Tag: women

Saved by education: A Somali woman’s story

Growing up in Mogadishu in the late 80s in a house full of young single women, the standard dress code for us was a traditional costume called a dirac (a long transparent loose dress), worn with an underskirt, bra and a light shawl. Women did not cover their hair until they were married. My aunts were allowed to date once they turned 16. There were only two rules: date men who had cars so they could pick them up and drop them off, and be back home before 10pm. When their potential suitors came to fetch them, they would politely greet family members with the customary “Galab wanaagsan” (good afternoon) or “Habeen wanaagsan” (good evening).

Just before they left for their dates, my aunts would burn some of my grandmother’s homemade unsi (incense) and apply it under their clothes for a long-lasting patchouli-mixed-with-vanilla-like sweet scent. It was amazing. I would sit in the room with them and hope for some of that perfume to get onto my clothes and hair. I often tried on their beautiful, multi-coloured diracs and high heels. I could not wait to turn 16, get my hair highlighted and straightened just like my aunts, and go on dates.

But in 1990 the civil war rudely interrupted my plans and, at the age of 13, I fled Somalia with my family and thousands of others. There was no more talk among young women about dates, fashion and hairstyles. All I was left with were three younger siblings to look after, a disabled and unemployed father, and desperate poverty. My world was turned upside down and I had to find something else to look forward to, now that my aunts were married off and I was the eldest female in the house.

During 1991 and 1992, we lived in Eastleigh, then one of Nairobi’s slums populated by other Somalis also escaping the civil war. My focus in life changed considerably during this time. I realised I had only two options to escape poverty and the miserable living conditions I found myself in: marry or study. Most of the women in my family only studied as far as high school, and I was not impressed with how their lives turned out after they got married. They seemed unhappy, and some of them were even beaten by their husbands.

To me, marriage seemed like a trap. Women were burdened with too many babies and no time to enjoy life. I was also surprised by the rise of a strict version of Islam that had women get rid of their colourful and beautiful diracs and wear ugly umbrellas. The music stopped, perfume became haraam (forbidden)  and “Subax wanaagsan” (good morning) was replaced with the Islamic greeting of “Assalamu alaykum”. It seemed that our Somali culture and way of life was erased, overnight.

The only way to escape this systematic silencing of women and the oppressive new culture was to study my way out of the slum. Despite wearing a hijab (forced on me by my father and “society”), I registered for the cheapest and only English classes I could afford. They were held in the local church a couple of blocks away from the dingy two-bedroom flat I shared with my dad, three siblings and five other relatives. This initially caused a lot of heated arguments with our Somali neighbours. How can a Muslim girl in hijab enter a church?! Where are her father and male relatives to stop and discipline her? I calmly tried to explain that I was attending English classes and not going to the church to pray. What I could not say out loud (my first lesson in carefully picking my battles) was that I did not care much for their opinion and there was nothing they could do to stop me. If I could not wear the beautiful Somali dirac, put highlights in my hair, and look forward to dates, then I was going to find other ways to get excited about life. What better way than learning English as part of my get-out-of-poverty strategy – and irritating the self-appointed moral police at the same time?

Fatuma Abdulahi.
Fatuma Abdulahi.

My lucky break came in mid-1992, a few months into my English classes. A British charity, The Hugh Pilkington Trust, was sponsoring refugee students to complete their war-interrupted studies and offered free English classes. My kind and dedicated Kenyan English teacher encouraged me to apply and told me that if I did well, they would send me abroad to complete my studies! In addition, the charity gave students a small monthly stipend to help them make ends meet so they could focus on their studies. This was the ticket I had been praying for. I threw myself into that English class like my life depended on it; I listened to the BBC World Service religiously; I told my siblings that from then on I would not speak anything but English. Everyone thought I had gone mad but I had a plan and nothing was going to stop me.

A year after I enrolled in the class, I won a scholarship to attend the prestigious United World College, an education movement comprising 12 international schools and colleges. I had to choose from three colleges in Swaziland, Canada and Hong Kong. I did not know where Hong Kong was, but I knew where Swaziland was and I wanted to get the hell out of Africa. All I experienced in this continent was war, poverty and stifling cultures. Many Somalis were immigrating to Canada, so that was a no-go. I needed a break from Somalis also. I asked about Hong Kong and how far it was from both Somali culture and Islam, and when they told me it was the furthest from both, my decision was made!

I studied in Hong Kong for two years and obtained an International Baccalaureate (IB) pre-university diploma. I went on to receive undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in politics in the United Kingdom, also on full scholarships. Studying, living and working abroad widened my perspectives. After nearly 20 years away, I have returned to Africa for good, grateful for the wide open spaces and eager to contribute to the changes necessary in Somali culture so the next generation of Somali girls lead better lives.

Fatuma Abdulahi blogs at postcardfromafrica.blogspot.com. Connect with her on Twitter. 

Tomboys, masculinity and the unmaking of a girl

When I woke up to International Women’s Day celebrations last week, the first thing on my mind wasn’t politics, but the personal connections I didn’t know I would forfeit the minute I stopped wearing skirts, traded in my long hair for a frohawk, and fell in love with a woman.

