This week, more than 3000 delegates are at the annual meetings of the African Development Bank (AfDB) in Kigali discussing new strategies to tackle poverty, underdevelopment, and put their weight behind global schemes that ensure Africa’s progress. To mark the occasion, UN Women Executive Director, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, published an OpEd today titled Women’s Role in the Next 50…
The truth about girls lives in Nigeria
In March this year, GirlHub Nigeria invited me to give a talk during Social Media Week Lagos, which I started with a prayer I’d written for little girls. I’d like to share it with you bearing in mind that it is not religion specific. Dear God, may the next generation of girls not grow up to worry…
Is feminism the right choice for you?
Before addressing the title topic, I just want to share that I have a piece about the abduction of girls in Nigeria at The Feminist Wire this week. Also this week The Guardian hosted a debate panel on African feminism based on Doreen’s guest blog here on MsAfropolitan. The panel (myself included) answered the question…
7 tips for African women bloggers
This is a follow up to a previous post “Why African women should blog” Happy women’s day! Sticking to my tradition of posting a “Seven” series blog every 8 March, this year I’m dedicating the slot to something that is at the heart of this blog, which is to encourage more women in the continent and diaspora…
What is conscientious feminism?
In July 1992, an international conference on Women in Africa and in the African Diaspora (WAAD) was held in Nigeria. WAAD was a rare incident: an interdisciplinary and international conference about African women in Africa. The conference, which took place in the Eastern town of Nsukka during an unusually dry week in July (precipitation for this month…
The difference between feminism and humanism
When it comes to labels, I like mine earnest but not intransigent. So there is something almost moving about someone (most often a man) asking a self-declared feminist like myself why I call myself a feminist and not a humanist. Almost. What prevents me from exultingly throwing my hands up in the air when a…
7 ways that Africa is shaping globalisation
Globalisation, the compression of the world through cultural exchanges and innovation, is not a new incident to Africa (nor any other part of the world for that matter). Africa is interwoven in a millennia-long global exchange, where it has often lost out but also benefited from and shaped the course of global innovation to a far…
What does feminine power look like?
Women and power is a current hot topic. It was much discussed at the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society, for instance, where I too spoke about this very theme last week. It has also been recently debated at the Harvard Business School, FEMNET and BBC’s 100 Women campaign. I welcome the increased emphasis on this topic because…
Guest post: I love African men too, but do they love me back?
This is a guest blog by Stephanie Kimou (pictured) who blogs at A Black Girl in the World *** Minna’s article last week on the reasons why she/we love African men, was pretty spot on right? I certainly appreciate African men and if I may be biased, especially West African men – *swoon*. I agree that…
Guest post: Musings of a Jamaican lesbian
This is a guest post by Andrea Dwyer. Contact info below the post. — Many of the privileges and rights I have as a naturalised U.S citizen, are unfortunately not afforded to my LGBTQ brothers and sisters around the world, such as in my home country, Jamaica. I love my country. She represents belonging and freedom…
We need to eroticise society
I know what you’re thinking: What do I mean by “eroticise” society and why on earth should we do that? Surely we are obsessed with sex as it is! Well, yes, sex is everywhere but Eros, i.e. Erotic love, isn’t. Our sexual culture is either prudish or pornographic. On one end, we are surrounded by explicit…
Meditations with Lorna Simpson
Why do I like pictures that seem ghostly? I’m not religious and I am no more spiritual than any one else. I’m not an atheist either but I cherish rational argument. I spend quite a lot of my time upside down, in Adho Mukha Svanasana and occasionally Urdhva Dhanurasana and so on, and yet despite my fondness for…
Guest blog: My mother and the marriage question
This is a guest blog by Stephanie Kimou (pictured) who blogs at A Black Girl in the World **** Most of my American friends do not think about marriage until around 33. Particularly those who I went to graduate school with in DC, they would laugh at the crazy stories that I would share about my mother. Her…
Second class citizen: African women and nationalism
When I think of nationalism, I think of Virginia Woolf’s words – “As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.” I too find that there is a tension between the terms ‘nation’ and ‘woman’. Nevertheless, having contributed to the New York Forum…
What I liked about Louise Mensch’s reality-based feminism piece
In a much debated OpEd last week by former conservative MP, Louise Mensch, Mensch defiantly declares that intersectionality is bollocks and that she for one, has “no intention of checking her privilege”. Mensch went on to hold this intersectional bollocks culpable for “the modern feminist movement […] wasting most of its time in frenzied internal debate about…
What role can women play in helping to shape their built environment?
This post is an extract from a Q&A by sixty7 Architecture Road, a Canadian site devoted to the built environment, which asked four individuals, from various professional backgrounds, and from different parts of the globe, to give answers to the question What role can women play in helping to shape their built environment? Read my…