eye-opener for me. Because we advise each other, we discuss career paths, we give each other tips. From what I've seen, and from my own experience, I'd say that women are pretty united in this business. 

And beyond the artistic community, I'm trying to cultivate my relationships with other women more and more. Given that we grew up in a society that didn't encourage us to reach out to each other. 

Today, I take great pleasure in bonding with other women, and talking to other women, even though I'm an introvert who finds it hard to reach out to others. When I meet other women, especially in the activist world, I try to chat with them. I've had some very nice encounters in the activist world, I've had lots of opportunities thanks to the women I've met, and I'm happy to say that we're in the process of building this sisterhood. It's something I feel very strongly about because I'm a fervent believer in the fact that it's the sisterhood that will truly enable us to go all the way, to overcome the constraints of patriarchy and even to defeat it. 

I'm a firm believer in that, too. What does being a feminist mean to you? 

For me, feminism is about standing up against the things that oppress us as women and prevent us from being fulfilled and being ourselves. It's about working so that women, the other women around us, can do that too. That's how I see my feminism. Because I know that we don't all have the opportunity to make the choices that will set us free. So, for those of us who do have the opportunity to make that choice, we must do so for others and work in whatever way we can to enable other women to make those choices too. 

And to end what has been a wonderful conversation, what is your feminist motto? 

Wow! That's something I hadn't really thought about. Do I have a feminist motto? I don't know if we'll call it feminist. I often say that I want to be a woman who will leave her laughter as a legacy. Because often, as African women, what we leave as a legacy is our suffering. When we talk about our mothers or the women who lived before us, we focus much more on what they did, how they suffered, how they died out, and how they sacrificed themselves for society. And we rarely talk about happy women, who were fulfilled. And that's what I want to leave as a legacy. That's my motto. I've written it in my notes, I've written it in my diaries. I want to be a woman who leaves a legacy of laughter. 

Thank you so much for chatting with us, Mafoya!

“I didn't want to be a good woman in the eyes of society” - Mafoya Glélé Kakaï (Benin) 2/3

Our conversation with Mafoya Glélé Kakaï, feminist lawyer, painter, and poet from Benin, continues. In the first part, we talked about key moments of her childhood, notably her strong bond with her grandparents, her love of reading and writing, and her questioning of the gender inequalities she observed. 

In this second part, she shares her thoughts on her relationship with her mother, gender stereotypes and social expectations of women's roles, and the beginning of her journey as an artivist. 

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How did your parents react to your questions? 

I was lucky enough to have quite open-minded parents who never put a stop to my impulses. Especially my father, since it's his family we're talking about. He was always there to answer my questions when we went to Abomey. He answered my questions as best as he could. And when I told him that I didn't agree with the way things were going and that there were things that disgusted me, he let me express myself without restricting me.

But sometimes my reactions shocked my father a little. When I discovered the word feminist and started expressing myself about feminism and everything, I bought a T-shirt that had “feminist” written on it. The first time I wore it, when my father saw it, he smiled and said, “You don't need to write it down, we already know”. 

Did your relationship with your mother play a role in your questioning and realizations? We haven't talked about it much so far. 

Yes, my relationship with my mother played a role, but not in the sense of encouragement. My mother is an exceptional woman. She excels in her work. She's a real professional role model for me. She's very organized. She trained as a French teacher. Then she trained to become an inspector. And to do that, she had to go back to school when she was already working. But some things were a bit difficult. When I observed my mother, and how uncomfortable she was, especially at parties, I felt pain. It made me want to get away from the model she was. I thought she worked too hard, did too much, and risked her health in the kitchen. 

My mother could spend a day or two preparing for the party, and by the time everything's ready, by the time the party's supposed to start, I would look at her and she was tired, exhausted. She couldn’t enjoy the work she'd done; she couldn't eat. She was still on the lookout to make sure everyone was enjoying themselves, that everyone was feeling good instead of relaxing and enjoying the party too. And when the party was over, there’s the tidying up that follows immediately. It was work upon work.

I think that was the first thing I noticed that made me decide I didn't want to be a woman like that. Because if being a woman means working so hard, with no rewards other than “Wow, that's delicious! Truly Madame GLELE, I don't know how you do it all. You’re an exceptional woman”, I don’t want it. There’s something my father’s family used to say to her: “A non sin asou”. And that’s something I didn’t like because, if you translate it into French, it sounds a bit like “you celebrate your husband, you truly submit to your husband”. I didn’t like it. It’s very paradoxical. 

Why do you say that? 

Because in her work, my mother never let herself be pushed around. She was always brilliant. She gave me a love of literature, and we often had discussions about characters in books. She'd give me books to read, and then, since I studied literature in school and she was a French teacher, we'd discuss and work on what I'd read. When I read books like So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ or Caught in the Storm by Seydou Badian, we'd discuss the female characters. I'd tell her what I thought of the way a particular female character had been portrayed. I'd tell her that I didn't always agree with the way a certain character or a certain thing had turned out. And she'd tell me what she thought. Our discussions were very intellectual. 

I've often noticed this paradox too. Between what some women are as themselves and what they are when they try to conform to the expectations of patriarchal society, it's not the same thing. 

When I saw my mother struggling, despite her frail health, and doing everything to please, well, to fulfill the social role she'd been assigned, I said to myself, “Oh no, I don't want to live that kind of life.” And that was a big argument between her and me, because I told her I didn't want to. Fearing how I was going to be perceived in society, she told me I had to do it, to be a good woman in the eyes of society. I made her understand that I didn't want to be a good woman in the eyes of society, that I wanted to be a whole person. A whole human person and not just a woman in the way society sees women. And I struggled a bit with her about these things. 

How did you deal with this? 

I took great pleasure in learning to cook the things I liked to eat. Unfortunately, it caused her a lot of worry and pain. Precisely because I told her there was no point in me learning to cook something if I didn't like it. And she would say, “But what if your husband likes it.” And I'd tell her that he would cook it himself. I've seen my father cook several times and my mother, as I said, has health challenges. When I was a child and she had to be in hospital because of her illness, my father used to cook for us.

So, for me, it's normal that if you like to eat something, you know how to cook it. When we cooked something or when my mother cooked something he didn't like, he didn't tell my mother, “Go and make me something else. I want to eat that.” He'd go into the kitchen and make himself what he wanted to eat. And it was these little examples that showed me that there were other models for couples that could be possible. 

It’s an example that we don’t hear about very often in our contexts.

Another thing: when my brother was having fun and she told me I had to come to the kitchen to learn, that irritated me. I would say to her, “There are two of us, why do I have to be the only one?” And she'd say, “Well, he'll have a wife and you'll have a husband.” It made me angry because I understood where she was coming from. She didn't want me to look bad in society. She often told me about the famous mother-in-law test, the cooking test, and she would proudly tell me how she passed her own test, which was given to her by one of my father's aunts. And she'd tell me how she passed her test with flying colors, and she hoped I'd pass mine with the same success. But I didn't want to learn to cook just to pass a cooking test. 

I've heard of it, but only very vaguely. What's this cooking test? 

The cooking test is often carried out at the mother-in-law's house or in the home of one of the future husband's aunts. During a visit, they would ask the future daughter-in-law to cook certain things. And it's a test in the sense that you're not automatically asked to cook when you meet your in-laws. It comes out of the blue. You'll arrive one day and they'll say, “Oh, there's such and such in the kitchen. Can you cook so we can eat? Can you help me out today?” But it's just a test, and at the end, when you've finished cooking, they'll say, “Ah well, you've cooked well, you've tidied up well, you're ready to be our son's wife”. It's something like that. But there's really no test. On the other hand, you'll rarely hear that the daughter's family has tested the future son-in-law in some way. It's always a test for the daughter-in-law. 

It's one of the practices that reduces women to cooking and housework and perpetuates sexist stereotypes. 

It's unbelievable and outrageous for me. Having said that, I'm happy to say that today, my mother is freer from this burden. And I'm happy to have contributed to that. We both influence each other. And over time, my feminist stance has opened her eyes to certain things. For example, last March 8, she asked me to help her write a text that spoke of the very essence of International Women’s Day. She refused to buy the uniform cloth, but engaged in some feminist outreach, instead. I was proud of her. I thought, “Wow, that's my mom”.

When she goes to school assemblies to discuss sexuality with students and talk about consent, and sexual and reproductive rights, I'm happy because I say to myself, in real life, we talk a lot, but she listens when I talk to her too. Now, when she reflects, she realizes that society is evolving and that, yes, I don't necessarily need to learn how to cook this dish or another, because there are plenty of catering services. And I tell her, beyond catering services, if you like to eat something as a human being, you need to know how to cook what you like to eat. 

“Over time, my stance, my feminism, opened her eyes to certain things.”

Well done! In the beginning, you introduced yourself as a painter, historian, and poet. Can you talk to me about that? 

After graduating from high school, I studied diplomacy and international relations in university. It wasn't a personal choice. I didn't exactly know what to do when I graduated, because what I was passionate about was art, poetry, and writing, but there wasn't any artistic training. Today, I know there's a school on campus, but there wasn't one before. There was also prejudice against artistic work in our country because there's so little financial security in this profession that parents don't necessarily encourage their children to pursue this career. 

I was told about diplomacy, how I could travel as a diplomat, and all that. I also saw this training as an opportunity because with traveling, I could talk about art. So, I thought, why not? I was also passionate about history, and it's a course where you talk a lot about history and geopolitics. I'm not going to say that I hated my training. I truly enjoyed studying diplomacy and international relations. I learned a lot. 

So, while you initially went into diplomacy and international relations, you still had a passion for art, poetry, and writing. How did you experience the transition between your academic studies and your decision to return to your artistic passions? 

Two years after my diplomatic studies, I enrolled in law school to obtain a law degree. I hadn't finished that when I heard about the UNESCO Chair and the master’s in Human Rights and Democracy. I'd already started reading up a bit on feminism. So, I said to myself, by doing a master's in the defence of human rights, I can also end up doing something that will enable me to contribute to the defence of women's rights. So, I did my master's. 

In the meantime, I had a chat with my father, and he said to me, “You've got a degree now. I think it's time you got back to your passions: drawing and art. Now is the time to devote yourself to it. You've already got a diploma, so if you need to find a job with a diploma, it's already done”. I must admit that I had begun to doubt my ability to be an artist, even though I think that, whether you make a living out of it or not, when you're an artist, you will always be one. It was after my master’s that I said to myself, well, I can't go on like this. This is something I love. It's something that's... I can't explain my connection with art. I must try. I bought some art supplies and started drawing again. 

How did your passion for art come about? 

It's something that came naturally to me because I don't know anyone around me who draws or paints. It came naturally to me. I know that drawing was one of my favorite classes in primary school. I've always been drawn to creating something that doesn’t exist, something that comes from me.

As a child, I used to crush chalk. Both my parents were French teachers. I used to take the colored chalk sticks they brought home and crush them, then mix them with water. And on A4 paper, I'd make little drawings and so on. For Mother's Day, for example, I'd give my mother drawings or little paintings, which were always abstract at the time. Or I was already interested in collage at the time. Collage is a technique I use a lot in my artistic practice today. I used to take seashells, make flowers out of them, and glue them onto paper or old calendars to make them last longer, and give them to her for Mother's Day. It just came naturally to me. 

In the third and final part of our conversation with Mafoya, we talk about artivism, her personal and artistic journey that combines her art and her feminist convictions. Click here to read part 3. 

“I feel that I was born with this desire to make women look good.” – Mafoya Glélé Kakaï (Benin) 1/3

Mafoya Glélé Kakaï is a young feminist artist from Benin. She’s a poetess, a painter, and a self-reflective sculptress engaged in personal exploration through her artistic work. She uses art as an authentic medium to tell her story, express her emotions, and share her experiences as a woman and those of other women from her perspective. Mafoya calls herself an artivist because of her activist art that serves feminist causes in many ways. She is also a blogger and a human rights lawyer, with a focus on defending the rights of Beninese and African women.

In this conversation with Chanceline Mevowanou, Mafoya talks about her feminist journey and her engagements as an artivist. In the first part, she shares key moments from her childhood, especially her strong bond with her grandparents, and her love for reading and writing, as well as questions related to the treatment of women that she observed, particularly in traditions and social attitudes. In the second part, she talks about her relationship with her mother, gender stereotypes and social expectations related to the role of women, and the beginning of her artistic career. Finally, in the third part, the conversation focuses on Mafoya’s personal and artistic journeys as they relate to art and her feminist beliefs.  

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Hello Mafoya. Thank you for agreeing to chat with me. Please introduce yourself.

My name is Mafoya Glélé Kakaï. I'm a lawyer, painter, and feminist poet. I'm the coordinator of the Girl Talk program in Benin with the Choose Yourself organization. I'm also a blogger. My blog is called Agoodojie. It's a feminist blog that aims to break social taboos by tackling issues such as menstruation, female sexuality, women's physical and mental health, and also social issues that affect women. I'm originally from Abomey, more specifically Sinwé-Lègo. I grew up and live in Cotonou. I don't know if you can tell from my surname. I'm a descendant of a royal family in Benin. 

Yes, when I heard your surname, I figured. So, what is it like to grow up as a descendant of royalty? 

I grew up in Cotonou, as I was saying. I spent my early childhood in Akpakpa with my parents. We didn't live very far from my maternal grandparents. We spent a lot of time with them. Our parents were at that stage of life when you're building yourself up and you're working a lot. So, our grandparents were there. That meant we had trusted adults who could take care of us during the day when our parents went to work. When I say our parents, I mean my cousins and me. I had a pretty quiet childhood, a pretty good one, so to speak. I was quite a sensitive and curious child. I asked a lot of questions. 

It seems like your grandparents left their mark on your childhood. What were they like? 

I felt very close to my grandparents. There was this respect we had to have for grandparents, but they were also quite open to us, their grandchildren. They were very involved in our lives, above and beyond the respect we owe our elders, so they had a big impact on our childhood. 

Of the two, I was closer to my grandmother. At that age, she was my best friend. I was very moody and had a very clear-cut way of thinking, which meant I wasn't necessarily accepted in my immediate environment. My cousins and I often argued. And my grandmother was the one who understood me. Today, I wouldn’t say she understood me, but she accepted me fully and completely. Whenever something went wrong, I would go and take refuge with her. She often put me on her lap while she cooked. I don't recall us talking, but there were these little moments when I could take refuge in her. 

As for my grandfather, he was a veterinarian. I think it was he who gave me my love for animals. We'd always go and feed the animals in the henhouse. We usually went with my cousin, who's a few months older than me, and he used to hold her hand.

How old were you when these moments occurred? 

From when I was born to when I was 6-7 years old. 

Apart from your relationship with your grandparents, were there other significant things from your childhood? 

Yes, books! There was the first time I was enrolled at the French Institute, which was called the Centre Culturel Français (CCF – French Cultural Center) at the time. I think I was between 7 and 8 years old. It had a big impact on me because I've always loved books. I've been devouring books since I was a little girl, and I remember the first time I was taken to the CCF and went into the library, I felt like I was in paradise. My mother had taken me there. It's something we share, this passion for books. And it was a positive experience for me. 

And what books did you like to read back then? 

It was mainly collections of stories that I read. As a child, I was influenced by the tales of Ahmadou Kourouma. I also read Pourquoi le bouc sent mauvais (Eng: Why does the billy goat smell) and other tales from Benin. These were the story collections that fascinated me as a child. I also wrote poetry. My father is a published poet, and I grew up with this man, for whom everything had to stop around him for him to write, whenever he was inspired. He would gather us in the living room in the evenings - my brother, my mother, and me - and read us his poems. 

Do you remember the first time you wrote a poem? 

Yes, there was a contest organized at my school when I was in primary school, where we had to create objects that would be put in a treasure chest to be opened in 2050 to show the children of 2050 how we lived back then. I wanted to take part, but I didn't know what to do. I'd been drawing since then, but I didn't feel like using drawing as a medium. The day we had to hand in our ideas… because first we had to hand in the ideas and the best ideas would be selected. And when your idea is selected, you go through the next stages. I remember the day we had to hand in the ideas, we were back in school after the Christmas vacation. I was in the bathroom showering and I remembered my father writing. I said to myself, I'm going to try my hand at poetry. 

