African women

Aya: The Secrets Come Out (Volume Three)

admin — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Last summer, in dire need of some pure escapism, I stumbled upon the four-volume Aya comic book series. Inspired by author Marguerite Abouet’s childhood, this series takes us back to the late 1970s on the Ivory Coast to a suburb of Abidjan, Yopougon, known affectionately as Yop City to its residents. What initially piqued my interest was finding a series taken from the point of view of Aya, a nineteen-year-old African woman—indeed a rare occurrence. Although the bright and studious Aya is the main character, the storyline revolves around the lives of three Yop city families: Aya’s and those of her two friends, Bintou and Adjoua.

Aya is different from her friends. She is serious and plans to become a doctor, while her friends prefer the nightlife of the maquis, a type of outdoor restaurant and dance bar. Aya is a friend to many in her community. She empowers the powerless, but also puts her friends in their place when they need it. Aya is not perfect, and her family has its share of problems.

In The Secrets Come Out, the third volume of the series, the mistress of Aya’s father stirs the pot when she arrives unannounced on his doorstep with two additional little surprises. Aya is deeply ashamed of her father’s behaviour and begs her mother to teach the wayward Ignace a lesson. This event is quickly overshadowed by the announcement of the skinny and bespectacled Koffi, Bintou's father, that he is going to take a second wife the same age as his daughter. His news creates an uproariously funny fallout in the community. Of the four volumes, The Secrets Come Out is by far the most humorous.

Instead of concentrating on the various scourges that plague Africa, the Aya series presents the quickly changing fortunes of people living on the Ivory Coast, and there are also a few bonus features at the back of the book to get you better acquainted with some of the customs, recipes, and lingo used there. We see an Africa replete with intrigue, beauty, and humour. The Yop City of the late 1970s mirrors many of the same social issues that we were dealing with ourselves at the time in North America: homosexuality, infidelity and the changing roles of women. As for polygamy, although it is illegal, we can’t forget that it is practiced in North America.

Although the story of Aya will draw you in, it is the panels by Clément Oubrerie that gives this series its pure escapism. Not only are his drawings good, but his choice of colours are exceptional. I particularly enjoyed the range of blues and violets that he used for the night scenes. This is an excellent translation from the original French series.

Written by: Heather Leighton, April 19th 2010

Enterprising Women in Urban Zimbabwe: Gender, Microbusiness, and Globalization

admin — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 08:52:00 +0000

By Mary Johnson Osirim

Indiana University Press

In the early 1990s, Mary Osirim took a team of interviewers to several urban areas in Zimbabwe to learn about the lives and financial status of women working in the “microenterprise sector.” She found that while women were largely excluded from education and much of the Zimbabwean economy, some had found a niche as crocheters, seamstresses, hairdressers, and “market traders” in fruits and vegetables and other goods.

There is plenty of sociological theory—the author is, after all, an eminent sociologist—much of it concerning the damage wrought by globalization generally and more specifically by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Economic Structural Adjustment Program of 1991, which seem here to overshadow colonialism and even patriarchy as root causes of poverty and oppression. And there are a lot of statistics: “Seventy-nine percent of the traders reported that they made all decisions about the use of profits from their enterprises”—which are suggestive, if taken from small sample sizes.

The essence of Enterprising Women in Urban Zimbabwe is in the voices of the women themselves. These women are trying to survive in jobs that have them vending in outdoors stalls in all weather and economic vagaries—many of them providing for families and extended families. The interviewers ask questions like “Why did you start this business?” and “Who makes the decisions in your family?” and “Does your husband assist with domestic duties?” The answers, although too often painfully synoptic, provide a mixed picture of these women’s experiences. Many of them are living on dreams deferred, still hoping that a career as nurse or air hostess is not entirely out of reach.

One crocheter reports, “I’m happy because [my husband] does not hit me. I live nicely. He gives me money.” One of the recurrent themes embedded here is the struggle for autonomy as made manifest in the women’s earnings: “Husband makes decisions about money and bills.” In some of the accounts, one can hear echoes of the novels of Buchi Emecheta, although her work captures a different time and place.

Time and place present a problem in this study. First, the interviews are fifteen years old, and so are most of the bibliographic references. In the Zimbabwe of the early 1990s, many apparently held out hope that Robert Mugabe would acknowledge the role women played in gaining Zimbabwean independence by creating meaningful reforms allowing women greater access to education and the workplace. Locating the study specifically in Zimbabwe is also somewhat problematic in that the workers are “cross-border traders" coming from, traveling to, and trading with nations throughout the region. In the strictest sense, their lives and experiences are not exclusively Zimbabwean.

Still, Enterprising Women in Urban Zimbabwe is a valuable report on the status of a worldwide phenomenon; the term “enterprising women” is more a generic label than a specific title: the transformative possibility of women’s entrepreneurial work throughout the world. At least in terms of this report, the experience of women in “microbusiness” has mitigated poverty for some, brought some measure of financial independence for some, and has changed the lives of a few. Overall, though, it does not, at least in Zimbabwe, seem to have had large-scale transforming effects in either the status of women or in the patriarchal traditions or the laws that still oppress them.

Written by: Rick Taylor, October 2nd 2009

Lumo: One Young Woman's Struggle to Heal in a Nation Beset By War

admin — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:14:00 +0000

Directed by Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt, Nelson Walker III

Goma Film Project

Lumo is a documentary, named after its central character, of an African woman healing from a rape endured by military men that left her with a medical condition called fistula, a tear in the wall between the vagina and bladder caused by violent rape. It left her incontinent and uncertain of her chances to birth children. Like so many women who bear the heaviest and agonizing brutality in war-torn countries, rape is the most barbaric and common war crime committed against African women. While others think of terror in the form of bombs, missiles, and heavy artillery, Lumo recognizes rape as the most treacherous act of war, which claims the lives of so many women and leaves them in unspeakable suffering.

