How to Identify Witches

Witches are the bane of our lives in Nigeria, and that’s a fact! After spending years avoiding them by not going to the village or having anything to do with our illiterate relatives (because those people are prone to witchcraft), it appears that these people simply refuse to leave us alone! They’ve moved their ministry to towns and cities all across the country. The end-of-the-world is truly nigh! In fact Jesus should just come now!

As if we don’t have enough to deal with, everything is going to hell in a hand-basket! There are the feminists, the gays, the Illuminatis and all sorts that we have to battle with on cyberspace, now the witches are trying to take over!

Don’t get us wrong, we know that witches don’t really exist, it’s just that they do! They eat pregnancies, kill children, steal destinies, make people’s private parts disappear and sometimes make announcements in the newspapers concerning political parties!

Witches have taken over *insert hysteria*!

We at 9jafeminista, your ever-so-helpful-blogzine, have taken it upon ourselves, at the risk of losing our vaginas, penises, boobs and destinies,  to help you identify all the witches that might have moved into your neighbourhood, churches, offices or (horror!) homes. These helpful tips might be the saviour of your destiny, and maybe some money because you won’t have to take these people to spiritual leaders (who might charge you an arm and a leg because money is the vehicle of the ‘good news’ or is it that money is the root of all evil? But we won’t worry about those distinctions now)

The steps:

Skin tone: the first thing you have to do when meeting new people is to gauge their skin tones. As we all know black is the colour of evil, so how many shades of black is this black person you’re meeting? Is it warm brown? Dirty brown? Black-black? Dirty black? Blue-black? Night black? B-b-b-b-b-black!? The darker the skin tone of a person, the more likely they are to be witches. There are some yellow witches too but those ones are related to Mammy-Wata, so we won’t bother with those just yet. On the other hand, too much of a good thing is bad. So, those extremely yellow persons, who look as if they are newly ripened mangos, might just be witches!

Age- this is another telling indicator of witchcraft. Really old people are witches! Honestly! Look at it this way, Nigeria is the worst country in the world to grow to a ripe old age! Studies have it that the life expectation of an average Nigerian is forty years. What with the bad roads, terrible to non-existent health-care facilities, lassa fever, etcetera, forty years is even too long! So why would anyone dare to live for more than 60years and then get wrinkled and stooped, and black and talking to themselves and confessing to witchcraft… in saner climes some of these old people would have even been diagnosed with dementia, or Alzheimer’s, or depression, but luckily we are Nigerians and sanity is not our strong suit. All old people, including your granny, are witches! Avoid them at all costs! Encourage your children NOT to visit their grannies, aka your parents, because ALL OLD PEOPLE ARE WITCHES!

… Wait a second, young people are witches too! Yes we said it! Especially those ill-educated young girls from the villages. They usually come to town with all their earthly goods in a black polythene bag, most of the stuff in the bags are rags sef, in fact they wear rags all the time! We’ve heard of a young village girl whose clothes would turn to a rag as soon as she wears them, yup, like reverse Cinderella! These girls are about seven or eight years old and they’ve never been to school before in their lives! And their parents have sold them to be given out as housemaids! And they are poor because of the state of the economy and their parents can barely afford to feed them. These young witches are wicked! They don’t even take their baths even after being brought to the city! They are not to be trusted with babies! We all know there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with employing a six or seven year old as a housemaid, especially to take care of 3month old babies. There is NOTHING wrong with waking these children up at 5am to take care of our ajebutter children who can barely lift a finger! Please, please, as soon as you employ any of these children… better still don’t!

Sex – not that type you perv! We mean the sex assigned to you as soon as the doctor pulls you out of your mother’s womb and either spots a penis or a vagina. Sex is a huge determinant of whether you’re a witch or not, because, this might come as a shock to you, so brace yourself… women are witches! Yup! How many men have been accused of witchcraft and stoned to death? While you’re counting let’s just tell you something, it’s only women that are witches, especially and particularly poor women, or single to stupor women, or women who do not meet up with the current societal standard of beauty, or women who have not taken refuge under the benevolent patriarchal arms and conformed to societal rules or women who have crossed eyes, or women who have beards or women whose mouth are too sharp, or women who don’t have children, or women who are really not womanly enough, but most importantly, they are poor women, disempowered women, women suffering from mental health problems, women who are not soft enough.