My idea was selected, and then I wrote the poem. My parents read it and corrected the minor mistakes I made. My poem was selected and I had to recite it at the ceremony where the works were then locked in the trunk. For a super shy kid like me, it was an event that left a lasting impression on me and made me want to write even more. 

That’s amazing. Anything negative from your childhood? 

Yes. The death of my grandparents for a start. They died within two months of each other, and then we moved. That's when we moved to Fifadji, the neighborhood I live in now. The death of my grandparents affected me tremendously. 

Oh, I’m so sorry.

Then there were the moments of inequality that I noticed. In primary school, when it came to electing class leaders, it was always a boy who was first in charge and the second in charge was a girl. As if girls couldn't hold the position of responsibility as well as boys. At the time, I didn't have enough courage to put myself forward for election, but whenever a girl ran for the elections, even when the boy opposing her was a very close friend of mine, I always voted for the girl. I feel I was born this way, with this preference, this desire to make women look good. So I was always on the side of women, no matter what. 

“I feel like I was kind of born this way, with this preference, this desire to make women look good.”

In 2006, when Marie-Élise GBEDO (the first Beninese woman to run for president) ran for office, I was asked at school, "If you could vote, who would you vote for?” I always said I'd vote for the only person who looked like me among the candidates: Marie-Élise GBEDO. She was the only woman I saw, so that's who I was going to vote for.

The first and only play I wrote was in the fifth grade. We had to create an end-of-year show, and I wrote a play about a woman who was going to try to convince the people of her village to vote for her in an election, and who ended up winning the election. This play was clearly inspired by Marie-Élise GBEDO, because when I was in the fifth grade, she used to run for elections and people were generally against her.

And I think that, too, was a feminist awakening, even if I didn't know it at the time. For a long time, I thought that I was weird, that I was an alien, because what seemed so legitimate to me - equality, gender equality - was not legitimate to others, and I couldn’t understand it. 

Speaking of feminist awareness and related things, are there other moments that come to mind?

There were also my observations on the imposition of colors. I wasn't happy about people trying to impose their love of pink on me, supposedly because it was a feminine color. I didn't like the fact that colors were gendered. To me, they were just colors. And for someone who has been artistic since childhood, I've never really had a favorite color. I like them all because, for me, they express different things at different times. And the fact that someone wanted to impose pink on me, irritated me. When there were so many objects to be handed out, and someone said to me, “Oh, you're a girl, you've got to use pink”, it truly pissed me off.

It was a moment of feminist awareness, even if at the time I didn't know why. I just started hating pink so deeply, that I couldn't comprehend why. However, now I've reconciled myself with color because not gendering colors means accepting all colors as they are and not rejecting so-called feminine colors. 

You mentioned being a descendant of a royal family. Are there things that you’ve observed within your family that also raised your awareness?

Yes, when we went to Abomey with my parents, for example, I could see how my brother was treated compared to me. When the adults asked me about my brother, they would usually ask “What about your older brother?” and I'd reply “I don't have an older brother. He's my little brother and he's fine.” And they'd say “Ah, even if he's a year old and you're seven or six, he's your big brother here.” And I'd say “No, I'm the older one, I'm the big sister.” 

When you have to greet the king or the community leaders, the men just rub their foreheads on the ground. I didn't understand why women had to annihilate themselves so much. I rarely kissed the ground. I did it the men's way. I also didn't like the fact that at every ceremony, the men sat around laughing and that it was the women who were in the kitchen. I always thought at the time that this was a life I didn't want for myself. These are things that negatively impacted me. 

In the second part of our conversation with Mafoya, we explore her thoughts about her relationship with her mother, gender stereotypes, especially social expectations related to the role of women, and the beginning of her journey as a feminist artivist. Click here for part 2.

“We must break past the barriers of selfishness and contempt” -Constance Yaï (Côte d’Ivoire) 2/2

We are in conversation with Constance Yaï from Ivory Coast. In the first part, she told us about the birth of her feminist engagement and the creation of l'Association Ivoirienne des Droits des Femmes (AIDF - the Ivorian Association for Women's Rights), and its actions.  In the second part of the interview, we hear about her vision for an intergenerational feminist movement in Africa.

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Let’s talk about intergenerational collaboration. It’s a topic at the core of the feminist movement. In your time, did you have older feminists or women who supported you at all?

Yes. Some women supported us. But I must admit that in 1990, the term was scary. Women would tell us in private “We support you”. 

Speaking of privately supportive women, it reminds me that indeed, there is a fear of speaking out, claiming to be a feminist, or declaring solidarity with the fight that is still publicly present. I believe one of the reasons is that African feminists who express their vision of feminism are told that they are fighting the wrong battle, that feminism is an invention of the West to destroy African culture. Is this also a rhetoric that you have heard?

Nothing was imported. Women’s oppression isn’t something that we created. It exists in our societies. And feminism is the response to women’s oppression. I was born in this environment. I didn’t make the patriarchy up. These fights emerged when there were issues to tackle. Nowadays, many realize that feminist movements are gaining momentum. African women have done nothing but take part in a large international movement from which we were absent. Women would fight alone, isolated, and no one would know about them.

When I think about our beginnings, you know, it was hard to get invited to a television program. We were young, in our thirties or early thirties. We had little means and didn’t benefit from any financial support nationally. Those who did invite us tried to mock us, bully us, and discourage us. You would come and people would tell you “Madam, are you sure you’re talking about Ivory Coast? Are you sure that the women of the country need that? Don’t you think you’re coming to shake up marriages? Are you coming to throw this country’s peace off balance?” You are introduced as this rebel, who came to cause trouble when everyone was happy, where all is fine.

So, you can imagine that being isolated in your country is surely not the best thing. I believe that people react like this because African feminists have become more vocal, are more visible, and most importantly are build a network.

Indeed.

When I take the list of laws that we contested… For those who say that feminism is a movement imported from abroad, we tell them to look at the Ivorian civil code. It is a copy of the Napoleonic code. This is what was imported to suppress African women’s rights. Since our countries became French colonies, women's rights have regressed, in the sense that they used to participate in political life.

You mentioned the support of older women in private. Don't you think that today, young feminists need public support from their elders?

We need to openly express our support for our daughters and young sisters because the patriarchy is a smart system. It has created spaces and ways to create conflict among people who are fighting for the same cause.. What I hear being unfairly said to young feminists is “You’re just lost, your mothers or elders were more compliant…” Nonsense! These are only lies told to say that there are good and bad feminists. I support them because they're honest and because the fight must end. If we break that bond… It’s over! We must support them. I feel no shame, and I openly and publicly support them. 

So, how do you support young feminists now? 

First, through visibility. The means and opportunities that we have now, allow us to amplify young feminists’ voices. I’m thinking about social media. I believe they also have a space to take. We need to participate in having them effectively on the field and distance ourselves from those who trivialize their fight; we can do this by openly being by their side. In Ivory Coast as much as in the subregion. They need our support and our presence. When it comes to Ivory Coast I tell young feminists, if you need my name, use it. You don’t even need to ask for permission. As elders, let’s be a steppingstone for the young generation.

How can we strengthen intergenerational cooperation within the African feminist movement?

You said the keyword: cooperation. We don’t need to lead the same actions, but we need connections. We need to get together. You’re not less efficient because you’re younger or older. Some have time to spare. Others don’t. Some offer training, advice, and programs. Some are simply present… All this matters.

I know a woman who was the Deputy Secretary-General of the Ivory Coast’s biggest workers’ union, UGTCI – Union Générale des Travailleurs de Côte d’Ivoire. From her, I asked nothing but her presence. I told her “Auntie if you want to speak, please do; if don’t want to, that’s fine as well. Your presence is more than enough for me”. When the debates started, she wouldn’t be able to contain herself and she would speak out. She became part of us, and we were very happy to work with her. 

We’re talking about intergenerational cooperation within the movement. It also implies conflict management. How do we go beyond conflict or differences to keep on doing what brings us together?

I believe that conflicts are inherent. But we must ask ourselves: what are the values that unite us? Why are we here? Why are we together? And to have that in mind often so that we can transcend the small conflicts. Kindness for me is the foundation. When another person speaks, it's based on their perception of things at that time. When kindness is the foundation of our relationship, I listen to you.

Feminists have a lot to contribute to humanity. We must not be an obstacle to ourselves. I forbid myself to be responsible for the delay of this fight. On the contrary, I must be the one my sister relies on to move forward. We have no choice. We must break the barriers of selfishness, the barriers of contempt. We are the future of the world, we are the future of politics, and we are what will allow the world to put an end to wars, to put an end to injustice, to put an end to suffering. A movement like that has a future.

This is a beautiful articulation of what sisterhood is.

Exactly. Without using the word, that's exactly what I'm saying. Thanks to feminism today, I always look at other women with kindness. Feminism has taught me to be in solidarity with women in struggle. I can't attack other women. My sisterhood forbids it.

You were Minister of Solidarity and Women’s Advancement in Ivory Coast. Many young feminists have political ambitions. Tell us a little about this experience in politics. 

I think that feminists will be stronger if they accept to break the barriers that are considered political. Everyone chooses the political party of their choice. Feminists must transcend these choices and get together. They do not have to support the same party. I dream of a collective of feminists from political parties in our countries.

Why?

When I was in the government, it was a single-party majority, and I was not in the majority, unfortunately. But when I arrived at the council of ministers, I took the time to speak. In the beginning, we were only two women in this government. And the other lady, who was much older than me, was very much listened to. And she is precisely the one who became the first woman in charge of an Ivorian institution, Henriette Diabaté. I used to say to her, “Auntie, I am going to present such and such a thing next week, we have to discuss it, we must...”. I needed help and it was a strategy I was implementing.

I figured we're in gerontocratic societies, so people look at age a lot, and we respect our elders. Let's give our elders the respect they deserve, without being sycophantic, without sucking up, without getting down on our knees in front of people, and by keeping our dignity while respecting them. And personally, it helped me to make some difficult decisions that I needed to push at that time.

So no, we can't do anything if we don't create, as I said earlier, connections. Feminists have no choice, they can't do otherwise; we must create connections. And they don't have to be of the same party. We must encourage our women, our girls, to enter politics, to be in the unions. We must be there, we must be present, and above all, we must be unapologetic.

All this could be accessible to more feminists through the production of knowledge. How can we also encourage this production in our region? I am thinking, for example about your book, “Traditions-Pretexts, the Status of Women in the test of the cultural”.

It is important, and we’re currently working on it. I took advantage of my stay here to meet some feminists from Niger and Benin. I believe we need to create our own publishing house to encourage feminists to write. There are many manuscripts. I advocate for the creation of publishing houses and for those that are already established to open and become interested in feminist literary work. 

What do you hope for girls and women in Africa today?

Our countries must fund feminism. I believe this is my next fight, find domestic funds for women, for women’s rights. The economic issue will be the center of my next actions. We tend to forget that without the means, the needs won’t be met. We need support, nationally as well as internationally. As long as our funding is international, our fight will keep on being perceived as others’ fight. We also need endogenous funding. It is abnormal for countries to watch their youth and women despair when there are means to change things.

It’s a pertinent wish. Constance, thank you so much for making time to speak with us and share your experience. 

Over To You, Readers!

What do you think about this conversation with Constance Yaï ? Let us know through your comments here or on our Twitter and Facebook platforms @EyalaBlog.

“We are feminists because we love freedom” – Constance Yaï (Côte d’Ivoire) 1/2

Constance Yaï is an Ivorian feminist, author, and professor specializing in rehabilitation for speech impairment, founder of l'Association Ivoirienne des Droits des Femmes (AIDF – the Ivorian Association for Women's Rights), and a former Minister of Solidarity and Women’s Advancement.

While on a trip to Senegal, our Chanceline Mevowanou engaged in conversation with Constance who was participating in a convening of several young feminists from Niger, Ivory Coast, and Benin. In this conversation, she tells us about the birth of her feminist engagement (Part 1) and about her vision for building an intergenerational feminist movement in Africa (Part 2). 

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Madame Constance Yaï, thank you for agreeing to talk to us. Could you introduce yourself? 

My name is Constance Yaï. I live in Ivory Coast, 4-5 km away from Abidjan, in an area that is gradually recovering from the country’s 2011 post-electoral crisis. I’m a member of the AIDF for which I currently coordinate activities with women from rural areas. 

What’s AIDF?

AIDF is l'Association Ivoirienne des Droits des Femmes (the Ivorian Association for Women's Rights). It’s one of Ivory Coast’s first feminist organizations. It was founded in 1992 in the aftermath of a dramatic event we witnessed. 

We’ll talk about AIDF shortly. Before we started, I explained to you that Eyala explores what it means for African women, non-binary and gender-diverse people to be feminists. This leads me to ask you: What does “being a feminist” mean to you? 

For me, being a feminist first means becoming aware of the recurrent and permanent injustices women face. Then it is being vocal about this and becoming active so that it changes. Observing and noticing that it is an injustice is one thing. Organizing to change it is another. Being a feminist means using one’s voice and position to change the status of women. And this does not have to be done only through being in a feminist organization. 

Before starting your more affirmed feminist engagement, was there a moment in your childhood that marked you and that influenced your feminist journey ?

I think of when I was in college, a few years before graduation. The thing that stuck with me was my interaction with my father. He was hard on my mother, but he admired his daughters. My mother’s mother was one of the greatest Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) practitioners in the region. My father, when he married my mother, told her that none of her daughters would go through FGM. That was the first condition he set.

Then he said that all his daughters had to be literate; they had to be as educated as the boys. No one would stop studying without having a high school diploma. My father often said that a woman's first husband is her work. He used to say, "There is no rush to get married. I will be here to protect you; I will be here to provide for you. Don't get walked over by anyone. Even your brothers don't have the right to walk over you because you are all my children, and you have the same rights."

Unfortunately, he didn't think he would leave us early. By the time I was a sophomore in high school, I had lost him. I was greatly traumatized by his passing. My life took a turn. I told myself that he was gone but I would do everything I promised him while he was alive.

Your father's words certainly marked you and motivated you to begin  your feminist journey. How did that engagement start? 

I started by observing things around me. It's not an exaggeration to say that everything around me is unfair when it comes to women's issues. When you have a father who is always right about your mother; when you have boys at school who take up all the space at recess and girls who shrink away when the boys come... In my language, I would hear people say, “There is no one, there are only women”. You ask if anyone is in the house and they say, “No, there's no one, there are only women”. What I’m referring to is something that happened 40-50 years ago.

And at the same time, I saw that when people had no more arguments to explain the injustices made to women, they used tradition as an excuse. All these women who do not want to accept the discriminatory status of women are considered protesters. And I reacted to that. I became interested in the cultural dimension of women’s status. As a student, I was very active in student unions, and in protest movements.

At some point, I said to myself that it was not enough. I needed to meet other women who thought like me to drive our projects, to go further. My voice alone was not enough. You don't have to be an activist in an organization to be recognized as a feminist. But at the same time, you must have respect for those who are involved in organizations. I think that feminism is this thought, this philosophy that admits freedom. And we are feminists because we love freedom.

When you started becoming more involved, did you have your family’s support? 

My mother was unhappy to see me involved in the fight against FGM. I became the spokesperson for women who condemned and attacked a practice that my grandmother was proud of. My grandmother didn’t have the joy to excise her granddaughters; she thought she was doing the right thing. She would tell me “I’m only doing this in women’s interest because men won’t marry you if you’re not circumcised.” I would reply “What men? We won’t marry men from this community.” I had many talks with my grandmother. I disagreed with her, I love her very much, I listened to her a lot and I believe our bond helped me. She eventually told me “If that’s what you believe in, go for it. But you will suffer because of it.” Once I had her blessing, I felt that nothing could stop me. 

Let’s talk about AIDF. How did it come to life? 

As I said earlier, it was founded after girls were raped on Abidjan’s campus in 1992. People were protesting the single party system, and against the student’s conditions. Students were protesting on campus after many women were raped. With the advent of the multi-party system, protests were systematically shut down. The police force came to campus, beat the students, and raped the girls.

