Year: 2014

Defining ‘the African woman’: Save your labels for Tupperware

(Flickr: James P. Wells)
(Graphic: Flickr / James P. Wells)

If there is one thing that I love to do it’s organise things. There is something wonderfully joyous about clothes that are sorted according to their colours, shoes organised by heel height and e-mails that are slotted into descriptive categories and archived. It’s systematic. It’s blissful! It’s neat, and to me neat means manageable. I love neat like I love Tupperware, shelves and label makers. The problem with this ritualistic tidiness is that it doesn’t translate so well in the real world. People are by their very nature inconsistent and chaotic yet for some reason we often refuse to acknowledge that. Nowhere – in my experience – is there more labelling and identity policing than in the LGBT community.

If one takes a glimpse into not-so-conforming Black Woman spaces, one will find a mess of labels and rituals. There is very little freedom to manoeuver because, oftentimes, you are exiled to a box that defines your mannerisms, behaviour, speech, style and the people you like. I remember being on a date with a woman when she made a comment like “you femmes have it easy”; it stopped me dead in my tracks. At the time I didn’t quite have the language to tell her my thoughts on the subject other than to say “Uh… I don’t like labels, it’s just not something I do but I will call myself African“. In retrospect, after countless accusations about my gender identity and romantic preferences, I realise that statements like that are inherently selfish. It is selfish to tell people who and what they are based on some measure that you have chosen for yourself.

African women are complicated. How we live and love is complicated. Our politics and ideals are woven into the way we are and not because of an adherence to some ideology. There are numerous pieces written about “fat shaming” and body politics, and these are important, but other people actually live body affirmation. They carry their small breasts and muscular arms with pride and are quick to appreciate the beauty of a short round woman with a full belly and child-worn breasts. They acknowledge womanhood in its various forms and do not need words like feminism, queer-theory, discourse and praxis to do so because they live Black Womanhood. They head households, love their partners, appreciate the power of female friendships and do this all while being driven by something internal and unregulated by the outside world.

I sometimes wonder whether it is this fundamental understanding of our womanhood that creates a sense of cohesion among us. At almost all Black Women gatherings one will find that sexual orientation and gender identity aren’t the common denominators. There have been numerous times where I was in “mixed company” – in the sense that we didn’t call ourselves the same things or live the same lifestyles. There would be women snuggling their girlfriends in one corner, engaged women, man-eaters, virgins, masculine women, the odd “down for whatever” girl and decidedly fluid women all in one room politicking and relating, just because. This is something that I think we need to work hard at nurturing and maintaining. African Women’s spaces should not become exclusive clubs where people only gain access by being “radical” or well-versed in anything other than living life in this skin, at this time.

People know themselves and it’s up to them to tell us who they are. Increasingly, African Women are more open about the fluidity in their being(s) so it is important to legitimise that fluidity. Nesting people’s “selfness” under rigidly defined labels isn’t cool and seems so counter-intuitive. There are people who are not sexually attracted to other people at all. There are also people who only find masculinity or femininity attractive and only in certain bodies. If one considers how deeply attraction and gender are rooted in the individual then it’s easy to see that it is not easy at all. It is complicated and not something that should confined within hard lines. People are not objects that can be collected, measured up and sorted. Identity necessarily changes and no matter how contradictory the people you have been are, they make sense in your story.

Culture makes things difficult because there is an archetype of who “the African Woman” is. People would describe her as maternal, strong, patient, traditional, long-suffering, soulful and protective. Her life is not her own, it belongs to her family and community. Think about it for a second… we all know who she is because she is the woman that lies in the cradle of our conscience and makes us wonder why we are the way we are. Still there are problems with who she is. She is the ideal but that doesn’t make her perfect. Nearly all of us know that we are not her and many more of us do not want to be her despite the fact that her voice has taught us how to understand ourselves.

However many of us have figured out that there are numerous ways of being a woman and many more ways of living up to the ideal. Since the nature of our self-exploration(s) is very much determined by our societies, what makes us outliers will be relative. In some cases it may be a person’s gender presentation and in others it could be the fact that they have piercings, tattoos and love FKA Twigs. This state of being “not-quite-” or “not-so-” or “non-conforming” is refreshing and it’s time to acknowledge that while our parents have already given us our names, we are also quite free to rename ourselves and respect that process in others.