There are too many women out there who are witches and we need to strip them down (very important to humiliate them) and then stone them. We’ll need a lot of stones though because these women make up the larger part of the society. But we can do this! Stone every single one of them, one woman at a time! Are we misogynists? No we don’t hate women! We are Nigerians, and we love our women with big bum-bums and tits! It’s just that those women who have turned down our advances and women who think too highly of themselves and women who don’t have big yanshes are witches! Women who refuse to SUBMIT, should be stoned to death, all of them!

Defying Gravity: THIS RIGHT HERE IS THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL! Kai! How can a mere human being defy gravity! Defying gravity comes in different forms, from jumping all the time, to putting your legs on the wall when you’re asleep, to morphing into birds (big black birds particularly, don’t forget black is the colour of ugly and evil) and to levitating. Hian! We’ve all read or watched badly filmed shots of old black women morphing into birds and FLYING! We all know about planes and helicopters and other things that fly, although most of us don’t know how these things perform this feat but we climb into planes without giving it a second thought! But the moment we smell a human being flying we just KNOW that these people are witches! Especially and particularly if they are dark skinned and are women. Flying is a sin! Are we sinners when we fly in an airplane? No! Should we be stoned to death? No! but the moment we hear that a non-oyinbo person is flying or has flown we congregate and stone the person to death because those people are witches! We do enjoy watching movies about monsters and vampires and human beings morphing into animals, well as long as they are Hollywood movies, those Nollywood people know how to treat such sin! Anybody who can fly in say, England or America would obviously be taken an interest in by the government and scientifically analysed, their methodology thoroughly studied. In Nigeria we stone them to death because we do not tolerate such nonsense! We like ourselves the way we are, our Ministry of ‘Science and Technology’ will soon be inventing pencils… you heard me right! We are just in the nick of time because pencils are yet to be invented. We are not backwards, we are forwards, we are brilliantly, shamelessly, and insanely fearful of anything that’s in the least different! Let fear continue to dodge our footsteps, let it rule us, let fear eat us from the insides out, that’s the way we’ve survived all these years by fearing even our shadows.

We hope these helpful tips will continue to guide and guard us throughout our lives, we shall continually tell our children and ourselves not to read books by Nigerians or other Africans about fantasy, although they can read ‘furreign’ books so they can acquire ‘furrigne’ accents and speak through their nostrils, ‘nspirin nspirin’. Do NOT let us progress beyond an economy of consumerism, do not let us invent anything new. Let our young women and men ‘disrupt’ how we import shit from other countries, while those other countries invent new things.

Finally, if all else fails we advise you to do The Mirror Test

The Mirror Test: This test has been passed down from one generation of witch-hunters to the next, the steps are very simple:-

1. Clean your mirror with soft cloth and white powder. Make sure it is sparkling.
2. Cover the mirror at 12midnight with a white cloth. Note that the mirror must be COMPLETELY COVERED.
3. Have a good night’s rest knowing that the witches haunting you shall be revealed soon
4. After 24hrs (i.e. 12 midnight the following day)
5. Take off all your clothes, including your underwear
6. Stand in front of the covered mirror
7. Close your eyes
8. Shout ‘Yeepa!’ Thrice
9. Pull off the mirror covering
10. The person you’re seeing in that mirror? That’s the witch eating your destiny!

Wait… can any of you explain how the internet works?

In 9ja, driving a car makes you Mrs Somebody By Fiyinfoluwa Akinsiku

I have been thinking about the times I’ve had to drive home from work, back and forth, about one and a half hours apiece, Mondays and Fridays, making it 3hours on the highway in a week, and the plenty comments I got from Nigerian Policemen.