We decided we had enough. This was uncalled for. We said that it wasn’t normal and that in addition to being raped, they were subjected to repression and beatings on campus. To express how fed up we were, we created this association. To say that women have specific needs that must be respected even in the context of conflicts or crises.

What were AIDF’s activities?

I mentioned my relationship with my grandmother who practiced FGM. We ran a campaign against FGM. We were delighted to see that the Ivorian government agreed with us and decided that it was time to vote, pass and implement a law against this practice. We organized tours in the police and army stations to inform them on what the law says about the protection of women within the family. This was in 1992. No one talked about spousal abuse or domestic violence. We raised awareness on the issue for security forces, so much so that today, we have in Ivory Coast, offices dedicated to GBV run by female officers. We also reported the crimes. There was a young girl who was much talked about in the Ivory Coast. It was in 1996 this time. Her name was Fanta Keita.

Yes, we often hear about her from current young feminists.

She was married against her will, and tired of being repeatedly raped, she slit her husband’s throat. She was arrested and we organized a range of activities around the fact that no Ivorian law allowed the arrest of a little girl. We put out a whole arsenal to show the government that another solution had to be found for this little girl. We were supported by international media with offices in Abidjan to take up media space. On every platform, we would take up a microphone and say that if anyone had to be convicted, it was the State who didn’t do anything to protect this girl, and then to a certain extent the community and the girl’s family.

And while she was held in prison, we would organize protests in front of the prison. She was released. She was in preventive detention, but unfortunately, this lasted 11 months. The government was very embarrassed, and the solution they found was to take the girl out of prison and give her to us, and recognize that AIDF had done what it should have done. This is the origin of the jurisprudence that allows many organizations today to lead this kind of fight and to use it to defend young girls who are in the same situation. It is the Fanta Keita legal precedent.

Congratulations! 

Thank you! There is also the hierarchization of the male-female power dynamic in marriages. This is something we asked to be legally corrected for nearly 15 years and that has been granted now.

In Ivory Coast, both men and women are heads of the household. It used to be solely the men and they would make so many out-of-place decisions. Sometimes, the husband didn’t have a job and the wife was the household’s breadwinner, but she would need his permission to open a bank account or to travel. We’re happy to see that our country has evolved a little in terms of these issues.

We also led the fight for women to head our institutions. We spoke up about the lack of representation. During one of our meetings with the President, he told us “For nearly 15 years, you spoke against the fact that there is no woman-led institution in this country. And you said it was discriminatory. Here’s a surprise for you, I’m appointing a woman…” This is how we had the first woman head of an institution. I swear he thought he righted a great wrong, by appointing a single woman with ten other men. I think that’s sad.

When AIDF was founded, there was no women’s organization celebrating International Women’s Day on March 8. Our first nonprofit celebration was watched with curiosity. The struggle remains. There are obstacles to be overcome, there are battles to be waged. We've made some progress and we can do even more. I'm so optimistic because more of our daughters, our sisters, and our granddaughters are getting involved in the fight.

In the second part, we’ll talk about Constance Yaï’s vision for building an intergenerational feminist movement in Africa.

Join the conversation

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this first part. Let us know in the comments below, or let’s chat on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram @EyalaBlog.

“I think it's important to hold each other with grace in our healing process” - Lorato Palesa Modongo (Botswana) 5/5

This is the fifth and final part of our conversation with Lorato Palesa Modongo, African feminist and psychologist from Botswana. 

We have explored Lorato’s early feminist awakening (Part 1); her education and experiences as a social psychologist (Part 2); her thoughts and experiences in African feminist movements and spaces (Part 3); and her observations on the tensions that sometimes hinder intergenerational African feminist movement building, as well as possible solutions to bridge the gap (Part 4). In this last part, we discuss personal and collective healing to support our movements, Lorato’s current work with the African Union and her journey towards self-reconciliation to unearth her vision of herself. 

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Every time we get together in feminist spaces and the issue of intergenerational movement building comes up, it's always that same cycle of blame, and the conversation hasn't really moved from that point towards solutions. What would that step look like in your own thoughts and based on the experiences you have had? 

I think for me it is firstly, trying to understand. If we get to the ‘why’, we will understand that it becomes the issue of agency, self-determination, and using what you have in that moment. If we go to the ‘why’ we will see that the conversation is bigger than just us being deliberate about thinking that the other group is inefficient or to blame. We will find that there are other interconnected things in the background. After the untangling, I think it's important in our healing process, to hold each other with grace. Lots of grace. I am really lucky that I've sort of been in spaces where there's lots of grace; where even if I've made a mistake, there is grace. 

This grace will actually allow us to forgive, because moving from blaming also includes acknowledging and forgiving. Sometimes even when there's not been any ask for forgiveness, you forgive, you give grace, and you chart out new paths. 

“After the untangling, I think it’s important in our healing process, to hold each other with grace. Lots of grace. ”

Let the conversation be, “why are they not giving us space?” Then we arrive at: ‘they're not giving us space because they were socialized in a society that believes that when you are young, you don't know anything’.  Because that is how they grew up and influenced their processes. Nobody listened to them when they were younger. Even subconsciously, they still hold the trauma, and it comes into the spaces that we engage in.

So, we can hold the wonder of the knowledge and all the immense work that they have done, while we also hold them as these people who are also untangling the complexities of their lives. And they just want what we all want, which is freedom and emancipation. I think that's what it looks like for me. 

What opportunities do you see or what opportunities can we create to now facilitate this healing, this forgiveness, this creation of space for grace and then moving forward towards liberation? 

Mentorship! I think mentorship presents a big opportunity. And I’m talking about deliberate mentorship where we can get to hear each other's stories even on a personal level. I think there's something that humanises somebody when you get to hear their story. We can create different platforms where we can be mentored. Also in mentorship, it's not just the older person filling you up. You're also filling them up. 

Secondly, I think there's so much opportunity for documenting. We all need to document, do archiving work, memory work, go back to our communities and engage with those older women and write whatever they're giving us down. Let's digitise it. Let's thrust it into the spaces so that people can engage with it. Let's form partnerships with memory institutions in our different countries, in different communities, to see how we can amplify the work that's being done by these memory institutions. 

I think there are many opportunities, but there are also opportunities for funding. How can we make collaborative spaces where we are funded to realise all these things that we're talking about? We always leave the issue of funding behind. If you don't have access to funding, you’re probably not going to do a lot of work, particularly in the current economy. It is a conversation that needs to be had. How do we ensure that? How do we compensate these voices that we say we want to legitimize as well? Because I don't think speakers in the Global North speak for free, right? So, my grandmother, when she's teaching me things, why can’t she be compensated for that work? That's part of the work of legitimizing people's voices and knowledge systems and the knowledge production. 

Tell me about the work you're doing currently in Burkina Faso and how it fits in with your feminist journey, and all of the things that we've been discussing.

I'm currently with the African Union Center for girls’ and women's education in Africa, AU/CIEFFA. Their headquarters is here in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. I'm currently the Gender Research Analyst. So, in terms of the policy work that's being done here, we look at the numbers and look at the qualitative data on girls' education in the continent. What are some of the patterns and trends that we're seeing in order to put that into policy when we are strategising on governments’ need to invest in girls’ education in Africa?

We also know the issue of data in Africa. We don't have access to reliable, consistent data. So, we can’t paint a real and true picture. But now we say, in the absence of statistics, the qualitative narrative counts. What are the voices of the people on the ground? How can we amplify these voices to make a case for governments, for member states to return girls to school? That's the work I'm doing. 

You’ve only been there for a year or so. Have you found feminist space there? 

I don't speak French, so it's really difficult to authentically connect with people here because it is a Francophone country. Language is such a powerful tool, not just for communication, but also for community. So unfortunately, I haven't been able to do that yet.

We are getting close to wrapping up. Are there things that you wanted to share that we haven’t touched on?

Yes, I think in the discussion of intergenerational feminism, there's a lot of collective healing that needs to happen. There's a need for collective rest, collective joy, and collective love as well. And what does that love look like? It means love for community and love for self, because love for self includes things like discipline, integrity, accountability, and being guided by ethical feminist principles. And I know that we define these for ourselves, but there's also a need for collective definition of the feminist principles that guide us. 

And I want that soft landing for all of us. I think we deserve to glow. We're fighting but we are glowing because there's joy, there's love, there's peace, and there's so much going on. We all deserve that in our individual spaces, but in the collective as well. We carry a lot of generational trauma. The voices of our great, great grandmothers which were not able to be articulated, and their dreams which were not able to be realised because of how the system stifled them is traumatic, generationally.

I think it's important for us to be the generation that the trauma ends with, or at least for the burden to lessen. I don't want my children carrying the burden that I did. I think healing works - healing the brain, healing the mind, healing the spirit, healing the heart, and healing the body. Eating healthily, hydrating while we're doing this work, resting, showing up as healed as much as we can, right? I think that is very, very important. 

You talked about glowing and I had a specific question about your red lipstick, coming to this interview, because it's your signature and it’s fire! I’m actually surprised it’s not on you today. [Laughs] What's the story?

Actually, there was no profound, big symbolic story. I just kind of liked it and  there is no deep profound story to it. I just liked it. I kind of like fashion. It is cute. 

Do you find yourself in moments where you feel like you need to reconcile that cute, “I am here, I am fashionable” look with the idea of feminists as not beautiful.

Actually, being cute came as a result of the reconciliation I did. I got a scholarship from the Mandela Rhodes Foundation (MRF), and they have four development workshops for their scholars - on leadership, education, entrepreneurship, and reconciliation.The reconciliation is on self-reconciliation. The question was what do we want to reconcile within ourselves. My answer was “I want to be soft and cute.” And once again, I'm going to honour my friend Iris because we have had multiple conversations on this. 

I grew up as a tomboy. At the time, I thought it was a choice, but it wasn't really a choice. I was being a tomboy because I kind of wanted to look like the boys. I realised they didn't torment me as much as they tormented the other girls we played with.  So, I was trying to protect myself by being tomboyish. That was my signature look - the baggy pants. Then later going through the MRF process I realised that I actually enjoyed playing around with fashion. I want the quirky earrings. I want the red lipstick. I want the shades. I want the cute dress. So, the reconciliation led me to knowing that I can still look that way while also doing the work, because it's also a way of confronting the misrepresentation of what feminism is. 

And to end, please tell me : what is your feminist life motto? 

I know it's a cliché but truly “the personal is political.” I draw a lot from that because even when I'm thinking, this is just my own personal experience in the house, I realise how it's connected to politics. 

But if I have space for another, it is the remembrance that feminism has given me words to articulate things. And in my articulation, I felt like I was breathing. And when you breathe, you’re alive. So that's my feminist motto: to continuously navigate and untangle and make sense, and in the process, breathe. Then I'm able to take strides in the world. 

I love it. Thank you so much, Lorato. I'm really glad that I got to have this conversation with you. 

Connect with Lorato!

Or give her a shout out? Find her on Twitter @LoratoPalesa

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“We don't owe anyone a sanitised feminism” - Lorato Palesa Modongo (Botswana) 4/5

We are in conversation with Lorato Palesa Modongo, an African feminist and psychologist from Botswana. 

In our series of conversations on intergenerational African feminist movement building, we have explored Lorato’s early feminist awakening (Part 1); her education and experiences as a social psychologist (Part 2); and her thoughts and experiences in African feminist movements and spaces (Part 3). In this part, we get into the heart of intergenerational feminist movement building, with Lorato sharing her observations on the tensions that sometimes hinder progress, as well as possible solutions to bridge the gap. 

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Let's now get into feminist movement building as you've experienced it in Botswana, but also at a continental level. There are many networks that you are engaged in that are doing work that contributes to our collective movement. What are your thoughts on feminist movement building on the continent? 

I think it has a huge opportunity to bring lots of change. I think there is space for that collective organising, and a space for us to think of different ways in which we can do that. So just because it's collective doesn't mean it's like one bullet. It means we are bringing in different ways of organising our experiences, our challenges, and best practices, to make sense of the complexities that we bring, to confront the violent contradictions that we are faced with and to come up with some solutions. It's a bit difficult, but I think there is an opportunity for us to build it to be better, which is where the intersectionality part comes in. 

We can't build the movement if we're not going to confront classism, and if we're not going to confront our privilege. I think there is an opportunity for the movement to grow, but there's also an opportunity for the movement to deeply reflect on the contradictions that we bring. And to also say, “What does African feminism look like for us?” I know there is the African Feminist Charter and I really love it. When I saw the document for the first time I was like, “Oh, I love this.” But there's also a need to continuously redefine what this looks like for us. Now we are having Generation Z with social media and digital spaces being used for organising. Where are we going? What are we saying? I think we have many pockets of opportunities to evolve and to confront the challenges and the privileges that we have, and to confront where we are not doing well. 

“There is an opportunity for the African feminist movement to grow, but there’s also an opportunity for us to deeply reflect on the contradictions that we bring.”

We'll come back to that part about confronting where we're not doing well. You mentioned the generations. Usually there's a lot of talk about this lingering tension between the generations. What have your observations been in those spaces as a young feminist, engaging with people who probably have been doing the work even before you were born, but also people who have come after you? 

I'll start with the workplace maybe. It was because of feminist work that women then had to take roles as decision makers. However, the oppressed, in order to function in any oppressive system, somewhat tend to mimic the behaviours of the oppressor as a coping mechanism. And those were the generations that had passed. They had done the work to get into spaces, but now they're in these spaces and for them to function in that patriarchal system, they have to mimic those patriarchal behaviours to be seen, validated, or even legitimised as leaders. So, you see that the tools they use to lead are not necessarily the liberating tools. It is because that's what they had available to survive. For example, embracing being ‘soft’ may have been seen as a weakness for them as ‘women leaders’. 

But we also acknowledge the repercussions of the softness. And the softness I speak of is kindness and compassion and vulnerability. It is in boundaries and honouring yourself as a person. It’s in valuing, seeing, and holding yourself in high regard while also remaining firm. That's what we mean by soft landings. But they couldn't do that. Why? Because the world would say, “you see why we're not bringing women to lead. Now they're coming here with their sensitive emotions. What is compassion? You cannot be compassionate to your workers. You have to be mean to prove that you are a firm boss/leader.”  This is just an example of behaviour in the workplace, but that is how this system has been operating. But as the younger generation, we know that you can hold and view people with compassion while also holding them accountable. Many truths and emotions can exist at the same time. 

And with grace, I must say.

And lots of grace. And remembering that I can still do the same for myself. I can hold myself accountable, and even reprimand myself while also doing it with some grace. Those are the newer conversations that are coming in around vulnerability and honouring ourselves.

The other issue that I'm seeing is that the “too muchness” of the younger feminists kind of confronts older feminists. They're like, “no, maybe don't ruffle the system that much, because we need to be diplomatic.” And I understand this, but why do you need to be diplomatic and nice to a system that's not diplomatic and nice to you? Patriarchy will never be nice to you. The day patriarchy decides, “all women”, it is all women indeed. It does not even care whether in 1992, you were nice and diplomatic.

It really doesn’t discriminate between the “good” women and the ones who are seen as “bad”.

It does not discriminate. It will eat the woman who is cooking at home 24/7 the way it eats the woman it says is a “whore”. There is no sieve. And I think that is what I see… the older generations thinking we have to package ourselves a bit more nicely and diplomatically in order to be palatable.

I actually had a conversation with one of the older women a while ago. She was telling me, “I'm uncomfortable with that word, with that feminist thing. I’m uncomfortable with it, because it will make partners run away thinking that we hate men.  And I think it's important for us to continuously articulate that we need men in these platforms. We need men because that way people would identify more with our work.” And I told her what I told you now, that it is feminist work. And people need to see feminist work as exactly what we are doing now. We don't owe anyone a sanitised feminism. 

I think that is a problem for me; that the older generation… those that I've engaged with, they want the nice package. They want diplomacy, sanitisation, and over-negotiating. But you cannot negotiate with your oppressor. [Laughs] Negotiate what? They don't negotiate your life. When laws and regulations are made, people are not negotiating your life. When girls are being forced into early marriages, female genital mutilation, forced out of school, raped, not allowed into political spaces, nobody negotiates it. So why should you negotiate in your fighting and resisting and organising and challenging?