Tatenda Muranda is a self-identified suit in a feminist activist. She co-founded HOLAAfrica and currently sits on the advisory committee for FRIDA The Young Feminist Fund. When she is not feministing she happily works in private equity in Johannesburg, South Africa.

176 teachers killed in Nigeria’s Borno state since 2011

Nigerian teachers take part in a protest rally against the killing of 173 of their colleagues by the Islamist Boko Haram group. (Pic: AFP)
Nigerian teachers take part in a protest rally against the killing of 173 of their colleagues by the Islamist Boko Haram group. (Pic: AFP)

One hundred and seventy-six teachers have been killed and 900 schools destroyed in Nigeria’s Borno state since Boko Haram militants intensified their violent attacks in 2011, officials said on Thursday.

The governor of the northeastern state Kashim Shettima revealed the horrifying statistics in a statement to a committee attempting to make the country’s schools safer.

The Safe Schools Initiative has been backed by former British prime minister Gordon Brown, who is the representative of the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Brown pledged $10 million to the scheme during last May’s World Economic Forum, while Nigeria’s private sector is expected to put in 1.6 billion-naira ($9.8-million).

Although the scheme covers the whole of Africa’s most populous nation, it is scheduled to start off in Borno and neighbouring Yobe and Adamawa, the three states under emergency rule since May last year, and the hardest hit by Boko Haram’s five-year-old insurgency.

Boko Haram abducted 276 girls from their school in Chibok in Borno on April 14. Fifty-seven of the girls have escaped while the remaining 219 are thought to be still held hostage.

The group has attacked many schools and killed hundreds of students in the northeast of the country since it began its violence.

Shettima briefed the committee on the current state of education following the insurgency, while security and counter-terrorism experts from donor agencies formally presented a road-map for school safety, the statement said.

Kenya: Teens are having sex, so let them have it safely

It may be a hard fact for some to digest, but children younger than 15 in Kenya are having sex. This is according to the 2008-09 Kenyan Demographic Health Survey, which is the most recent such research carried out in Kenya.  It’s now 2014 and I don’t have empirical proof, but if the rate and age of teenage pregnancy in Kenya is anything to go by, this age of sexual debut has dropped considerably.

Alarm bells are raised about teenage pregnancies in all countries. The target of well-meaning campaigns is almost always the girl – but not always in a good way. Even in our everyday language, we say “Susan fell pregnant”  – because it’s similar to tripping over a sidewalk you didn’t see. It just happens, and Susan has little to no agency in the sex act that culminated in her becoming pregnant. But we hear that “Johnnie impregnated Jane”, putting Johnny in a position of power over the girl that he had sex with. The idea that young girls and boys engage in sexual activity for pleasure is a bitter pill to swallow for many African parents. In an attempt to keep young people chaste and pure, the other side of the story –  the boy-meets-girl story, the raging hormones and carnal desires story – is never told.

Puberty is a tumultuous time for young girls and boys. All the changes and attractions that the body and mind go through, and how to deal with them, is a trial-and-error minefield that young people find themselves in. The standard lesson many teenagers get from parents is: don’t have sex. Don’t get pregnant. Just don’t. But very few parents offer a conversation about the feelings that teenagers have at that time. Sex is presented as this scary, impossible to understand thing which should be reserved for marriage. But the will of the flesh often wins over the threats of parents, whether well-intentioned or not. Teenagers are having sex, and are going to continue to have sex because that’s what their bodies are telling them to do. But with little to no information on how to have safe and informed sex, the Russian roulette that young people play with their lives is dangerous.