Nigerian Policemen are a funny lot, I mean, the ones that stand on the roadside, and what I do anytime I remember all our meetings, is to smile. My friends think it’s because I’m female. Men do not have such hilarious moments with the famous men in black. But that is an issue for another day.

My marital status suddenly changed, courtesy of these famous men. From afar, driving and negotiating bends and swerving to avoid potholes and ditches, I would suddenly behold these men. (In fact, very early one morning, I drove past them while they had their heads bent in prayers.) Ok. So, one of them would be in the middle of the road, indicating that I should stop. I would then have to slow down o.

When we are abreast, the conversation would usually go like this:

Good day officer!

Ah.. madam the madam, how are you, how the family?

We are fine sir, thanks be to God.

Madam, I for escort you o, but I know say your husband go vex. Safe journey o.

I usually extend my laughter on comments as this.

And so, no checkpoint would pass without reference to this imaginary man The Nigeria Police has decided to amalgamate me with. Oh yes, I am female, and there would be no logical reason as to why a female would be driving if not for an Oga at the top, seated majestically behind the scene, after handing over a car key to his dear wife. A cop even told me categorically at a checkpoint after exchanging pleasantries, ‘greet your husband for me o!’

On another occasion, a Policeman said to me with a flirtatious smile lingering on his face, ‘hello baby!’ when a friend drove me in a company bus. Helping a stranded man on the road even meant him asking how my ‘husband and the kids are doing.’ And so, a car has become the determinant of my marital status.

As a Nigerian woman, I wonder why I have to be considered spineless, as somebody who can’t do anything on her own. I wonder if the “Mrs” hash-tag has to trend for the sheer and simple dignities of driving to work.

I never replied any comments about my phantom hubby. I would just laugh it off really. It only gave my brain something to chew and ultimately provided the muse with stuff, giving me a peepshow of the mind-state of an average person, and telling me patriarchy has been taken too far.

I used to think that times have changed, that since women have now reached amazing heights, society can loosen up, a bit. At least, can’t they see what the Ellen Johnson-Sirleafs and Angela Merkels and Joyce Bandas have become? Or maybe I’m expecting too much from a traditional African society. Maybe not. Or maybe I’m expecting change to come too soon.

And so, Dear Policemen, I cannot categorically tell you I am Mrs Somebody, because my marital status has been made known to you by my Oga at the top, and it is not ‘married’. Thank You.

On Yorubaname.com, Diversity and a paucity of women in governance: An interview with Kola Tubosun

Kola is a feminist married to a feminist (don’t have a heart attack neither of them is transsexual) a   teacher, father and a firm believer in diversity. He’s a culture advocate who is gradually working his way into becoming one of the foremost authorities on the propagation of Yoruba Language. 9jafeminista caught up with him on Facebook post election and we decided to have a chat with him.

9jafeminista: You’re a writer, a teacher, a husband, a father, editor of a couple of online magazines, you recently ran a successful fundraiser online and launched Yoruba names dictionary… Where do you find the energy to combine all these and quite successfully too?

 Kola Tubosun: Hmm, When you list them like that, it sounds like a huge deal. In actual fact, most of what I do are regimented. I work in the school from 8am to 4pm. I try but am often unable to do much else during that period. But miracles happen. Then I have some time usually between 4pm and 7pm to follow up on other personal commitments. It got overwhelming at some point, so I had to re-strategize at the beginning of the year. I recently hung up my pen as the editor of the NTLitMag but I know that it hasn’t fully excused me from other responsibilities on that publication, and to writing in general. Good planning, sleeping, and exercising, help.

9jafeminista: When Nlitmag was launched I felt it was an ambitious project in a Nigeria that was really on a large scale, indifferent to the arts generally. Would you say a lot of things have changed since those days?