Also, how do you even negotiate when you're not on the same level and do not hold the same power?

Exactly. So those are some of the main contradictions I have observed in the work. But I love the lessons because they say, “we've been through that as well”. And they've won. I mean, the Beijing generation and so many other movements have won in many ways. Even in pre-colonial times, they have won. And what is it that they did that assisted them with winning that we can bring in? Maybe they are right, and there are certain things we have to do. But maybe we are also right about certain things. So, I think we can borrow from them as much as they can borrow from us. 

So, there is the level of generational differences that are linked to age but within the movement also, there are those generational differences tied to when your journey started or when you started doing the work. What have you observed in that regard?

Those things are definitely there. As long as you recognise the sexism, but you don't recognise the ageism, then there's a problem. Now you want me to respect you and you want to have power just because you're older or just because you have been in the movement for longer? Then there is the (de)legitimising of people's voices by virtue of how long they have been in the movement. But we know that people may be in the movement earlier or later based on their agency. 

I think it's important for us to remember that being in feminist spaces doesn't mean that those power issues are not present. It doesn't mean that negotiating power is eliminated just because we are feminists, because power dynamics move in different pockets. We may be in a feminist space, but who's richer? Who's more articulate? Who's been in the movement for long? Who has been to Oxford? Who has been to one of the no name institutions around the continent? So, the untangling of power will always be there, even in feminist movements. Knowing that power doesn't cease to exist just by virtue of us being in feminist spaces if we're not going to confront other pockets where power lies. So, it is a big thing. The issue of ageism, ableism, the hierarchy, the power, the legitimate voice because of age, and now the longevity of your experiences.

In some spaces, we do hear older feminists decry the issue of erasure and use that as a way of holding on to the power that they've managed to have because they feel the generations after them try to erase the work that they have done. How do we create a balance, really?

I think two things. Each generation has to be self-determined. What are your current issues? What are you faced with? What are the tools that you have now? What can you do to confront the issues in front of you? 

So maybe in the process of self-determining, I do acknowledge that the other generations then forgot about the work, but I do not think it is a deliberate exercise to erase them. I think it was because of representation and documentation, and it's all linked to so many other things. Why don't we read about our feminist pain in our spaces? It is a political reason, so that you think that you have started things; you don't know about the tools that exist; you don't know the journey that people have taken; you don't get the renewed energy and renewed spirits to do the fight, and to honour people who have done the work before you. So, you're like a hamster on a wheel. 

It has to be deliberate when you erase people's voices, knowledge, faces, and even their names. I don't think the younger feminists are erasing for erasure’s purpose. I think it was just the way things were, where you can’t access information, but I think younger generations are now using the tools that they have to capture, in real time, the voices of feminists now and to also dig and search and do memory work. They are also doing archiving work to say, “Who do we remember? How do we remember them? When do we remember them? And what is the purpose of remembrance and memory”. And also going out of our way to re-thrust them into the public domain. 

Are there examples that strongly demonstrate this, and that could serve as inspiration for how we move forward and past this tension?

I remember when Winnie Mandela passed on, and the news was broken, the Western media said that “the villain is now gone”. Thanks to social media and other digital platforms, the feminist movement on the continent said “no, not this time”. I watched the wave from the Western media shift, to the Winnie that we have gotten to love and hold in those contradictions that she represented. And holding both the wonder of her being and her work and some of the issues that we were contesting about that she had allegedly done. Seeing her being represented and honoured as that was such a powerful moment.

That is the honouring, that is the remembrance of the women who have done the work and are being thrust into the public domain. And I think that's what younger generations are doing now with the tools that we have. I think we're trying to sort that out. I think we are. There are many older feminists’ works I enjoy learning about, including from Botswana, the intellectual works of Dr Godisang Mookodi, Dr Sethunya Mosime, and many others. 

In the final part of this conversation, Lorato talks about personal and collective healing to support our movements, her current work with the African Union and her journey towards self-reconciliation. Click here to read it.

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“Reflecting on the progress already made by people who walked before me gives me courage” - Lorato Palesa Modongo (Botswana) 3/5

This is the third part of our conversation with Lorato Palesa Modongo, an African feminist and psychologist from Botswana. 

In our series of conversations exploring intergenerational African feminist movement building, we have explored Lorato’s early feminist awakening (Part 1) and her education and experiences as a social psychologist (Part 2). In this part, we explore her thoughts and experiences in African feminist movements and spaces.  

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We’ve talked about building the future we deserve and what that looks like for you. You're actively involved in different feminist spaces as part of the work you do. What has been your experience? 

The experience is a myriad of emotions. I believe that the world can achieve positive change because we have seen it. Who knew that two black women right now can be sitting talking; two African women exchanging ideas? We can publicly share our thoughts and state our ambitions without fear of backlash. We go to school, we vote, and we run for political office.

So, I know that humans have the capability and capacity to change the world. That helps me when I feel tired and drained. Even in the moments when I feel disillusioned, and feel like there is no progress, reflecting on the progress already made by people who have walked before me gives me the courage that one day, hundred years from now, our work will matter. So that is helpful. 

What does that recognition look like? Is it something that you do internally or is it also an external recognition that goes to those people who have laid the path? 

Yes, it goes both ways. It's internal, with me constantly remembering and acquainting myself with the work that has been done before. It is also recognising even the voices that may not be legitimised as sources of knowledge. It is observing women in the villages doing the work and acknowledging that even when they don't name themselves as feminists, even when they don't name their work as feminist work, I'm able to see that this is actually it. That's the internal recognition. 

The external recognition goes into something as simple as paying homage to their work and incorporating it in our own work to show people that what I'm feeling and thinking is not new. I may be articulating it in a different way, but it is not new. People have felt and thought about these issues, people have done work and you may have not seen it because of obvious reasons including a lack of documentation, which is why I'm saying that platforms like Eyala are very important. Nobody can come 50 years from now and say there was not a single woman documenting work in The Gambia when we can Google it and see that Jama Jack was doing the work. So that's why we're grateful for spaces like this. The external recognition also goes with the peer networks that we have, also acknowledging each other in our spaces.

You mentioned that your experience has been a mix of emotions. Tell me more about that…

We're human. We get tired, but it's part of the human experience, particularly when you interact a lot and you get exposed to the work, because not everybody gets into the work with good intentions. We have to acknowledge that each movement has its own wins and challenges. I think there is a disillusionment that sometimes comes and the question that says, “Is it even worth it? Why can't I just look at these things and ignore them like everybody else?”. Unfortunately, I'm not wired that way. I can't see poverty and ignore it, especially when I know that there's enough resources for all of us. So just that contestation, that disillusionment, that anger sometimes, that losing hope. But the beauty of it is that because of the community that I have built, we share ideas, and we reflect authentically and openly with each other. 

What would you say has been a key takeaway from these reflections at your own individual level, but also as part of the community around you?

One of my really great friends, Iris, helped me so much. She taught me about rest as a deliberate feminist act of resistance. Capitalism demands for you to be exhausted so that you don't have any strength to fight anything anymore. You then tap out and there's nothing you can give anymore and the movement fizzles out. Then patriarchy advances and gains momentum. So, it's important to view rest as a form of resistance. Take some time out to go back to the source, to your why, to how we can collectively organise in different ways, but to also just rest and not think about anything. 

I've realised that I love water bodies. They intimidate me but there's also something that is healing for me. So sometimes, my rest also looks like going to the beach, just going on a vacation to a country that has a beach and just being there. I'm minute, I’m insignificant in the face of all of this. But I'm also significant in that I can make a small difference. 

And then lastly, I think it's just knowing that we would have tried. So, the activism work brings all of that. It's the anger, the disillusionment, the renewed confidence, the learning, the courage, and the loss also. It’s the grief because there are certain things that we lose in the journey, but it's also the collective grief.

What are some of the things you may have lost and are possibly still grieving or have grieved over as part of the journey?

I think it was some parts of myself. If I meet newer parts of myself, it means older parts either go or they’re rebuilt. There were some parts that had to go. I lost some friendships where maybe people would feel comfortable with joking about things like rape. I don't joke about it. So, there was a time that was painful because I felt like I'm constantly having to be a party pooper. It was painful then, but it's not painful now. There was a time I was hiding or diminishing. And I think I grieved for that part, because then I cheated myself. There were opportunities I could have gone after, but I didn't because I was shying away. And I'm sorry to that Lorato. 

But there is also the collective grief in the sense that you see that women are being faced with this similar plight. You read about sexual violations, about rape, about their political ambitions, about this, about that. And you see that it's kind of the same, in the collective grieving. But the collective joy as well. Yeah, the collective joy…

Let’s talk about that! How do you make space for joy for yourself but also within feminist spaces that you find yourself in which can sometimes get really serious, really technical, but also very much rooted in anger?

You know, when we say there's so much power in naming things, I think it frees you. It gives you relief, and there's joy in that, because the tension of you feeling these emotions that you cannot package goes away. When you package them through words, you breathe, and there's joy in that. There's so much joy in being able to articulate yourself. 

It is also the capacity to hold the bad and the good at the same time, and to say, what does justice, freedom, democracy, and joy look like for me? It is being able to dream about feminist futures and knowing that there’s joy in that imagination. It is knowing that I can share that imagination with my friends, and they can share their imaginations with me, and it is filled with joy. So, I think just being able to share that assists so much, but also just being able to read the stories of success. 

I remember, in Botswana, one of the young feminists I look up to, Bogolo Kenewendo. She's a former Minister Of Trade and Investment in Botswana. She has always been doing a lot of social justice work, and she gave so much inspiration to a lot of us. She was bold, she was courageous, she was assertive. So even when she was selected as a minister, it didn't really come as a surprise. She's always done the work. And as a Minister, she was doing the work, articulating social justice issues, and there was so much joy in that; in that there was a young woman, and you were seeing the work that she's doing. So, when we're documenting and collecting voices, I think there's so much joy in finding that there is a thread that binds us. And we have now, and we will have the tools to somewhat challenge patriarchy. 

In Part 4, Lorato shares her observations on the tensions that sometimes hinder progress, as well as possible solutions to bridge the gap. Read it here.

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“For me, freedom means just being and not having to explain your choices”- Lorato Palesa Modongo (Botswana) 2\5

Our conversation with Lorato Palesa Modongo continues. Lorato is an African feminist from Botswana. She is a Psychologist, with interests, skills, knowledge and over 7 years’ experience on Social Psychology, academia, qualitative research on gendered violence, decolonialism and African feminisms. 

In the first part of this conversation, Lorato shared with our Jama Jack about her feminist journey. In this second part, we further explore her education and experiences as a social psychologist and how this connects to her work and actions as an African feminist. 

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So, we are going to dig into your journey with education. Why psychology?

Four parts! The first part is that I wanted to do law. I grew up resisting, fighting, just saying no to people. And the beautiful part is that I was given that space at home. Even though the whole gender roles thing was happening, there was space for curiosity and for being inquisitive and for saying no. So, I applied for law and unfortunately, I didn't make it to law school. I was really sad because I had centred my being around becoming a lawyer. I was like, “What the hell am I going to do? What is my next choice?” At the time, a lot of people were doing economics because the President of Botswana at the time was an economist. He was doing very well, and he was always on these international platforms talking about development, so everybody also wanted that. So, I was like okay, let me give it a try and I actually enrolled in economics and the calculations there… hmph [Laughs]

You were like “Not for me” huh?

I was like, “I am not going to do that.” So, all economics students had to do ‘Introduction to Psychology’, and there was a young woman who had just come in from the United States. Her name is Dr. Mpho Pheko. She was very brilliant, energetic, confident, knowledgeable, stylish, and well articulated. And she just didn't take any nonsense from the students. Our classes were in big auditoriums where it’s like 200 students and she wasn't intimidated by that huge number. I mention this because she looked very young, and that was really interesting for me. I had a conversation with her, and she told me what psychology was. So that's the second part: representation. Because I saw someone that I identified with, and was inspired by.. 

And the more I got into the field, the more I saw that it affirmed the curiosity that I talked about, the inquisitiveness, the understanding of human behaviour. The giving meaning to things that were happening and the making sense of the world.  It was such a huge moment for me. 

The fourth layer was largely a spiritual thing. I dream a lot when I sleep. So, my grandfather basically came to me in a dream and said: “you have to do psychology” and he gave me the reasons, and they made sense. Considering that my grandfather then didn't know what psychology was, it was interesting that in the dream, he was explaining the reasons why I needed to do it. When I told him years later, he said “You know that my grandfather also appeared in my dream to tell me that I'm going to do what I'm doing now?”

Oh wow! For real?

Yes! So, that is the spiritual side of things. Those are my four reasons. I was rejected by my first love: law; I saw somebody that I admired doing the work, so there was representation; but it also was a space for my curiosity and understanding of human behaviour. And lastly, the spiritual side of it. So, I believe I was called into it. 

That’s incredible. And what has that journey from your education to the work you do now looked like?

Beautiful and rewarding. Every day I do my work, I don't feel like I'm working. I just feel like I'm stumbling into newer parts of myself, newer parts of the work and finding ways to be a better self, but also for the community, the society, at all levels, including the global level. But I think the most beautiful tool it has given me is finding words to articulate internal contestations, because …you know when you can name things and the power in naming things? 

Yeah! I know too well what that power feels like and what it shifts in your mind.

That has been the beauty of it. There are many aspects that I don't agree with - the colonial gaze of the field, or the westernisation if we want to put it that way. For example, the most basic one, the fact that clinical psychology uses diagnostic manuals to diagnose people with mental health issues. Sure, there's that, but it completely ignores the spiritual aspect and indigenous knowledge of Africans. It ignores that Africans are also spiritual beings. So sometimes people are hallucinating not because they have schizophrenia, but because maybe they are called to do ancestral work, or healing work or whatever type of work. And they will hear voices, they will see things. All they need is to do whatever they believe they need to do, and then they are good. But if psychology is going to diagnose them with schizophrenia, it means we're using a colonial gaze and for these people we take into mental institutions, we will try to put them in a box as per colonial rules, and I have problems with that. 

I think the reason we need more African psychologists is to also articulate those contestations and to confront the industry, but to also come up with new ways of thinking and imaginations around societal issues. I think that's the beauty of it; that even though I don't agree with certain elements of the discipline of psychology as a field in Africa, I believe it is an opportunity for us to create knowledge, re-imagine human behaviour, and create new ways of making sense of the world.

“Clinical psychology completely ignores the spiritual aspect and indigenous knowledge of Africans. It ignores that Africans are also spiritual beings.”

What would creating knowledge look like in this sense? Who is creating this knowledge, and for whom?

I should clarify that it’s not just to create knowledge, because knowledge does exist. But to say how do we legitimise various sources of knowledge. Who is referenced and why are they referenced? Why are you referencing some old psychologist from the global north, but disregarding my grandmother's musings, sayings, and knowledge around human behaviour? You find that there's a lot of psychology work, even in our language in something as simple as our proverbs, or our idioms. 

In my language when you are feeling really, really tired, you say, ‘ke a go itheetsa’. In English, it means “I want to rest” but the direct translation is, “I want to listen to myself”. Meditation is basically that; it is you listening to yourself. Going to therapy is somebody assisting you with listening to yourself. But this knowledge has always been there. 

So, for me, creating knowledge means  an opportunity for us to legitimise sources of knowledge of our people, creating new ways of thinking about knowledge, about psychology, about the human condition, about being. We should also understand that we mingle now with different people from different backgrounds, and the world is evolving and expanding with new forms of thinking. How do we borrow from what we have to make sense of where we are now, so that we can envision and imagine better futures, or more healed futures? 

So, your main practice is in social psychology and not clinical. What was the root of this choice? Is it all of these things that you're saying?

Yes, yes. So social psychology is not pathologising and diagnosing. It just wants to ask: what is happening in society? Where does that come from? It doesn't individualise issues. Clinical psychology individualises issues because it says, “Lorato, you have schizophrenia.” Social psychology says, “Okay, why are we seeing a lot of cases of violence in our society? What are the patterns?” 