I used to have a very close-knit circle of African/black female friends. We defended each other from perverts at crowded bars, cried on each other’s shoulders, told each other we were beautiful whenever the world made us doubt that we were, and gave each other relationship advice, regardless of the gender of the person we loved.

We were sisters. It didn’t matter if we were tomboys or not. We were sisters. It didn’t matter that some of us wore skirts, and some of us wore shorts. We were sisters. That was all that mattered. Right?

Wrong. The second my gender presentation transitioned from “straight-girl-femininity” to “queer-masculine-in-betweener”, I lost most of my black female friends. I’m a different kind of woman now. And all of a sudden women I used to call my sisters don’t know how to interact with me. I’m still a woman but the reactions to my expression of womanhood have changed, drastically.

This is the kind of experience that informs my work as a media activist. I’m always thinking about which perspectives are missing from political conversations about women’s equality and representations of African women in pop culture. Who is being excluded? Why? How can the African women’s movement become more self-reflective so that we can identify who among us is being left behind, and become stronger advocates for the kind of progress that includes them? Incidentally, in the fight for women’s equality, the people most frequently excluded from consideration and celebration, often enough look just like me.

A few years ago I wrote about the experience of being forced to wear a dress to my Nigerian friend’s wedding (even though she knew I was a tomboy). Despite the political successes the women’s movement is celebrating today, not much has changed for me, professionally and personally.

Even within the open-minded, women’s activist spaces in which I find myself for work, I still have to endure not just the endless hours of boyfriend/husband talk (as though women can’t bond around any other topic), but also – after I attempt to contribute – the prolonged, awkward silences that follow once they realise my partner is a woman.

My straight girlfriends – bless their hearts – enjoy inviting me to their favourite (straight) nightclubs so they can maintain their perception of my being “normal”, but have no clue how uncomfortable it is to be a tomboy in a venue with a dress code policy that insists “ladies wear heels, men button-downs and hard soles.” So, they’ll usually abandon me on the dance floor to go to the ladies room for a “touch up”, or worse, disappear into the post-nightclub meat market, leaving me exposed on a street curb as a prime target for drunk dudes to take out insecurities about their masculinity: “Was that your girlfriend? What, you think you’re a dude? You like pussy? I like it, too. I got a dick though.”

Yup, that happened. I even broke up with a friend over such an incident.

I can’t tell you how many times my masculinity has been used to absolve other women (and men) of the responsibility of advocating for me; whether in the face of harassers on street corners, the gendered aisles of mainstream clothing stores, or even within the women’s movement itself – it’s as though people automatically assume I’m “stronger”, physically, mentally and emotionally, just because I shop in the men’s department.

“Don’t worry about her. She can take care of herself.”

But I have never experienced physical aggression from the world to the degree that I do now. From constantly dodging men who take it upon themselves to “put me in my place” to being ignored by women who’ve subconsciously decided that I’ve chosen “the other side”, I’ve never felt less safe and more in need of protecting.

I can’t help but note how often my masculinity is the unspoken reason I’m excluded from African women’s spaces, and denied access to the very same sisterhood that nurtured my unwavering dedication to every woman’s empowerment.

Since losing access to “the sisterhood”, I’ve been rebuilding my support network from scratch, one in which the full spectrum of “womanhood” isn’t just acknowledged, but celebrated: African feminists committed to building cross-movement alliances, queer “brown bois” in the US leading national conversations about healthy masculinity, and progressive women of all shades and stripes  interested in seeing gender justice done in the media.

I am fortunate. But today, I’m also aware of just how fortunate I am to have experienced even this yearning for a sisterhood that I did have – at least at some point. Even as a tomboy/woman whose gender presentation is more masculine my identity as a woman has never been questioned. But some of my sisters have never known that privilege. I know transgender women (born male, now living as women) and also, intersex women, for instance, who have never known the comfort, loyalty and power of a female friend circle.

But, we are still sisters. It shouldn’t matter that some of us were born male and some born female. We are sisters in blood and numbers, in shared missions and shared struggles.

That’s all that matters. That’s all that should matter … Right?

I was asked last week to contribute a response to “What does Women’s Day mean to you?” This was part of my answer:

When I remember how my mother celebrated International Women’s Day – as part of a community of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of African women, dressed in bright colours, often laughing and dancing, holding hands – I think about how many African lesbians have been evicted from their sister circles, how many transgender women have never experienced unguarded female friendship. Women’s Day inspires me to keep writing my story so that my African sisters can get to know me, and to keep advocating for queer Africans like me who are still fighting – not just for women’s “rights” but for women’s community, sisterhood, love.

Women’s Day should be a reminder to all of us to keep advocating for every woman’s right to love and be loved, even long after we’ve found sisterhood for ourselves.

Spectra is a Nigerian writer, media advocate and social commentator on gender, sexuality and pop culture. Her writing critiques social movements through the lens of media psychology at spectraspeaks.com. Connect with her on Twitter.