There is something so unique and captivating about the woman, correction, the Black, African woman. Many of us can bear witness to a mother whose perseverance in times of great strife and opposition was still dominant. It’s not rare to hear of African families whose mothers lifted their homes. They say the wife is the neck? That must have been lots of bent, craning necks, if you ask me. How? How did they do it? It is for this reason that as female African millenials, many of us are starting to ask ourselves if that’s a role we could ever take on. It’s probably why the idea of marriage is not appealing for many. Perhaps.
This photo series was an ode to many women who went before me. Asantewa, Winnie Madikizela (I don’t use her marital surname because she was, she is an icon in her own right- not merely by association to the equally legendary, Nelson Mandela), my Mother. Women who were bent, but never broken. What a time to be alive!
As I wore the chains on my wrist as an ‘accessory’, it was in thankfulness that the same chains that bound those who went before me because they were Women and they were African, still exist but can now be manipulated to my own advantage – Now, I have a say. I can be who I want to be, I am enfranchised and I have a choice as to whom I marry, IF I want to be married.
As many people begin to create a frenzy around feminism, I hope that we give credit to the real shakers… the ones who were proponents for the cause before they even knew what the cause meant. The ones who not only fought for the socio-economic equality of men and women but the ones who fought for African women -‘Womanism’, specifically because let’s face it, our plight is so much more different from our counterparts in Europe. Similar but Different. The ones who fought before Twitter, when fighting was uncomfortable and even life threatening.
I hope that when you choose, because that is something that has been gifted to you by them, when we shout about feminism and the presence or lack thereof of opening doors, that we remember the very intricate and de-humanizing reasons, it all began in the first place. That we give voice to the important issues: Child marriage, girls used in repayment of loans, female genital mutilation, trafficking, etc. I hope that when we speak and share commentary, we remember the plight of those whose voices have been stifled, and we speak for them.
Black. Woman. Proud… do I have a right to be? Have I fought the good fight? Have you?
Credits
Model: Moyosola (@themoyosola)
Photographer: Anny Robert (@anny_robert)
Poem: Jennifer Andrew (@jennieifeatu)
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