Kola Tubosun: Well, the magazine was carved out of NigeriansTalk itself as a way to showcase literature from the usually unheard voices and perspectives in Nigeria and around the continent. It wasn’t meant to be “large scale” as such, or anything, but merely a platform to let deserving voices be heard on a monthly basis. We have achieved that aim over the two plus years that we ran it, reaching thousands of readers and writers. Now it needs a new leadership and a new direction and I look forward to seeing where else it can go.

 9jafeminista: Although you’ve tried to downplay how hard you work and the way you manage to deploy your different talents effectively. I’m curious about your latest baby… The Yoruba names dictionary. How did you birth the idea, why do you think it is important that we have that kind of website now, how relevant is it in today’s village we still erroneously consider a world?

Kola Tubosun: When I think about it – and I have done that quite often these days – the idea has always been there. My father always said that there are no stupid questions, so my memory of growing up around him throws up several instances of my restless curiosity about words, names, events etc. He patiently explained them to me, and I’ve retained a lot of those imparted knowledge. However, at adulthood, I realize how much of the information held by adults will disappear with their demise, and how much we’d have lost by buying into a “globalized” culture that celebrates monolingualism (and monoculturalism) at the expense of our own language and cultural experience. This I find totally unacceptable, And when I realized that I have in my power to change things, I also realized how late it seems and how much earlier I (and many more people with similar skills and motivations) should have been on this. To be fair, many have (See Tunde Adegbola, Francis Egbokhare, Ron Schaefer, Tunde Kelani, Akinwumi Ishola, etc), but note that they’re all adults. Where is the new breed? Where are the leaders to take the mantle into the new generation?

So, to answer your question specifically, this Yoruba Dictionary of Names started as an undergraduate project while I was in the final year at the University of Ibadan in 2005. But it is an extension of a number of years of looking for something like this. They say if you look for something and you can’t find it. Create it. In 2015, ten years later, I finally found enough people to make it happen as I’d want it.

And to your final question: how relevant will it be? Let me answer this in a minimalist way, and say that even if all the dictionary does is provide a way for ME to be able to find the meaning of any Yoruba name that I want whenever I want it, and for my son’s benefit as well, I will have succeeded. However, I assume that it will have the same (or more) benefit for a lot more people in the world, and that is an added benefit.

9jafeminista: Well you’ve made your point about how globalisation appears to be snuffing out diversity. Could you talk a bit more about that?

Kola Tubosun: As per globalisation, this is – just as the name implies – a global problem. The problem is in a false belief in the acceptance of ONE culture and language as the panacea to the problem of global distrust and misunderstanding. That if we all speak English (or that we all do anyway), we won’t have as much problems in the world. People who make that argument however don’t say yes when you substitute “English” in this case for, let’s say, “Hausa” or “German”. I think it’s fueled by a kind of laziness (or to be charitable, “conservatism” – a belief that things are already how they are. Why change?). The end result is the extinction of thousands of languages and, along with them, cultures and worldviews that could only have added to us.

On the one hand, the predominance of English is there to help communication and global interaction. Nothing is wrong with that. But the attendant consequence of discounting our own languages (or feeling ashamed about them) is the drawback. Go around Nigeria today and find out how many parents still speak their language to their children. Then find out why. You’ll be ashamed.

9jafeminista: Let’s talk about Nigeria’ and her multifaceted problems mostly fueled by the patriarchy. I know you followed the recent elections that ushered Muhamad Buhari in as the president. The absence of women in our political space was emphasized by the only woman running for the presidency Remi Sonaiya … And we know how that went… How do you think we can address this problem?

Kola Tubosun: Nigeria’s experiment with civil rule is new, and so can be excused for dragging its feet on some of the crucial indices of progress. I’m buoyed by the fact that women have, even in our recent past, proven themselves capable of doing great things in the public space. I speak of Dora Akunyili, Oby Ezekwesili, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, among many others. Ours is a patriarchal continent, for the most part, and it will take a while for our politics to reflect anything different from our centuries of socialization and conditioning.