And what do you see as the connection between your practice in social psychology and your feminism? How do you connect the two, but also how do you bring your African intersectional feminism into your professional work as a social psychologist? 

Oh, they definitely link. And I think when I tell people that I feel happy about my choice of career, it is because it's like a pot where things are all in and they complement each other in that sense. Like I say, it’s because patriarchy is a system that was causing those internal and external frictions. Then social psychology says, “Patriarchy is causing that because…” and then attached meaning and answers to the questioning. And because I have meaning and the words, when I get to the activism space, I am able to articulate better, to teach better, to learn better. But I’m also able to take what I get from the activism space to feed the knowledge production on the other side. So, they kind of assist each other with making sense of the world, and the issues I am interested in.

Earlier, you mentioned the issue of the valuation of African traditional knowledge, legitimising it and using it to build the future that we deserve. What does that future look like for you?

It looks like freedom, to put it very simply. Freedom of being, freedom of expression and freedom in knowing that we don't even need to validate the information and the knowledge that we have. I have problems with the term “indigenous knowledge”. I don't like it because why are we naming it indigenous? The fact that it is called indigenous means that there’s something that is not indigenous, and that knowledge is the knowledge that is thrust into the public discourse. I think our African knowledge is just that: knowledge. 

You think there is first choice knowledge, and then you have a second class and so on…

Exactly! And that’s why you had to name it that. If you saw it as just knowledge, then there's freedom in that because I don't have to legitimise it. So, freedom for me is being. And what does being look like? You don't need to explain your choices. You are just being the fullest, highest expression of yourself, considering that you're not harming anyone and you are living life in this interconnected ecosystem, with other people and with the environment. I think that's what the future looks like for me. The freedom to be.

Lorato shares more on this in the next part of our conversation, where we also get into her experiences organising within feminist movements and spaces. Click here to read this third part. 

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We’d love to hear your thoughts on this first part. Let us know in the comments below, or let’s chat on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram @EyalaBlog.

“I really don't like patriarchy as a system” - Lorato Palesa Modongo (Botswana) 1\5

Lorato Palesa Modongo is an African feminist from Botswana.  She is a Psychologist, with interests, skills, knowledge and over 7 years’ experience in Social Psychology, academia, qualitative research on gendered violence, decolonialism and African feminisms. 

In our series of conversations exploring intergenerational African feminist movement building, Jama Jack interviewed Lorato to learn about her feminist journey from an early age of consciousness and resistance to her current involvement and engagement in feminist movements at various levels. We also learn about her educational background and how it connects with her work as a feminist (Part 2); her thoughts and experiences being a part of feminist movements and spaces (Part 3); her observations on the tensions that sometimes hinder intergenerational African feminist movement building, as well as possible solutions to bridge the gap (Part 4); and finally, personal and collective healing to support our movements, Lorato’s current work with the African Union and her journey towards self-reconciliation to unearth her vision of herself (Part 5). 

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Hello Lorato! Thank you so much for joining me today. We are really glad that we can get to speak to you and learn more about you, your journey, your feminist work, and a lot more. How do you like to introduce yourself?

I was having a conversation with a friend, and I was saying that I’ve realised that the way I introduce myself - not evolves - but changes depending on where I am. So back in the day I used to describe myself as a young Motswana girl. Then I moved to South Africa for my post-graduate and because of what I was confronted with at the time, I found that how I introduce myself changed to: “I am a young Black woman”. I knew I was a woman; I knew I was an African and I didn’t find a need to announce that I was Black. But now that I was in South Africa, I found myself needing to highlight the Blackness into my identity. 

With time I found that I needed to then move to not saying I’m just a Black woman, but I’m a Black feminist. In the journey, I found that I also had to state what that feminism looks like which, for me, was an African intersectional feminist. 

So, where I’m at currently, I really like introducing myself as: I’m Lorato. I’m from Botswana, firstly. I’m a young African Black woman, and I believe in the African intersectional feminist ideology; it anchors me, amongst other layered anchors. I’m also a psychologist researcher, and I specialise in Social Psychology. I do development work, community building in the different communities I find myself in at national, continental and international levels.

And when you say you’re rooted in African intersectional feminism, what does that mean? 

It means that I recognise that I am African. I was born here, my roots are in Africa. The intersectional part is understanding how other –isms are linked and multi-layered. When I recognise the oppressions against my being, I also have to recognise the ways in which I am privileged and how I can use that privilege in other spaces. I think that’s important. 

As much as I understand sexism or racism, I also understand classism and the fact that for me, having three university degrees, being able to articulate myself in English, having gotten those qualifications in colonial institutions, has the  power to help me enter certain spaces that others are not privileged to enter. And this is not because I’m necessarily the best person. So, I recognise and acknowledge that. At the same time, I acknowledge that even if I'm in those places I'll always be viewed as Black, as young, as a woman, as being African or from the “global south”. But the feminist part of it is at the core of it. I just really don't like patriarchy as a system.  I don't know if we will ever get to a point where we completely eliminate it.

Have you been able to identify the source of that hate for patriarchy? Is it something in particular that happened at a point in your life?

Definitely. I vividly remember, I was 8 years old back in my village. I grew up in an extended family and I was raised by my grandparents. My uncles - my dad's little brothers - were almost my age, or slightly older than me. There were the two of them and me… so, three kids. My grandmother did pretty much everything in the house. She cooked, she cleaned, and she took care of us. And in my mind, I thought she was doing all those things because she was older. 

One time they left us by ourselves, and they went for the weekend, so we did what kids do. My uncles cooked, we didn't do the dishes, and we messed up the house. When they came back the conversation was, “Why is my kitchen so dirty? Why is the sink full of dishes and there is a girl at home?” And I was eight years old. I paused and said “Ah, but they are older than me. They’re supposed to be cleaning.” In my mind, that's how things went. Adults had to do adult things and I was a child. I didn't see my uncles - I would call them my brothers - as men. I saw them as just people, and older. So, I said no, and I started protesting… [Laughs] 

“My grandmother did everything in the house. I thought she was doing all those things because she was older. ”

That was the beginning. That's when I started observing that my grandmother is not doing these things because she's older, because my grandfather is not doing them, right? I just started always protesting at home to a point where they just started calling me Emang Basadi.  The feminist movement in Botswana was gaining momentum and the civil society organisation that was really driving the wave was called Emang Basadi, which means “Women, stand up”. 

And when they called you that, did you also internalise it and say “yes, this is who I am”? Or did it create a conflict?

I was like “Yes, women must stand up. What is this?” I even started teaching my younger cousins. So, if I saw one of them who’s a girl cooking, I'm like okay, that's good. But if I see her doing the dishes after cooking, and the boy is not, I tell her to stop.

I know for a lot of us, we started feministing even before we had the language of feminism that we now use, with the awareness that we now have. Do you remember when you first started calling yourself a feminist? 

I remember it, yes. It was around 2010/11, but I was tip-toeing around it and walking on eggshells when using the word. And this was in Botswana. I had been recruited into a research project by one of my lecturers in the Department of Sociology. There was a research project by the Africa Gender Institute, which is based in the University of Cape Town and they were doing this multi-institution action-based research on gender, politics, and sexuality in the lives of young women between the ages of 16 and 25 in five SADC Universities. The University of Botswana was selected as one of them, and I was in the team doing the action-based research. I was still a student there. We were just describing our stories, our lives and what we envisioned, until I stumbled upon this word that was describing the work that we were doing, but I had never heard of before. Also, social media wasn't big then. 

Yeah. It was still in the baby stages compared to what we see now, at least in terms of using it as a tool for movement-building.

Right! And the internet itself wasn’t big then. I remember I didn't even have a computer. We used to go to the University library to use the computers there. I tried to search for that word and all the things I saw were bad things. The ownership and the claiming of the word was just... It was a contested space. To put it very bluntly, it was embarrassing to claim that word, because then you were saying that you are this angry person. For context, Botswana is described as one of the most peaceful countries in Africa because of the peace and the democracy. And the activism movement isn't that big. It then becomes as if you go out of your way to look for something to fight about. So, I didn't use the word. I was aware of it, but I deliberately didn't use it. 

Until I went to South Africa… and because I was going to do my post-grad in psychology, and I had an interest in social psychology, I had to engage more with thought around that. And then I saw the word and because a lot of people were using it and there were a lot of people doing the work that I loved, I was like, “oh, it's not really a biggie.” So, I started reading more about it, using it more, feeling more confident, more independent and affirmed, not just by my peers, but also by people like my supervisor, for example. When he would introduce me, he would say, “she's doing amazing feminist work.” And people will be like, “Oh, we want you on this project.” So, I was like, “Oh, there's no shame?” So, I think the South African space affirmed it, but I learned about it in Botswana in 2010. 

You talk about doing the research and everything you saw was bad. What was this bad? What did it look like? 

It was the media representation. It was the way people talked about it, the nuances around how it was positioned in day-to-day conversations. But it was also tapping into the issue of sexuality as well. And at that time, I wasn't ready to have conversations around sexuality. And I think the world I was living in wasn't even having those conversations, because we didn't even have the words to describe sexuality. For example, when people said, “Oh, they are lesbians”, it was an insult at that time. So that was one of the many contestations around it. But also… I think the immediate rejection of the word. There was no space to even say, “no, what we mean is…”. It was immediately rejected. 

Was this because of the culture in Botswana? What really was the source of that rejection where there wasn't even space for that kind of conversation? 

Culture first and foremost. But I also think the packaging of feminism perhaps and the lack of information, like I said. The women's rights movement blew up in terms of visibility in the advent of social media. We have to acknowledge the power of social media. That you get to see in real time, the happening of conversations. And you have better access. But back then you had to wait maybe for a publication either on print media or books. And the energy and appetite that people put in to seek knowledge is not necessarily as immediate as we see it now, on social media. I literally have to swipe my phone, and I'll be confronted with the information. So, I also think the lack of information and knowledge and understanding is what caused the resistance. 

In the second part of our conversation with Lorato, she tells us about the path that led her to social psychology and how she engages at the intersection of this field and her feminist actions. Click here to read Part 2. 

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“You have to make sure that your own merits prevail over other people’s opinion” - Salamatou Traoré (Niger) - 4/4

In this fourth and last part of our discussion with Mrs. SalamatouTraoré, she reflects on feminism several years after she participated in the 1995 Beijing Conference. Previously, we have learnt about her life (Part 1), her work in public health (Part 2), the work being done at her Dimol Centre (Part 3).

Thank you for telling us about the DIMOL Centre, your NGO. Now, let’s talk about you. When we hear about Nigerien women, they’re often described as submissive, silent, weak…You are the complete opposite. When we first meet you, it’s obvious that you do not mince words and speak your mind. 

I do not! (She laughs)

However, I can imagine that it’s not always easy to constantly stand out. How do you feel about this?

Everything starts with my family. I’ve always had an open dialogue with my family when raising my children and even my grandchildren now. You must be honest, don’t beat around the bush. Nowadays, you can’t raise a child by hiding things from them. I openly talk about taboo issues within the family.

Could you give me an example?

Of course. One of my sons, I can’t remember how old he was, was eating when he asked my sister a question. He said: “Auntie, how do you make a person?” And my sister replied: “You take some sand; you add some blood, and you mix it.” But I said: “This is not how. Tell him the truth. It’s a mom and dad who make the baby. This is how you make a person. You see, I’m your mommy and this is your daddy, and we brought you to this world. I’ll tell you the rest later.” He’s a doctor so now he understands. (She laughs)

How does that work outside of the family circle? 

Even within the family circle, it is not always that easy. Let me give you an example. My son became involved in politics but he did not want me to know because he didn’t want me to share my opinion on the matter. As a result, when you’re the one in your family who sees things clearly, sometimes others don’t support you. “What she says is true, but it’s shocking.” “Be careful, he’s in politics”.

That’s how they deal with me. That’s what I’m told; that I’m not diplomatic. I speak my mind and sometimes it’s shocking. Maybe some things, when you say them openly, have to remain unsaid, or you have to find words that are easier to hear. Some people have to think about their sentences before they say them; I speak spontaneously.

Is there a woman in your life that inspired you to live the way you do? 

My mom. She’s very lively. She’s a great woman. She raised and defended many children, including some who weren’t her own. She wasn’t in the kitchen. No. And when she would say something, my dad would do it. She never broke down, even for the education of the children. At home, my mom was in charge and she never had any problems.

Some people have to think about their sentences before they say them; I speak spontaneously.

When you think about it, what did you learn from your mother that allows you to carry this commitment to this day? 

Her patience. She inherited it from her mother, my grandmother. We call her Aya. She was purely from the rural world and she was nicknamed "mouregn", which means "to ignore, you have to trivialise" in a way. That's what it means in our language. When, for example, you come to confide in her, she will always tell you: “be patient. You need to be patient”. She always says that. When you come to her with a material issue or needs, even if she doesn't have any, she says: "Go ahead, I'll send you this.” One day, my dad wanted to take her back to Niamey. She said, "No. The people who are there are my children too, how can I abandon them? They'll say I put my own family ahead of the others." That's something she did that I admired.

So, she was truly committed to the community. 

Oh my! She did more than that! All the children in her house are her grandchildren; they’re all her own. One day, I came and I oversaw the finances. So every three or four months, we had to go and get the food. I went to find her and I said: "Aya, can you give each child back to their parents? You see, I have no more funds for these children and none of the parents are meeting their needs." She smiled and said nothing to me. I continued to do what I could. 

Much later, when I had grandchildren of my own, I went back to her about it. I said, "I'm here because I owe you an apology. One day I asked you to send all those children away, that everyone should just take responsibility. I didn't know that having a grandson was that nice." She laughed and said, "You get it now." (She laughs) The old ladies, they're very lively.

Speaking of inspiration, you are from the generation of feminists who attended the fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, in 1995. Was that important to you? 

Yes, I went to Beijing. I wanted to go but it was difficult to find the funds to go there. I decided to go to the conference even if it meant I had to pay for it myself. I first went from Niamey to Addis, then another Guinean woman helped me and gave me an extra ticket to go from Addis to Beijing. I arrived in Beijing, and I was reimbursed after I came back. I truly wanted to be there.

Beijing happened over 25 years ago. In your opinion, how has the condition of Nigerien women evolved in this period?

There’s been a change in the rural world. We have homes and women’s centres. Some women have farms and vegetable gardens. Women's leadership in rural areas has also progressed. I know that I have seen cases of women who have defended themselves to safeguard their land concerning inheritance. So there has been some progress on the mentality level. There is more openness. There has also been a strong evolution when it comes to loans in villages. The State has taken charge of grain mills to relieve these women of the hardship they face. There has also been a change in the schooling of young girls. Now in urban areas, girls have access to higher education.

Niger is described as a country where it’s difficult to be a vector of change because there’s a certain burden and some issues are taboos. What has evolved well and what has not?

Even though it is said that Niger is last...in my opinion, no. I would say that it is in terms of the poverty index that we can say that, but if we go deeper, we will still find indicators that allow us to say that Niger has evolved. We have evolved. Even if we say that Niger is last in terms of politics and development, there are still development indexes that put us in a position of affluence. We also have, still in urban areas, women who stay in the background because there are men who put pressure on them. Even in rural areas, women do not have access to all the information or the right to go to health facilities if they are not authorised. This is a barrier to development.

When our generation thinks about Beijing, we are inspired and very grateful. You paved a part of the path on which we’re walking today. However, we realise that our elders don’t see themselves as feminists… What’s your relationship with this word? Do you consider yourself a feminist? 

Yes and no, because it is the others who must evaluate my actions and decide if I am feminist or not. For me, being a feminist means defending women's rights, their freedom, and everything that is in favour of their promotion. From this point of view, I am a feminist.

I think that feminism, beyond our organisational commitments, is also something that we must embody in our daily lives, especially in the way we manage our relationships with our loved ones. How do you manage to do it?

How to embody it? Sometimes you must ignore the observations of others. You must make your own merits override the opinions of others. 