Kenyans walk past condoms exhibited in the streets as workers distribute them on February 14 2014 to promote safe sex practices during the Valentine week and to mark International Condom Day. (Pic: AFP)
Kenyans walk past condoms exhibited in the streets as workers distribute them on February 14 2014 to promote safe sex practices during the Valentine week and to mark International Condom Day. (Pic: AFP)

But Kenya might have a solution for this. The proposed Reproductive Health Care Bill 2014 is, according to its sponsor Senator Judith Sijeny, meant to  “provide a framework for the protection and advancement of reproductive and health rights for women and children.” Those in favour of the Bill point to its potential to reduce teenage pregnancies and manage population control. Those against it are outraged by a clause that allows children from the age of 10 to access sexual reproductive health services and information without the consent of parents. This, as you can imagine, has parents, religious leaders and all sorts up in arms, saying that the government is bypassing their authority and allowing children to access contraceptives without their consent. What parents against this clause in the Bill are really resisting is their moral authority over their children who might not share the same philosophies about sex anymore. It’s being dubbed the Condoms-for-Kids Bill, which by inference is not a positive thing.

Sections 33 (2-3) and 34 (1a-c) of the Bill are the problematic parts and read as follows:

In the provision of reproductive health services to adolescents, parental consent is not mandatory… nothing prevents a health care provider from whom reproductive health services are sought by an adolescent, from referring the adolescent to a qualified person for provision of the necessary services.

The Board is consultation with government institutions and other bodies shall –
(a) facilitate the provision to of adolescent- friendly reproductive health and sexual health information and education;
(b) facilitate the provision to adolescents of confidential, comprehensive, non-judgmental and affordable reproductive health services;
(c) develop policies to protect adolescents from physical and sexual violence and discrimination including cultural practices that violate the reproductive health rights of the adolescents; and facilitate adolescents access to information, comprehensive sexuality education and confidential services.

If ever there was progress, this is it. And I say this not as a once horny teenager, but also as a parent with a child who will one day grow up and want to have sex. I won’t be there when these decisions are made but I would like to know that there are places where my child and his partner can go to access information and appropriate contraceptive options, free of judgment and harassment.

As parents, we like to think that we know our children better than they know themselves, but the truth is that we don’t. In fact, they probably know us better than we know them. Young people learn from each other easier and faster than they learn from their parents and other older role models. Kenyan parents are scared that making sexual reproductive healthcare information and facilities available to children without their consent will normalise pre-marital sex and encourage promiscuity. Condoms have been presented as a “burden” that school-going children do not need to be made to bear. The civil society organisations that start sex education clubs are accused of pushing donor-driven agendas with their endless access to condom money, and reducing these clubs to “fornication dens where condoms are handed out like sweets“. One opinion went as far as to suggest that this push for legislation to liberalise access to contraception for school-going children is a conspiracy between Members of Parliament and pharmaceutical companies looking to make a killing.

All conspiracy theories aside, the hard fact is that young people are having sex. Parents try, and fail miserably, when they play the morality card. Also, making girl children passive actors in the sex experience doesn’t help. Consensual sex is not something that ‘just happens’. And, much as no one wants to say so: in the same way that adults enjoy sex, so do young, sexually active girls and boys. The threat of teen pregnancy, school drop-outs, even the chance of contracting HIV, is not sufficient to scare young people off  having sex.

The decent and right thing to do is to create an environment where it is safe for young people to have safe, consensual sex. This would mitigate all the other issues that unprotected, uninformed sex brings up. A Bill like this empowers young people to know that they are in charge of their own sexuality and sex related choices. And this puts power in the hands of young people to shape their own futures.

Leaving the power to make these decisions in the hands of adults and parents opens young people up to abuse by the same parents and so-called adults. This Bill might empower students enough to refuse the advances of teachers and other adults in positions of power who are notorious for abusing their positions.

I’d imagine that when my own child is at a sexually active age, and finds it hard to speak to me about sex,  he has a safe place, free of judgment, where he can go and get all the information that he needs to make sure that he protects himself and his partner. I say pass the Bill unedited, and be brave enough to allow Kenyan children to have agency and power over their own sexuality and sexual choices.

Sheena Gimase is a Kenyan-born and Africa-raised critical feminist writer, blogger, researcher and thought provocateur. She’s lived and loved in Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa, Botswana and Namibia. Sheena strongly believes in the power of the written word to transform people, cultures and communities. Read her blog and connect with her on Twitter.

