“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.