9jafeminista: Half of the voters are women as at the last census… So why this tokenism? A kind of ‘just take and shut up’ thing successive governments have done. The way lip service is paid to “the female-gender” (whatever that is) and the past president’s boast of being a feminist… But we need more women in governance! Were can’t keep using our ‘young’ civil rule as an excuse

Kola Tubosun: You’re right, and I think more women should vie for positions of power. But I don’t think that we want women to be voted in JUST because they’re women either. I preferred Obama in 2008 to Clinton, but only because I believed him to be more capable. If the US election today is between Elizabeth Warren and anyone else, I’ll choose Warren. Also, because she’s put herself out there, and because she’s capable. We have many capable women in Nigeria, but where are they in the public space?

9jafeminista: Doesn’t this take us back to the question of patriarchy? Especially when you think about godfatherism in our political space and glass ceilings preventing women from achieving their true potential

Kola Tubosun: True. And we’re not alone. I find it interesting, for instance, that it has taken America this long to even consider a woman for that top position, in the number of centuries they’ve had presidents. Talk about institutional patriarchy! We at least had a woman presidential candidate just 16 years into our new democratic experience. It’s not perfect, what we have. Actually, it’s terrible, considering the number of strong women we’ve had in our history, from Madam Tinubu to Mrs. Funmilayo Kuti. But I believe that the problem is a societal one. Our government is a representative of who we are. It’s like a chicken and egg situation. Writers are already doing their part. Artists should follow. And we as a people should stop encouraging Nollywood movies that cast women as helpless, hapless, creatures when they are not being cast as witches or husband thieves. We should begin to tell their stories as strong agents of positive change in the world. Things won’t change if we merely expect it to.

Editorial: 12 yards of Wife Material for Christmas (I)

A friend of ours and her twin sister are quite accomplished in their chosen fields, fierce, strong, independent women in their early thirties, living fulfilled lives… but their mother is worried, emm, they are not married and worse still, they are not wife material at all!

culled from myweddingnigeria.com

One of them read engineering and is a fantastic money manager, she’s already started acquiring properties and she’s  good at fixing things like furniture, fixtures, generators, cars … did we mention generators? And oh, she has this unfortunate propensity for not wearing skirts and gowns, she’d rather wear trousers, because she finds them comfortable and she wears her hair in a low cut, because … it is easier to maintain.

Nope! Not wife material at all!

Her twin sister is her complete opposite, quiet, reserved, loves keeping house and cooking, all soft curves and elegant gowns and dangling earrings. She wears gorgeous make-up and soft scenting perfumes that reminds you of the woman placed on a pedestal by the patriarchy … BUT she told her mother, quite frankly, that having children is not something she owes her, and as far as she’s concerned, if her mother wanted more grandchildren, she might as well go and adopt them.

Nope! Not wife material at all!

Being wife material is quite simple – Nigerian men have had this list since… oh well, since we left our proverbial cave and stopped grunting.

As we at 9jafeminista, want all you Nigerian girls out there to find husband, we are kindly listing twelve of these ‘qualities’ so that you can, well, grab yourself a husband… now!

Here it goes.

Qualities of wife material

1. Must be soft: Yup, all you butch ladies out there who love jogging, weightlifting, boxing, footballing etceteraetceteraetcetera! Must stop it now! Please I beg of you, stop going around with your bulging muscles, it is quite threatening. Let your stomachs be rounded, your hips flare, let that your bumbum that the good Lord gave you jiggle and wiggle, so that anytime Timaya comes and sing, ‘shake your bum-bum’ your bumbum will actually wiggle and not do that stiff ‘useless bottom shaken by force’ thing. And if you don’t have it, fake it! There are fake bumbums out there ladies, all you need to do is spend a few thousand naira to buy a strap-on … sorry to buy a fake bum. This advise applies to slender ladies with boy-like hips too. Your husband must come this year IJN! Soft can also apply to your brain … you know … as in ‘soft-in-the-head’.
2. Must be tough: Wife materials are tough, hardworking disciplinarians, able to carry a baby in one arm, a mortar and pestle in the other hand, and the troubles of the world on her head! How you’ll manage to do all these without developing muscles is no concern of the men, just do it! A wife material is Superwoman! You don’t know who she is? Google is your answer. This woman is strong (note: without muscles or moustache or bea-bea) she can cook a meal for a family of five or six (or seven) with five hundred naira, she must know how to stare down peppersellers and butchers (without looking like a man) and deal with her family with a firm hand. The thing is you must not be tough … like a man. Only men can be tough … like a man, women are to be tough … like a … umm … brb
3. Must know how to cook/clean: Let your inner housemaids out ladies, do not hold it back. Some girls claim they’d