It seems that people refuse to understand. It's not that they don't understand; they refuse to accept this change. That's what's shocking. Men are aware of women’s rights but sometimes choose to hinder the proper enjoyment of these rights. Yet, if they accepted the change, who would benefit? Not just the woman; it would be a positive result for the future development of their offspring.

So, we must ignore everything that people think. If you have to keep fighting, defending, reprimanding, guiding, advising and everything, and you’re talking to someone who is not on the same page as you…it is disheartening.

Men are aware of women’s rights but sometimes choose to hinder the proper enjoyment of these rights.

You’re from the Beijing generation. When you think about the Beijing+25 generation, what piece of advice would you give them?

Think more about the collective and less about the individual. I find that now, this rising generation here in Niger is a generation that fights for individual interests. We feel that the struggle is individual, not collective. In an NGO, we often see a person say, "I’m the one who did it" instead of "it was the organisation that did it". That's not good. There is no collaboration.

But there are new up-and-coming organisations that I like. The previous generation had an easier time working with technical and financial partners than today. Funding is scarce, you have more difficulties, it is not the same thing. Nevertheless, with the little funding you have, you will have to coordinate with the so-called Beijing generation.

My last question is one that I ask all my guests: is there a sentence, a quote, or a feminist motto that you apply to your life? 

No woman should give her life by giving life. This is my motto. Today many women in Niger give their lives. But I sincerely want the well-being of women and to see women always smiling.

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Mrs. Traoré. It was truly an amazing conversation. 

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Click here to learn more about the work of the DIMOL Centre and how you can support them

“They come in as victims and leave as leaders” - Salamatou Traoré (Niger) - 3/4

Our conversation with Mrs Salamatou Traoré continues and gets even more interesting with each new part. We have discussed what inspired her choice to build a career in healthcare (Part 1),and her experience in public health (Part 2)

You just told me that you founded your NGO. Let’s start with its name, “DIMOL”. What does it mean? 

“DIMOL” means “dignity” in Fulani. I founded the DIMOL Centre because of the fistula issue that is still ongoing.

Please tell me more about the DIMOL Centre and your work there with women diagnosed with obstetric fistula? 

The women we accommodate come to the Centre in bad shape because of fistula. First, their wrappers are always wet with urine. They are stressed and embarrassed. As soon as they arrive, they’re given two pairs of underpants and two bars of soap per week. They get to clean themselves. When we see the women again the next day, there’s neither the smell nor the stress. We don’t see them constantly touching their clothes to make sure they’re not wet. 

Then, the Centre’s midwife does the examination and determines if a woman has a case of fistula or not. The registration period is important for collecting quantitative data. If the patient does indeed have a fistula, the midwife refers her to the surgery center for another examination and a follow-up on her case, to know if it requires surgery or checkups.

While the woman is being observed and even during her recovery after the operation, she stays with us at the Centre. This waiting period is used to help the woman understand the causes and consequences of her illness. We teach her environmental hygiene, the importance of not defecating out in the open, the importance of going to school, and the use of contraceptives. All of this is preventive work, to avoid future infections.

Most importantly, we explain to the women the reasons that brought them here. Now, from that moment on, patients understand better that it is not a curse. 

Oh I see, some of them think that it’s a curse?

Yes indeed. Many think that they’ve been cursed. At DIMOL, they learn that the fistula is due to delayed treatment of their health condition: not going to prenatal examination, not giving birth in sanitary health facilities. So, once they understand, it becomes a repetitive process. We repeat the same topics each week:  environmental hygiene, sanitation, education for girls, family planning, and so on. We spend all our time explaining to them but when they become aware of what has happened and are more receptive, we take action.

And what is the “action” phase?

The women usually spend between three and six months with us. They have their first surgery after three months. Then, after the surgery, we give them appointments and they go back and forth between the DIMOL Centre and the hospital until they fully recover. Some of them have had up to five surgeries. 

Meanwhile, at DIMOL, they acquire skills in sewing, embroidery, basketry, knitting, weaving…whatever they can learn. The patient chooses what she wants to learn. Once she is healed, we reinforce the training on the skill chosen by the patient. If she has chosen sewing, we focus on that. If we see that she has not mastered cutting, or if she has not mastered certain patterns, we strengthen the training.

At DIMOL, the women acquire skills in sewing, embroidery, basketry, knitting, weaving…whatever they can learn.

And she goes back home with the possibility of teaching a skill? That’s amazing!

Once she is ready to return to the village, she is given the task of teaching her fellow women in the village the skill she learned at the DIMOL Centre. She will also conduct awareness-raising activities for her colleagues, guiding women to health services if they have problems. She can look for cases of fistula in the village, by word of mouth, to tell them that fistula is curable. 

She is given money to start cultivating the skill in her home. She can buy the materials she needs for the skill as well as for her fistula awareness sessions: a bench, a table, everything she needs. It helps people take what she is doing seriously. 

By word of mouth, former patients raise awareness. They also refer or accompany women who need access to fistula care. They become ambassadors for the DIMOL Centre, and they sometimes bring in new patients. There are even former patients who have become health care workers. 

And the cycle goes on. Actually, it’s a virtuous one. Is there a woman whose journey made a lasting impression on you? I’m sure there are many.

We have Oumou, who has already brought us 14 new patients. She just brought two new women yesterday. Oumou spends all her time on market days raising awareness and asking questions: "Do you have cases of fistula in your home? Women who smell of urine? If you do, I have someone who treats it for free”. And she gets the message across. 

During her time here, Oumou chose to learn sewing. She received reintegration funds, and a machine. She taught her husband how to sew, and he taught others as well. 

What’s interesting about the DIMOL Centre’s model is that women come in almost as victims, and they leave as game-changers. They are empowered personally but also make a change in the community. It’s very transformative. 

Patients enter the DIMOL Centre as victims and leave as leaders. Sometimes their families don’t even recognise them anymore because they have changed so much. When a patient returns to the village, she is healed, clean, and well-dressed, with knowledge that others do not have, and with funds and materials or livestock that others do not have.

She is accompanied by members of the DIMOL Center who explain that she is cured and that they must accept her and stop stigmatising her. They explain in front of everyone that the money and materials she has are for cultivating her skill, and to finance future cesarean sections or other operations, so they should not be taken from her.

And the women usually do not face hardship when they go back because you provide guidance? You said that you talked to the community, to leaders and the families.

Yes, raising awareness first starts with the family. The health agent comes with us to the authorities to tell them that the NGO is going to intervene in a certain way and that’s what is bringing us there. For patients who have been cured of obstetric fistula, the nurse accompanies us to the village. Sometimes the nurses discover the localities that they are used to writing down as "common" when they have never been in the field. And when they realise how far away these women are, how far they must travel, they now take the cases of women who come from these villages seriously. Once they arrive in the village, the women share their experiences. But the health worker also must speak. He also makes his plea. He says that he expects the people of these villages or this community to come quickly for care so that they can heal quickly rather than being evacuated because it is expensive. 

When it comes to the families, we also speak to the men. We tell them that fistula is not easily curable. It requires a lot of money, and it stigmatises and traumatises the girls. So, if they avoid child marriage and give children the chance to go to school…if they avoid girls having to wait before going for care and allow them to go for consultations and assisted deliveries instead, they will not have any more cases of fistula. 

And finally, we make the village chiefs aware of their responsibilities as well, telling them: “if there is a case of fistula in this village, you are responsible because you have been warned. You will have asked for it because we have warned you. And it works. As soon as a woman is sick, they say: go quickly to the dispensary and another woman must accompany you. So, they have all the information at hand, and they respect it.

If they avoid girls having to wait before going for care, and allow them to go for consultations and assisted deliveries instead, they will not have any more cases of fistula. 

It’s great to see success in that way.  You still face some challenges, I suppose. What’s the biggest one?

The great difficulty is the lack of understanding of others about fistula. Fistula is found in remote or isolated areas. If you don't go there, they don't listen to you and they don't take the fight seriously. To fight fistula, people only talk about operations, over and over. I say it is not operations that will eradicate fistula. Fistula can only be eradicated through prevention. First, child marriage must be banned and access to basic social services must be promoted. Second, parents must understand the risks of not providing prenatal care and assisted childbirth.

The DIMOL Centre can accommodate about 50 women, but fistula affects thousands of women in Niger. What do you need to support more women?  

We need more space. We need to be able to accommodate more women, organise the treatment of cases better and ensure a better follow-up. 

We also need more space for the training we do in sewing, basketry, weaving, knitting, etc. This training is not only for fistula victims. We have women from various women’s groups who come to acquire skills to fight against poverty. We think that fistula is also a poverty issue. To avoid complications for these women, if they can access training for financial empowerment, they can also cure their health issues. And it works, because they come for empowerment, they can listen to the conversations, and it strengthens the women. We need the space to do all that.

We need more resources to create a centre where we can offer training for women, for NGOs or organisations, community decision-makers and others… We have a lot to share… but where? 

We’d also like to work beyond the fistula issue. We want to help women who have experienced gender-based violence. We want to support more women's economic empowerment. To increase our impact, we need more space and more resources.

Despite the challenges, your pride and joy are visible. When we arrived at the Centre earlier, I saw how your face lit up. How do you feel each time you walk in here? 

Yes, when I visit and I see a healthy and clean environment, when I see that the women are all clean, when I see the systems that I have organised in place, it gives me pride. It gives me even more pride since I say to myself that at least some of them listen to what they are told. They are present. This is what we wanted for the women that are there and need us. 

It is also a responsibility. Everything you do, everything they hear, they take at face value. And so, we avoid saying things that are not feasible.

Oh, you avoid making promises you can’t keep? 

Yes. And when we translate what visitors say, we translate the exact words the person said. Because they memorise everything. They don't write but they record everything we say. They call us back afterward. That makes me feel better. For me, it's an honour to see that women are expecting us to help them.

Has the prevalence of fistula changed in Niger over the course of your career? What changes have you observed? 

There are fewer fistulas, and the cases are less severe today. Before, we had multiple fistulas. Now the type of fistula is less serious, it is the bladder fistula. Before, we had many cases of recto-vaginal fistula. There were many deaths in Niger. The latest statistics are not yet available, but there has been a decrease in deaths. It is already something to see that even if a fistula is present, at least there is a reduction in maternal mortality and mortality following childbirth. 

One of our great successes is that thanks to DIMOL's strong advocacy, today, fistula is no longer a secret to anyone. First, there is a network that is created, the Fistula Eradication Network or REF. In the mother-child centres throughout Niger, the topic of fistula is discussed. This is a result for us, fistula has been identified as a public health problem, which is an honour for us. 

And it is not only in Niger. I remember in 1998 or 1999, when I spoke about fistula at a conference, there was one country whose representative said: “Fistula does not exist in my country”. He didn't even know what fistula was. But today that country is receiving hundreds of millions to fight against fistula. In nearby Burkina, they took the example of everything I said. It's like a consultation. There is even a lady who has created a foundation on fistula. And when she saw me, she said: “Mrs. Traoré, I respect you because if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have had my ideas for creating the Foundation in Burkina”. The foundation is called the RAMA Foundation. I am very happy about that. Moreover, we did our workshop on the fight against fistula with a professor from Nigeria, and they founded a center for fistula based on the Dimol model.

In part four, we’ll talk about the women who inspire her and the changes she sees in regards to women, as a participant of the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing and a decades-long advocate against the stigma around fistula. Read it here.

Join the conversation!

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this first part. Let us know in the comments below, or let’s chat on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram @EyalaBlog.

Click here to learn more about the work of the DIMOL Centre and how you can support them

“I know that with my hands and my head, I can provide for myself” - Salamatou Traoré (Niger) - 2/4

We are in conversation with Mrs Salamatou Traoré from Niger. In the first part of our conversation, we talked about what inspired her choice to build a career in healthcare. In this second part, we continue our discussion with a focus on her public health career.

You told me how you decided to start a career in public health. Could you tell me about some of the milestones in your career? 

In 1983, I worked in a renowned public maternity ward as a supervisor. There wasn’t enough space for all the patients suffering from fistula. Only 9 beds were available, while there were more than 20 women with fistula. We saved the beds for serious or urgent cases, but all the other women had to be outside under the sheds. 

When I was promoted to the position of director at another maternity facility in the Lamor Dieng district, I had almost 32 empty beds, because they were all saved for deliveries, and there was rarely more than one delivery per day. One day, I asked my boss who was also my professor, a Frenchman named Dr. Bianchi, if I could transfer the women from the other maternity ward. In this facility, they were taken care of completely. From 1983 to 1988, they stayed with me in Lamor Dieng. We took care of them. They had free food and access to cleaning products such as soap, thanks to the maternity allocations and the donations we sometimes received. We would cure infections and prepare them for surgery, and before they were discharged, we made them undergo physical examinations to avoid having them go back home with infections without even knowing.

It was really good, and I educated these patients. During their stay, we taught them hygiene rules, the causes and consequences of what they had experienced, and how to be safe after they returned home. We also did their pre-operative check-up.

This is amazing.

But it didn't last. When I was appointed director of the referral maternity hospital five years later, they got kicked out of the maternity hospital in Lamor Dieng and had to come back to the Central Hospital, under the sheds.

That’s still a great success, despite the hardship! Tell me about one of the most difficult decisions you had to make in your career in public healthcare?

It was in 1991 when I worked as the director of the Issaka Gazobi Maternity Hospital also known as the Central. I made the decision to leave the board. I was disappointed by my staff who didn’t like to work. In my former position in Lamor Dieng, I managed to convince the whole staff of the importance of cleanliness. As soon as I arrived, I would start by checking the cleanliness of the toilets before even going to my office. The hospital was as clean as a private clinic.

When I arrived at the Central Hospital, I did my best to train the public service staff, but I didn’t succeed. On Fridays, when we had to clean the maternity ward thoroughly, everyone would run away making excuses: “My husband is sick”; “My child has a doctor’s appointment”…I remember one Friday when there was hardly anyone to clean, so I took out my cleaning products (which I sometimes bought with my own money) and cleaned the ward myself, with three staff members. We disinfected everything. 

I returned to the office with my clothes all wet. I sat down with my head in my hands. I said to myself: “What I am doing in this department is not the work of a midwife; it is not the kind of work I should have at this level. I can do more than just be mean to these people”. So, I took a sheet of paper. I put in a request for voluntary departure, and I went to my professor and said, “Dr. Bianchi, I'm going to leave Central”. He listened to me and then he burst out laughing. He told me, “I knew you were wasting your time”. It was an encouragement.

Did you have any doubts about your decision at all? 

When you’re looking for a solution, you don’t know what is fair and what isn’t. As soon as you find a solution, right or wrong, you feel comfortable. 

People were shocked, whether it was my coworkers or the Ministry’s staff after they received my letter. They kept asking, “A director who resigns? How is that possible? Why are you leaving?” I told them, “I don’t have anything more than anyone else; I know I’m serving my country, but I can only go so far.” The whole situation disgusted me because I was being mean to everybody. So, I quit and left.

You had no fears for the future? 

I said to myself “I’ll start a private clinic and see what I can do.” If it didn’t work out, as a midwife I could still work in other clinics. It’s something I was already doing from time to time to help them with deliveries and all that. I know that with my hands and my head, I can provide for myself. I was at peace. I know I disappointed some people who thought I cared about this maternity ward because it was the referral maternity hospital. But then they realised that I came and did more. 

Was there a time when you felt that other people truly recognised your contributions? 

Before I resigned, I met Mrs. Aïssata Moumouni, the first woman to be a member of the Nigerien government. We were at the Safe Motherhood Conference in Niger and at the time, she was State Secretary for Public Health and Social Affairs, responsible for the status of women. She knew who I was because of the changes I made in the maternity ward. For instance, I helped reduce the safety hazards due to the presence of street vendors at the gate. She also knew who I was because of an article I wrote on women’s health in the newspaper Femme Action et Développement. 

She thought I was a very dynamic woman and decided to send me to a regional conference on female genital mutilation, which took place in Mali in 1988. At that time, all the countries in the region had set up a committee on female genital mutilation except Niger. She thought I could do it. 