I claim this piece of Africa for my daughter, Princess Emily

(Illustration: Flickr / Chris Murphy)
(Illustration: Flickr / Chris Murphy)

Sure, Will Smith repurposed Bill Withers’ classic Just the Two of Us as an ode to his son Trey. And yes, even more recently, Jay Z included both the heartbeat and cries of his baby daughter Blue Ivy Carter on the track Glory, released a few days after she was born. But do both these acts of fatherly Hollywood magnanimity and largesse not fade into insignificance when compared with the actions of one American father, who “claimed” an African “kingdom” so his daughter could be a “princess”?

You read that right. A Virginia father, Jeremiah Heaton, flew to Africa for the express purpose of claiming the 800 square miles that make up Bir Tawil, a desert territory that falls between the borders of Egypt and Sudan. Heaton travelled for 14 hours in a caravan in order to plant the flag (designed by his children) on the soil of Bir Tawil, an act that he reckons makes his claim more legitimate than previous attempts made online. The children have decided to name it the “Kingdom of North Sudan”. His daughter, “Princess” Emily, seven, has said she wants to ensure children in the region have enough food (Bir Tawil itself is uninhabited).

The immediate question for the rest of us has to be: “Are white people still allowed to do this kind of stuff in 2014?” Heaton has said: “I feel confident in the claim we’ve made. That’s the exact same process that has been done for thousands of years. The exception is this nation was claimed for love.”

If ever there were a deed that exemplified the term “white privilege”, surely this is it. It is almost as if Heaton and his children have never watched the Disney classic Pocahontas, in which the Native American princess sings to would-be coloniser John Smith: “You think you own whatever land you land on.

But if you want to make your child feel special and loved – as Heaton wanted to do – surely a princess makeover would suffice. When did the phrase “daddy’s little princess” pass from vaguely creepy societal saying into a literal thing? It also begs the question: where next for Emily Heaton? What can you get a child after you’ve “given” them a country of their own? A Build-a-Bear party with six of her friends will not slake her inevitable thirst for power now. Nothing will. There is nowhere else to go on the gift-giving scale. What have ye wrought, Jeremiah Heaton?

Bim Adewunmi for the Guardian

Okwiri Oduor wins 2014 Caine Prize for African Writing

Nairobi-based author Okwiri Oduor. (Pic: caineprize.com)
Nairobi-based author Okwiri Oduor. (Pic: caineprize.com)

Kenyan author Okwiri Oduor has won the 2014 Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story My Father’s Head.

Described as “an uplifting story about mourning,” Nairobi-born Oduor’s 2013 work begins with the narrator’s attempts to remember what her father’s face looked like as she struggles to cope with his loss, and follows her as she finds the courage to remember.

“Okwiri Oduor is a writer we are all really excited to have discovered,” said Scottish author and chief judge Jackie Kay, as the prize was presented at the Bodleian Library in Oxford tonight. “My Father’s Head’ is an uplifting story about mourning – Joycean in its reach. She exercises an extraordinary amount of control and yet the story is subtle, tender and moving. It is a story you want to return to the minute you finish it.”

Now in its fifteenth year, the annual £10 000 award celebrates short stories written by African authors published in English.

Oduor, who is now working on her first novel, had been shortlisted with South Africa’s Diane Awerbuck for her short story Phosphorescence, Efemia Chela from both Ghana and Zambia for Chicken, Zimbabwe’s Tendai Huchu for The Intervention, and Kenya’s Billy Kahora for The Gorilla’s Apprentice. Each will take home £500 prize money.

Oduor will be able to take up a month’s residence at Georgetown University in Washington DC, and will be invited to appear at the Open Book Festival in Cape Town in September, the Storymoja Hay Festival in Nairobi and the Ake Festival in Nigeria.

The Caine Prize is named after the late Sir Michael Caine, former chairman of the Booker Prize management committee.

Previous winners include Nigeria’s Tope Folarin in 2013 and Zimbabwe’s NoViolet Bulawayo in 2011.