   

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   rather cook than clean while others claim they’d rather clean than cook. To be a wife material, you do not have a choice in this matter. Hold your mops, brooms and ironing board in one hand, and the cooking stove in the other. Luckily for you the federal government of Nigeria has decided to help you out in this by deciding to buy every woman cooking stoves! Yayest! So what are you waiting for? And when we say cooking, we don’t mean those noodles cooking girls o! We are talking REAL food for REAL men. Food like – Pounded Yam (don’t go and cheat by cooking that fake poundo! You need a proper pestle and mortar for this), amala, eba, edika-ikong, starch, okro, fish stew and lots of beef! Your man needs good food to be able to perform his manly duties! Abeg don’t go and hire a housemaid o! The under-aged ones are totally useless and the young ladies will just snatch the husband that you have worked so hard for … this will not be your portion IJN!

4. Must be sexy: Presently sexy means curvy – big yansh, flat stomach, big breast, perfectly made up face. None of those sloppy skirt wearing thing. If you want to wear jeans do the tight ones that show your hips to an advantage, no dressing like boys. Being sexy in a ‘responsible’ way will get you a husband with the snap of a finger. You must be sexy in a kind of way that is not seductive… classy sexy… sexily unalluring, baring your breasts without baring it, emphasizing your big yansh in a discreet way, you do not want to give the impression that you are being sexy while you are being sexy, you do not want to wear clothes that will ‘tempt’ men all the while ‘tempting’ them. You don’t understand? Neither do we…
5. Must be ‘not slutty’: A wife material cannot afford to be slutty. Being slutty is the beginning of the tearing of your wife material into pieces. Being slutty means you’re no longer a virgin, it means your ‘body count’ is higher than… umm … one. It means you enjoy sex (oin?). You must be demure, you cannot afford to enjoy sex, asking for an orgasm is the undoing of you. A wife material does not like sex, she is frigid, she allows her man to have sex with her for one reason only – to bear children. As a woman, your totality is your womb, and to guarantee that your womb is in perfect working order so that the Great Black Man with a Huge Dick can impregnate you … your womb must remain unsullied, your ovaries must jump with joy, your monthly period must flow and that is the reason why you must remain a virgin, so that you will not come and be going to spoil your womb. But … the good news sisters, is that if your body count is higher than two, as long as you ‘confess’ your sins to your ‘man’ and reduce your body count, you can still have your 12yards of wife material. Which means, if you have a body count of like say … 10, you can ‘confess’ two, to your man so … you can thank us by sending us a piece of your wedding cake.
6. Must not be too bookish: The problem with women who read too much is that, they have a big problem. Their problems are quite many. Some of them read so much they go and acquire second and third degrees, the ones that are quite stark raving mad are those who acquire PhD’s … I mean who in the world, planning to have that happily ever after marriage that has eluded so many people – does that? The worse ones are the ones that acquire their PhD’s while still single! Let’s do the maths together. You spend four to five years (from birth) in a nursery school, you spend the next six years in primary school, another six years in secondary school(sixteen whole years wasted already!) Then you go and do a first degree for four plus x years (the Nigerian university system is weird, you spend nothing less than six years plus to read a four year course) and that’s not adding the three years or so you spent resitting JAMB and GCE …(to be continued)

Is this what a Feminist looks like?

I have been a feminist since I was 10 years old.

I have loved my older brother since I can remember and he was a magnificent boy and an even greater brother. He was strong, smart, and swift. I followed him around and was sure I was going to be just like him.