That's how CONIPRAT [Comité Nigérien sur les Pratiques Traditionnelles ayant effet sur la Santé des Femmes et des Enfants - Nigerien Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children] was created in 1989. After the conference in Mali, I collected all the information I could find. I compiled everything and it worked. I was the secretary-general and another of my former instructors was the President. I worked there until 1996. In 1998, I started a private, personal clinic, DIMOL, and off it went.

Mrs Traoré founded the DIMOL Centre to support women suffering from obstetric fistula. We’ll talk more about the Centre in the third part of our conversation. Click here to read it.

Join the conversation!

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this first part. Let us know in the comments below, or let’s chat on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram @EyalaBlog.

"My father raised me like a boy" - Salamatou Traoré (Niger) - 1/4

During a trip to Niamey in August 2019, Françoise was able to visit Mrs. Salamatou Traoré and her NGO, Dimol. In this interview, Mrs. Traoré talks about her life, her public health career (Part 2), her mission to help women suffering from obstetric fistula to transform their communities (Part 3), and her ideas on feminism (Part 4).

Hello Mrs. Traoré and thank you for taking part in this Eyala interview. Could you briefly introduce yourself?

My name is Salamatou Traoré. I’m a trained nurse and midwife. I’m Nigerien and am very committed to defending women’s rights: that’s what defines me. I do not like it when a woman is underestimated, or her rights are violated. I really want the well-being of women.

Why did you want to become a nurse and a midwife? When did healthcare begin to be an important aspect of your life? 

I was someone who knew about every health issue early on. My dad was in the military and then was a nurse in civilian life. He went to every region. He served in Niger and in Burkina Faso. I would often see him go into the wilderness, on his horse, to do medical evacuations with his rifle on his shoulder. If he came back with game, I knew that his mission was successful, because he had time to hunt on his way back. If his shoulder bag was empty, I would know that the patient had died.

When I told him that, he noticed that I was very clever and that I understood him perfectly. We spent a lot of time together. My dad raised me like a boy. I was the one who helped him do work in the backyard or to keep the neighbourhood clean. I would push my wheelbarrow and brooms: I swept, and he picked things up. I would go on the roof to do renovations. I was like a little boy next to him, while all the boys in the house were sleeping. I was truly free, unlike all the other girls. It’s only afterwards that I realised how different my father was in his relationship with children. He protected all the girls in the family from female genital mutilation. In my family, all the girls were successful.

So, you chose to become a nurse to honour your father? 

Yes. When I found out I passed the nursing exam, he told me: “Salamata, I must tell you something. If money is what you’re after, don’t work in health care, because that’s not where you’ll find it. But if you’re seeking gratitude and blessings from your patients, do it.” I told him: “I want to be like you, Dad.”

Something else convinced me to work in healthcare. One day, when I was 13, I went to the National Hospital to take food to my older sister who was on-call in the maternity ward. When I got there, I saw a girl in the corridor who had a hard time walking. She had a tube in her hand. She was walking with the help of a stick, and her mother was there to help her. I noticed that she was moving very slowly, and that water was oozing out as she passed. She was crying and shaking, and I could feel that she was in tremendous pain. When my older sister arrived, I asked her what was wrong with the girl. She explained to me: “This isn’t a girl but a new mother. She has just given birth but now she has a fistula so she can’t retain her urine anymore. On top of that, her baby passed away.”

I was shocked to see a skinny little girl, younger than me, who had already been married and had given birth to a dead child, and was now sick. I, the daughter of a public servant, was very strong and well-fed. But she, who was from the “bush”, was suffering and couldn’t hold her urine. I said to myself that there was a problem here.

That guided me. Once I arrived home, I talked to my dad about it, and I asked him a lot of questions. I learned that when childbirth is difficult, both the mother and the child could die. He told me: “This young girl is a survivor.” I kept that in mind, and I said, “I’ll work in health care”. In total, I’ve worked in the health sector for 25 years: 8 years as a nurse, and then as a midwife the rest of the time. 

In the second part of our conversation, we’ll discuss her career in public health. Click here to read it.

Read more about obstetric fistula here: https://www.unfpa.org/obstetric-fistula 

Join the conversation!

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this first part. Let us know in the comments below, or let’s chat on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram @EyalaBlog.

“You need the power of a support system that will protect you. ” : Aya Chebbi (Africa -Tunisia) – 3/3

This is the final part of my conversation with Aya Chebbi, and I must say I have felt very intrigued by Aya’s story. We have spoken about her pan-african identity and how it influences her work (Part 1); her experiences during the Tunisian revolution and her work as the AU Youth Envoy (Part 2). 

In this final part, we discuss feminism, feminist organising and navigating patriarchal spaces.

When you spoke at the W7 event in Paris, the first thing that you did was to introduce yourself as a feminist. What does that mean when you say you're a feminist?

Being a Pan-Africanist equals being feminist, I don't separate both, and I always say there is no Pan-Africanism without feminism. Pan-Africanism would not have existed if not for the feminist women who drove liberation movements. If women didn't sacrifice, if they weren't behind the scenes of the liberation struggle, there wouldn't be a Pan-African agenda. In my mind, they're so interlinked, and for me, when I say Pan-African, it includes the feminist lens. Feminism for me is being self-liberated as a woman. It's not about any woman coming to you and saying, “You have the right, this person cannot beat you because of this.” If you are not liberated and you cannot be you in every single space, for me, you can't come and lecture me about feminism. 

What would you say was the defining moment in this journey in your life? It doesn't have to be the moment when you said, “Oh, I'm a feminist” but it is a moment that you think is a defining moment in that journey, that you have had as a feminist so far. Either a moment of transformation or a moment of realization.

I think there are so many moments but when I started traveling and focusing on youth, being part of women circles was so eye opening because I was also in a bubble where the definitions of feminism, sisterhood, and womanhood can be limiting. Coming into these other spaces, I realized there’s so much more and that made me feel I'm a part of a bigger movement. I'm a part of - at the time I didn't even realize this -  the sisterhood or rather a community of women who are fighting for their rights and believe in it and make you believe that we can do it. I think so many conversations with women inspired me. Also, I grew up as an only child and all my life I was surrounded by men, not women. It had always been portrayed to me that there is jealousy between women, and I felt betrayed by my women friends and female friends.

“When I first got support from a woman, it was so defining for me.”

It completely changed my idea of what a community of womanhood is about, it became about support because you are a female and because I hear your pain. That’s also when I realized that in my life, I need a support system. I need women to be in my life. I think that also defines my feminism, because when you fight for feminism, at the end of the day you're like an amateur in masculine spaces without really fighting with other women. It doesn’t make any sense. The global feminist movement made sense to me, because I wouldn't, before, define myself as part of global feminism, the fourth wave of feminists, because I disagree ideologically. For me, everything comes together if a woman comes and gives me a hug and in that sincere moment of sisterhood.

So, your feminist experience is coming in the moments of sharing and caring rather than the moments of big talk?

Absolutely. The Eyala Circle we had in Vancouver was so healing for me. It was so healing to be in a safe space, even when I don't share. Also, I’ve never learned how to be vulnerable, and it's so hard. It's still so hard to be in a safe space and be vulnerable and to share your own experience. But hearing others just empowers me, and you could share the pain without saying any word. That is so helpful.

But there are some spaces, and many of them you are in, that they don't just let you be a feminist. When I was living in France and I was interested in questions around being a black girl in France, about the entire racism movement, even Pan-Africanist movement and there was this refusal to integrate any issues around your specific challenges as an African woman. I can only imagine it’s the same for you even today. Is that something that you encounter or not? How does that manifest and how do you navigate that? How do you negotiate?

I think it's worse because you're young and you're female. It’s like double crime. This is something I'm still navigating because every time I think… patriarchy is so creative. Every time I think to myself, “I can manage this, I encounter this, I know how to put people into their place.” And then patriarchy comes in a different way, manifests differently.

I also had a horrible experience in France, when I delivered remarks at the Generation Equality Forum in Paris in Summer 2021. I was proudly wearing my African dress and wrap sitting on a panel with Melinda French Gates, Prime Minister Sanna Marin and minister Elisabeth Moreno. The speech was picked up by Brut and went viral and I received the most Islamophobic and misogynistic comments and direct messages. I had to disconnect from my social media for a week. 

In diplomacy and even the most educated spaces, there is always power involved which makes it more complicated. How to handle it? Honestly, it's a work in progress. I feel good in my skin when I am just me, free, bold, unapologetic and I’m trying to do more of that and fuck the patriarchy.

How do you channel that power, as a young woman, African, North African speaking for Africa? How do you navigate and negotiate those times when patriarchy comes, because it can be so devastating in the small things? 

I was talking about this yesterday, in a group with Moroccan youth. We were talking about harassment and people wanting to see me fail. A mechanism that works for me, that I started three months ago, is to write diaries and treat people as characters. Whether it's patriarchy or whether people who want to use me, manipulate me, the people who want to instrumentalize me or people who want to see me fail, I would just observe their behavior. 

I remember the first three months I would be very reactive to things and get frustrated. That doesn't work in the world of politics and diplomacy and it doesn't bring me any friends. And I think once I started writing, I started taking my time to absorb all that was coming and deal with it. And I think that helped me to manage some difficult situations. I started to smile more when others are uncomfortable with my presence or opinion, or leadership style.  

What do you think is the aspect of your personality that makes you a successful feminist activist?

I’m not sure I am a successful feminist.  Success for me is when I reach my goal and I don't feel like I accomplished my mission, so I don't feel like I'm successful. Success for me is not obvious, so, I don't know about that. I would say I’m inspiring, yes, because I see many people change things after we meet and something that really touched me, but I don't see it as success. But something in me that puts me in this space or gives me the platform comes back to my childhood. I lived like a nomad with my father and I have encountered many experiences that made me understand diversity. Even when I started traveling, meeting people who don't look like me, different in everything, ideology, experiences etc. I was prepared for it by 20 years of me moving around Tunisia and understanding our mosaic. I didn’t see it as something to navigate, but something that came naturally. 

When I started traveling and started really believing the Pan-African vision, taking it, convincing people, and recruiting people into it, people believed in me or joined me because I engage them with all the layers that they have. I did not know that here’s my power, but after a decade, seeing how the movement grew and how people really took it and self-organized, I’m proud to say that I've been part of that as a Tunisian, despite all the stereotypes about me.

“Growing up with values of how you become part of people beyond any differences and diversity is the best thing.”

What gives you the biggest sense of achievement as a woman, as a feminist?

Honestly, there are many. Some of them are very personal. But also a big policy change that I’ve been part of in Tunisia where we changed the law that used to allow rapists to marry survivors, and where we managed to push back on a law that said women are complementary to men. We had huge protests, and men were on the front line with us and those big moments of winning feel great as a feminist. However, on a daily basis, it's really whatever you can to fuck patriarchy. Other times where, as a community and as feminists, we come together and feel empowered, it also fulfils me. And it’s so beautiful.

One of the things that I’m seeing since I launched Eyala… I'm realising as I speak with people and people talk to me about their experiences, making a decision to live your life a certain way or to liberate yourself, as you said, sometimes it's a big decision, and sometimes it’s a small one. What's the biggest decision that you've had to make? What would be your advice for somebody who's on the fence and not knowing even how to go about it?

I think first to claim your right to choose, to be. I made many decisions that I feel are self-liberating starting within my family even though the consequences were difficult, especially for my parents. My extended family is very conservative, religiously. There are specific ways, cultures, values, they would not understand why I live like this or I believe this. Eventually, everyone became proud of what I stand for. They finally see me. I think the biggest decision I made was to stand up against the elders in the family and just be like, “This is who I am.” 

Let me give you some background. I was adopted by my dad's brother. My biological parents already had four kids when I was born, and my father decided to ‘gift’ me to his brother to raise as his child. We left the village when I was four years old, but we would go back every vacation. We’re very connected to the village and my grandmother. The father who raised me is a feminist even though he wouldn’t admit it. But he was empowered to be, to rebel, and regardless of our disagreements, my right of choice was guaranteed. 

The year I turned 18, things changed because I now had my own life, and my own decisions. That whole year was difficult for me. It was a defining school year with my baccalaureate, but also a year where my father went to Democratic Republic of Congo for a UN peacekeeping mission. I’m very attached to my father, my feminist and it was just my mom and she also faced so much pressure. First, after I got my period people started looking at me as a woman and not a child anymore and started to tell me not to do things. My biological parents also felt entitled. They started to say “We have a say in your life. You can't just behave like this or wear this or whatever.”  We went to the village for my sister’s wedding, and I had a public disagreement with my biological father in front of the whole conservative extended family, the village, the community. Can you imagine me, this little thing standing in front of the eldest, publicly disagreeing with him.  You know what, I’m not going to this wedding and I’m going to wear this dress.” And then my cousin was like, “If Aya is not going, I'm not going.” It was a whole fucking mess. And even the bride was waiting for me to decide what to do. 

Wow, that’s so much power! What happened next? What did you decide?

At that moment I realised what can happen when you speak up. At that moment you are that quiet girl, and you're like, “Here’s oppression coming, so what should I do?” I would have never done anything in my family if I didn't know my father is a feminist because he backs me up; he protects me. He wasn’t even there but I felt empowered to be me. I was confident. I'm like, “I have my dad.”  You need the power of a support system that will protect you. I would say stand up for your rights and speak up only if you have protection, a protective system that can get you out of trouble, be it your father, your friend, your comrade. Create that support for yourself and be radical.  

And sometimes we must create that system for ourselves. As a feminist, as a woman, but generally as you, as Aya, what is a book that you turn to that you think is a book that has had a big impact for you?

There are many. Let me start with Tahar Haddad. He was a Tunisian feminist and he wrote a book in Arabic which talks about women in Islam and society. Coming from a society which claims to be liberal and progressive since 1956, then growing up in an oppressive environment, it just grounds me, in the idea that it starts from community. He talks a lot about policy and law and how we need to advance women's rights, that women are half of humanity and women are half of society. You can’t just paralyze half of society. I read many books about Elissa (also known as Dido), founder of Carthage. People say the story is a myth, but I want to believe she existed. Every time I feel like I'm judged because of my radical self, I go back to that and I’m like, “If she did it, I can do it.”

And what is your feminist’s life motto? 

Badass, I say it too much. I say it in policy spaces too, and the last time I said it was in South Sudan in front of the First Lady and the Vice President. And then the one who was coordinating was like, “I couldn't believe it, Aya, you said it in front of the First Lady.” It just defines, for me, what a full female is. It’s like, “I'm fucking me, badass”. It just makes me feel so good. 

It’s the perfect way to end our conversation. A badass note. I’ve really enjoyed speaking with you, Aya. Thank you so much for making the time to share all of this with me. 

Note from Eyala: This interview was first recorded by Françoise Moudouthe in July 2019. Updates were made in April 2022 to reflect changes and progress in Aya’s journey since the first interview period.

Want to connect with Aya?

Or give her a shout out? Find her on Twitter aya_chebbi

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, or let’s chat on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram @EyalaBlog.

“I'm a diplomat with an activist spirit” : Aya Chebbi (Africa -Tunisia) – 2/3

Aya Chebbi was the first African Union Envoy on Youth. Photo provided by Aya

I am in conversation with Aya Chebbi, pan-african feminist organizer and the first AU Youth Envoy. In the first part of our interview, Aya spoke to us about her African identity and her root in pan-africanism. 

In this second part, we dig deeper into the vision for a united Africa and explore Aya’s experience in her role as the AU Youth Envoy. 

I want to know about your style, because you’re always dressed to kill. I have a sense that it's not just about style, but that you're making a point with what you wear. Am I wrong? 

No, you’re not. I think it is identity and self-liberation. You know you grow up wearing what people tell you to wear and there are specific standards of beauty, especially as a female person. My experience with my hair made me realise that how I'm seen reflects who I am. I was bullied for my natural hair and so I used to cut it very very short, but then was forced to have straight hair so my mom would wrap it every night in long tights to be perfectly in shape for the next day. The moment I showered, I would have to go to the salon to do my hair. This was standard in the family.  

When I went to university, I no longer had the time or money to do that and remember being shocked that I had curly hair. I loved being natural and just showering and going out with my hair as it was. In my family, especially at the beginning, the first two to three years, I would hear “Go and fix yourself, you're a mess. What is this hair? You’re a mess.” It's always heard that straight hair is what is proper. I realised my hair was political and used it to make a point about that being who I am and liking it. It takes courage, as well, to wear some of the things that I wear and walk in a room. I'm not coming in a suit and a tight skirt or the idea of what a young woman should wear, what a diplomat should wear, even in the hallways of the African Union. 

“I realized my hair was political and used it to make a point about that being who I am and liking it. ”

My Pan-African identity helped me to take the courage and assert, “This is how I want to be seen. I love my African earrings. I can't take them off. This defines me.” That’s why I dress the way I am, because it's Pan-African for me. Every piece is from some parts of Africa and it’s like, “I am all Africa and I’m walking.” And especially in Tunisia, I love that when people see me they start asking questions, “Oh my God, where is this from?” And then we start a conversation. And I love that; I love provoking that. It helps me in North Africa to start an African conversation which is hard to have. I also realized that when I’m traveling, I blog about food, about clothes, and many of the people who follow me want to go and visit these African countries. That makes them love or become curious about it, and I love that. It is changing the narrative. 

Today, what does a united Africa look like? If we can make Pan-Africanism, as you understand it today, work, what does that look like? What is that utopia for you? 

As much as I am inspired by the ‘60s, I think we have a different vision because they built borders and they fought to have nation states. For me, it's the opposite that my generation seeks today. It’s borderless and not driven by personal interests or colonial borders. People could drive and go anywhere. People would know the history of Tunisia, what Tunisians did in 2011. A Zambian child, for example, would know what Tunisians have changed and would inspire them to do something. We would be economically so powerful, we would not give a shit about colonial imperialism, we would sit at the United Nations and define things. The unity I envision has to do with a population that is conscious as Africans, a common sense of African-ness, of belonging to this space. It also has to do with leadership. Without a Pan-African leadership, it's easy to sell our resources and our agendas. We need leadership that thinks, “I will not do this to you because it's going to harm Ghana, my neighbor, or Algeria. I will not do this to you because it's going to harm Kenya.” That mindset that I should think about other countries, people as African, ideologically… that's what I would see a Pan-African leader would do.

I agree it can’t just be one leader who is thinking Pan-Africanist in a Pan-African way. It has to be a pool. Is that what you were thinking about when you started the Africa Youth Movement? 

Yes, learning from Tunisia’s revolution which was a leaderless movement.  I don't believe in Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther King, or the idea of one person who started something and brought the whole movement together. That, in fact, has erased many women from history. I do believe that there are leaders and people who impact or influence other people's lives, but I think if the others don't give a shit it would never happen. With the Afrika Youth Movement,  at the beginning, my idea was to bring together youth who were like me in 2011 and didn't know shit about who they are and bring them to the space and say, “Maybe this is who you are.'' I am very extremist in my Pan-Africanism, and that’s why I say I ‘radicalize’ youth because I ask critical questions and I have an agenda too. I don’t go in saying: “Maybe you're this or maybe you’re that.'' I lead with, “You’re African first.'' I'm recruiting as many youth as possible to this ideology of being African first and having the interest of our community first. 

What has that looked like? I would imagine it to be a very challenging endeavor given the diversity even within single nations.

It had taken seven years to build this movement before I left, and now looking at other movements like Black Lives Matter, which we think are big movements and massive, I think it would take more than what we’re currently doing. Whenever I travel, I realize the ones I'm recruiting are pretty much the elite. And many of them will be in leadership positions, but that will not mobilize the grassroots. And if my cousin who lives now in the North West of Tunisia on the Algerian border in the middle of nowhere is not believing in this, then we're not going to do anything. If a revolution erupts tomorrow, they wouldn’t know. They didn’t even know the revolution happened. They don’t know who’s the president. So, if you don't have these people to mobilize, then we will not arrive there.

Is this what you want to focus on next? How do you see it happening?

For me, the dream would be for the 300 million young people in Africa to all be Pan-Africanists. If I had the resources in four years, that is my goal. Between 2012 and 2015, when we started the Facebook group and launched the movement, I went to 35 African countries, deliberately selecting them, and using every single opportunity to stay longer and organize.  I would go to global conferences and then convene African meetings on the side. I was deliberate. I had a strategy. I would also always go to universities, the massive spaces where I can find many young people at the same time. 

Before I was appointed as the AU Youth Envoy, I was going to do a video and I started a tour to go everywhere and deliver talks in Africa about decolonization. My dream was to reach 3 million youth in one year. Learning from the Tunisian revolution, I would also connect them to the movement… that is the infrastructure. I would recruit these people and their following, bringing all these movements together. 300 million is a big number, but I think if we target the right people who have a significant following and mobilization magic, we can. It's not impossible; we can. 

You mention you were inspired from what you've learned from the revolution. Thinking back, how did that experience really mould who you are today as a woman, as an African, as a Tunisian?  

The revolution was life changing for me. First, because I think it came at the right time - my graduation year. It came at a time when I was being rebellious within the family, challenging extended family who tried to oppress me as a woman. I was quite radical, within my family, but I wasn’t political. I was afraid to be an activist or political because my father is in the army and could not participate in politics, and my mother was also harassed because she was wearing the veil. I put my energy in community service through photography and reading workshops in children’s hospitals. 

When the revolution came, I was fearless and I was ready because of my community service experience. I went to the refugee camp. I joined the Red Cross and others. I see my fearlessness as being in a space where you're not alone and you can say: “I don't give a fucking shit if you'll kill me because I am fucking going to win and if I die, we have a legacy because all these people are going to stand up.” They tried to frustrate me by taking my camera, because I was blogging at the time. I remember I had been scared of the police all my life but the revolution broke my fear of the system, of the institution, of the establishment. I had never felt so powerful in my life. The word “freedom” made sense again. 

You mentioned blogging and I know that your blog Proudly Tunisian had quite the following, even beyond Tunisia. Tell me more about that in relation to the revolution. 

The second thing I learned during the revolution was related to blogging because I had a duty to tell the world what's happening. I was really frustrated, and technology empowered me. When my pieces started to be picked up by international media, I saw how powerful my voice is. I used to tweet the New York Times and tell them, “No, this protest had this number, not this number.” And they would change it! I realized how I can use my voice and how I can shape conversations. I realized if I did not speak up, I would never change things. 

Another thing I learned was organizing because it was totally organic and a beautiful chaos. Many of my friends now, I met them on the streets. We were all organizing online. We didn’t know each other and somehow, we were coordinated. When Ben Ali left, we had to organize to prevent others from hijacking the space. I learned that organizing takes time and effort, and brings a lot of people together and takes inclusivity. Concepts of coalition building, organizing, bringing people, listening to people, getting feedback, made sense at the end. In the first two years, there were also many betrayals and hijacking of our movement, so I also learned that organizing is about observing and listening and not making quick judgments and getting back and engaging people because you will need them. 

“I learned that organizing takes time and effort, and brings a lot of people together and takes inclusivity.”

This is how I managed to organize because organizing youth is hectic, but also organizing African youth, who are so diverse in one country with diverse ethnicities, clans, languages etc. Even people in one country cannot sit and speak together. If I didn’t have a very strong Pan-African drive, I would have given up many times. This is what I took to the youth movement later; that it is not just about winning the fight, but building within. There are so many things I learned; I need to write a book about a revolution, one day. 

You should! I've been working in the NGO sector and international development and this whole, meaningful youth engagement, I don't even know what it means, at this point. When you were appointed as the AU Youth Envoy, what did you think about the position? 

It came as a surprise, and I did not expect to be selected because two years before I was selected, I was in the AU staging a boycott and I walked out of the same room I gave the acceptance speech. They had organized an intergenerational dialogue and I didn't like how the whole thing was working. It didn’t feel like a dialogue, and didn’t seem democratic, and I walked out with 20 other young people. 

However, I applied because I thought I deserve it and I thought that's the next level I want to be organizing within the system. I also applied for the UN Youth Envoy and I was one of the finalists. It was a total surprise, and I appreciated the way I was selected. It was a rigorous and transparent process that took several weeks. I love to tell that story to inspire youth that you can be in positions of leadership you deserve. You don't have to know someone or work for your government or because you know or are liked at the AU. And many people still think my government nominated me or something, but I spent all my life in civil society. And I also tell them being an activist can take you to diplomacy, to politics, to wherever you want to be. It's not the position; it’s what you want to do. Titles are only vehicles of change. I'm very proud of this role. I love it. I love serving the youth constituency. I hope I did it justice. I think the AU is very relevant to be united. 

And in the 2 years that you spent in this role, what has success looked like for you?

I hope I did justice to this role and built the foundation for a strong youth space within the institution. I put everything together in a legacy report to amplify the impact of young people and show what young people can do when you open more space for innovation.

I grew in between the revolution and now, I grew from resisting the system, to wanting to be in the system and change things from inside. It was scary for me. I didn't want to compromise on myself - my noisy loud radical self - and my values. I'm a diplomat with an activist spirit, and what I want to be is a bridge between generations, between disconnected systems. The problem is that as young people, we’re the radical ones and we call the system out. But then we don't know the common ground. At the same time, it's very frustrating for me to sit in rooms with old men who don't give a shit about their youth population. And who, at the most basic level, I'm not even talking about policy or implementation. I'm talking about convincing the person of why you should care. 

Tell me about that experience of navigating these spaces as a young person, especially in a leadership role. How did you feel doing that?

Currently, I'm exhausted from punching the system and I think we should find a way to dialogue with them. It's not working for us to just organize ourselves outside the corridors of power. This has become my call to curate Intergenerational Co-leadership, that we both have to find a solution together and dialogue. These spaces exist because we accept them, and we accept to be there and sit and be used. I'm moving to a space where I am organizing. I'm going to invite you to fit in my agenda and to make a commitment. That makes me feel more confident, more powerful, more agenda driven, and I'm not used as a young person. 

I would wish, after those two years, for this concept to become embedded, to be a normal thing that we should be having every day and every space to be intergenerational and co-led. The process of leadership, of governance, conversations, all the high-level things we're talking about should have this inter-generational co-leadership. I also see a difference with women's spaces. I think maybe in these spaces, people feel so inspired by other generations and they’re more comfortable to speak to an elder, than in spaces with old men.  

I agree about the difference in women’s spaces, where co-leadership is a model that many of them are adopting. I know you’ve spoken about your experience as a young person in that space that’s often dominated by older men. What was your approach as a woman?

I led in this role as a female leader. My idea of female leadership is collaborative. It is emotional intelligence; it is about uniting people around Pan-Africanism, uniting people around the African agenda. They're both linked first because I feel that we have been deprived from knowing all the women who have contributed to the liberation. I know inside me there was a massive women's movement behind it. Also, the men who inspire me like Thomas Sankara, are feminist. I can’t see Thomas Sankara as feminist without being Pan-Africanist because he fought for Africa being self-independent and said it cannot be without women’s participation and emancipation. 

You can't unite our continent or anything without being a feminist, without believing in equality and without believing that women are fundamentally part of Africa's revolution. 

In the next part of the interview, we discuss Aya’s feminist journey and her efforts to organize young Africans across the continent. Click here to read this final part.

Note from Eyala: This interview was first recorded by Françoise Moudouthe in July 2019. Updates were made in April 2022 to reflect changes and progress in Aya’s journey since the first interview period.

Join the conversation!

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Let us know in the comments below, or let’s chat on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram @EyalaBlog.

Want to connect with Aya? Follow her on Twitter @aya_chebbi

“I don’t consider myself as being from one part of Africa only” : Aya Chebbi (Africa - Tunisia) – 1/3

One thing about Aya Chebbi is that you can’t not notice her! She stands out in every way, from the clothes and jewellery she wears, to her language and her radical feminist approach. 

When Aya attended our first ever Eyala Circle, held in Vancouver in 2018, I noticed that it was the quietest I have ever seen her. She hardly said anything, and I was curious about how she could be loud in spaces that require for us to be out there, and how much in a space of shared community and vulnerability, she was very quiet, reflective and inward-looking. 

Everytime I see someone who is so outgoing and bold, I’m always interested in hearing from them, to know what their story is. When someone has a strong public persona, people often forget that they have nuances and complexities. When I got the chance to speak with Aya, I asked if she would share her story with me, and she agreed. I really wanted to know more, and I hope that our conversation brings out those complexities. 

We discuss her African identity and how pan-africanism forms the basis of her work (Part 1 below). We also spoke about her work and lessons as an organizer during the Tunisian revolution and her experience as the first AU Youth Envoy (Part 2). We ended our conversation with a discussion on her journey as a feminist activist and navigating patriarchal spaces(Part 3).

Let’s begin! 

Hello Aya, thank you for accepting my invitation. And what a treat that we’re able to have this conversation in person, here in Morocco! I’ve been thinking about a way to introduce you that is brief but still does all your achievements justice… not that easy! How do you like to introduce yourself?

The first thing I always say is that I’m Pan-African. When you meet someone, they always ask you, “where are you from?” and when I say I’m African, they want to reduce that to the country I grew up in: Tunisia. But I don’t consider myself as being from one part of Africa only. 

I am not only African. I’m ‘pan-African’. It’s not the same. Being Pan-African is both about my identity and my ideology. By calling myself a Pan-African, I’m saying not only that I belong to Africa, but also that I want to unite Africa. Like Nkrumah said “I am not African because I was born in Africa but because Africa was born in me”.

Let’s start with the identity part. 

I’m North African; I have a Mediterranean identity, an Amazigh identity, a Maghrebin identity, but also an African identity, and none of them erases the other, you know? 

I’ve been living in North Africa for a while now, and it would be an understatement to say that not everyone feels as African as you do…

It’s true, and it’s sad, because we’ve been deprived of our African identity. Things changed after independence: everything became Arabized and Islamized. We don’t study anything about African history in school, and there’s a language barrier that makes it difficult to read writings from authors from the rest of the continent. 

So how did the awareness about your own African-ness come about?

I think it came through two experiences I had early in my journey. I joined my father who worked in the Tunisian army, at the Choucha refugee camps at Ras Jdir that he set up and managed on the Tunisian – Libyan borders following the fighting between pro-Gaddafi forces and rebels in Libya. About one million refugees, mostly African migrants, fled across the border into Tunisia. It was like being in a history book about Africa. I would just sit there for hours and talk to people from ‘Senegambia’, Benin, Sierra Leone and other countries and history I’d never even heard about. And yet I found myself relating with some of their stories. 

Secondly, the experience of crossing colonial borders and visiting countries was so important. My first few trips were to Kenya and Senegal. I felt at home sharing meals, breaking the fast, talking about Islamisation, learning about the connection between Swahili and Arabic, and walking down Habib Bourguiba avenue in Dakar. That familiarity was eye-opening, especially coming from a country where people have all these stereotypes about the rest of Africa. 

And were you ever on the receiving end of stereotypes about your own identity from other Africans?

During my time in Kenya in 2012, I realised that most people who looked at me wouldn’t think of me as African. They thought I was from Spain or Brazil and would call me Mzungu or something like that. I became hungry to know why people would think I'm not African, so I’d ask them. Almost every day I would explain: “I'm from Tunisia. That’s in North Africa. I'm African.” That was the start of claiming my identity. 

The more I traveled across Africa, the more obsessed I felt with the idea of Pan-Africanism. I started to read about how North Africans relate to the rest of Africa, and I started reading about the African liberation movement. It just fascinated me how countries got independence one after the other because of solidarity, of the whole ideology of coming together as African and liberating ourselves. This is how my current identity came about, became strong, and became political. I really believe we've got our whole shit together.

My conversation with Aya is off to a powerful start, indeed. In the second part, we explore more of her thoughts on pan-africanism, and learn about her experience as the first AU Youth Envoy. Click here to read Part 2.

Note from Eyala: This interview was first recorded by Françoise Moudouthe in July 2019. Updates were made in April 2022 to reflect changes and progress in Aya’s journey since the first interview period.

Join the conversation!

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this first part. Let us know in the comments below, or let’s chat on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram @EyalaBlog.

Want to connect with Aya? Follow her on Twitter @aya_chebbi