It was cute, until I was 10 and the world told me I could not be like my brother in subtle but important ways. You talk too much, why do you think you will be president of the world… they will ask.

I was outraged and decided they were wrong and that I was and could be all that my brother was and would be. That was the beginning of my feminism and I imagine that there are millions of little girls who come to feminism much the same way. A male figure whom they loved and wanted to be like and the world who insisted they were less because of their vaginas and ability to bear children.

I believe this sense of injustice is natural during the innocence of childhood but on the road to womanhood, many of us are taught out of it. We learn to exchange this sense of injustice for an acceptance of patriarchy and a womanhood and motherhood that diminishes all we are and could have been. Many even learn to become the defender of patriarchy, essentially voting against their own interest, in exchange for useless accolades as perfect wives and best mothers.

As a 10 year old, I did not have a name for outrage about how my world was ordered until a decade later, in a women’s study class in a little state university in Minnesota. I learnt about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her organizing and a little bit of her racism, I learnt of Sojourner Truth and Sister Soulja and black feminism. I met bell hooks’s militancy and tried to accept it all and find a way to tailor all these feminisms into who I was and who I wanted to become. Also I was preoccupied with how Beyonce (the one I was truly enthralled with) would fit in all of this. I read and I learnt but it wasn’t enough so I came home.

I have written about what feminism means to me HERE so I will not rehash it but to state that feminism as it’s core argues for the equality of the sexes, as eloquently stated by Chimanmanda Adichie. I must mention that it doesn’t argue for equality in the outcome but a true equality in the opportunities presented to all of our children. Feminists, according to Sheryl Sandberg, will be happy when 50 percent of young women run our countries, businesses and religious institutions and 50% of our boys rear their children and run their homes. Which naturally means that 50% of our men will run our public sphere while the other 50% of women will still run their homes. Thus feminism isn’t about reducing men’s influence or hating men but it argues for an egalitarian system truly based on merit and helping all of our children, boys and girls, fulfill their potential.

The world is worse off when a deeply religious and fundamentally called to service girl is kept from leading a flock simply because she is in possession of a vagina. Likewise, when a boy who wants to nurture his children and dedicate his life to their wellbeing is told that he is weak or somehow less of a great man because of his penis. As a mother of a little boy and as one who was a little girl once, I want a world that is just and that allows myself and my son to be all that we want and could be without judgment.

The patriarchy has managed to build a deeply structural system that prevents a truly egalitarian world. There are so many systems that keep women from work or forces them into diminished roles that it will take quite a long time to unpack all of them.

Sexual assaults, female genital mutilations, real discrimination in the work place, unequal pay for equal work, are all some of the real world factors that keep girls back. The thing that I am most committed to, notwithstanding the importance of all the other factors, is reproductive justice, which in my understanding includes maternal care and yes, access to health care that allows women to control their reproduction and choose.

Millions of women get pregnant every year; many of them are giddy and ecstatic over this blessing, many of them give birth to beautiful children and launch lives filled with the most intense love and a deep sense of accomplishment. I am one of them and my little boy is an incredible blessing, one that I am deeply grateful for. However, millions of women carry children they do not want to bear and are severely worse off physically, financially, and emotionally because of their pregnancies. Many more, who might want these children, or not, lose their lives through this process, leaving behind little children without mothers and full lives of their own. This injustice, this senseless loss of life and self-determination, should be unacceptable to us all.

Here are the facts: Each year about 34,000 to 54,000 able-bodied women die because of our horrible health system. I give you those numbers because we actually do not know why these women die. Yes, Nigeria, a middle-income oil rich nation, does not know how many mothers she buries each year. And if she does not know how many, how will she know why and if she does not know why, how can she stop this horror.

This I find incredibly outrageous and unacceptable. So from a deeply personal outrage when I was 10 years old, I find that my feminism is now rooted in the defense of female lives. It seems to be that before we must argue for equality, we at least must ensure survival of those who will be equal.