The film follows Lumo as she travels from her village, where she has been rejected by her fiancé, neglected by her family, and ostracized by her community, to Goma, a region in the Democratic Republic of Congo where she will receive treatment from HEAL Africa, an internationally sponsored hospital that provides services for rape survivors. Lumo will stay at the hospital for an unknown period of time until she physically and psychologically recovers from her trauma.

Although the tempo is slow, the documentary absorbs every painful detail of Lumo’s healing process. As if reflecting the pace of healing itself, the arduous and tedious speed of the film unnerves the viewer as the agony of the fistula is unmasked. Leaking urine, one of the symptoms of the fistula, cast Lumo and these other survivors into a world where they are further violated and isolated because of their condition. The cinematography is gripping. The facial portraits of the women are burned into the viewer's memory.

Lumo also moves between disparity and the power of faith. It largely focuses on Christianity as a source of strength and hangs the hope of medical miracles on Jesus and images of God as the savior. The survivors are repeatedly told to pray for their healing and ask God for complete recovery.

Central to Lumo’s message is the unflinching commentary on the lives of the women who will return to their homes after months, or sometimes years, of treatment. They will return to the world of rejection and rebel-occupied villages where they will live in danger of being raped again.

The film interacts with other components of gender domination and oppression–state violence and government officials who use victim-blaming language–to expose all facets of the cycle which perpetuate the cycle of violence against and degradation of women. In every society, in every part of the world, sexual violence is a crime against humanity. It will transform its face based on language, environment, and culture, but Lumo points out that violence against women remains the greatest commonality among all social sins, and no nation has taken steps toward absolution.

After witnessing the journey of one woman, viewers will be compelled to search for Lumo in their own community, city, town, or village. Lumo can and is everywhere. She is anywhere and everywhere violence against women persists.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, July 28th 2009

Tapologo

admin — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:34:00 +0000

Directed by Gabriella Gutierrez Dewar, Sally Gutierrez Dewar

Tapologo is a full-length documentary shot in Northwest Province, South Africa. Directors Gabriella and Sally Gutierrez Dewar chronicle a handful of the 20,000 displaced African refugees in a squatter camp called Freedom Park. Here we are exposed to life and death in a place where fifty percent of the women are infected with HIV.

The film is divided into two parts. Part one opens inside the shack of an emaciated woman receiving care from two local nurses. The woman is dying from Tuberculosis, and for a moment she glances directly into the camera lens with brown eyes that appear to have lost all innocence and hope. As we get to know other patients and nurses who inhabit the park, we see that most of the women have slept with men for money, many have contracted HIV, yet only some are receiving anti-retroviral treatment. All of them are either dying or fighting to survive. Personal accounts from the women are interlaced with stunning visual images that are both emotional and relevant, and the intensity never lets up.

The second part begins with desolate music by Joel Assaizky and shots of people walking across train tracks, sitting on sides of roads, just standing around watching each other. This time is spent contextualizing the squalor of Freedom Park in the apartheid aftermath. In a place where the alternative to starvation is sexual exploitation, it’s impossible to ignore the political history.

Then we learn about Tapologo, a collective of female caregivers who self-organize and treat the hopelessness of their immediate surroundings. Before this network existed, individuals were left alone with their chronic diseases as poverty and pain devoured them. Now these strong women, many of them diagnosed with HIV themselves, have begun to administer anti-retroviral treatment and provide bedside and hospice care. As a result, a community has begun to form, and with the help of Brother Joe, Sister Georgina, and bishop Kevin Dowling (Catholic community leaders and activists who share relatively progressive ideology), Tapologo has begun to break Freedom Park's cycle of poverty, patriarchy and an overall loss of dignity.

One scene in particular illustrates the spirit of this film. A nurse named Thimbi (a former sex-worker and HIV victim) pays a visit to the shack of a helpless woman and her infant. She says confidently, "Filth can make the illness worse," and begins to wash dishes and floors on her hands and knees. For Thimbi and others, volunteering with Tapologo gave them a chance to believe in themselves, to find beauty within, and to be proud of life's small victories. This moment, and this film, is a great reminder to step out of our daily comforts and confront real issues facing real women.

Written by: Katy Pine, June 25th 2009

Women Writing Africa: The Northern Region

admin — Thu, 28 May 2009 09:03:00 +0000

Edited by Fatima Sadiqi, Amira Nowaira, Azza El Kholy, Mona Ennaji

The Feminist Press

Women Writing Africa: The Northern Region is the fourth in a series of volumes, following The Southern Region, The Eastern Region, and West Africa and the Sahel. It provides a thorough documentation of women's lives from the fifteenth century BCE to the present in nations from the nations of Algeria, Egypt, Mauretania, Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia. Subjects addressed include cooking and colonialism, torts and torture, polygamy and the veil, love songs, and repeated calls for women's education. Forms in the anthology include prose, poetry, lyric, legal documents, petitions, folktales, and transcriptions of tellings by illiterates.

The poet I'timad Arrummaikiyya could be construed an eleventh century Lil' Kim—“I urge you to come faster than the wind to mount my breast and firmly dig and plough my body, and don't let go until you've flushed me thrice.”—and there are equally passionate protestations of faith from Christian and Islamic perspectives. Sara, daughter of Abboud Al-Nahid, filed for a no-fault divorce in 1069 due to “feelings of aversion for (her husband's) person”—a reassuring glimpse at the consistency of intimate dramas (no support, she takes custody of a five year-old son).

A general reader, I found the collection a varied and thorough introduction to the history of the area, my previous exposure having been restricted, unfortunately, to the Tutankhamen exhibit at Seattle's Art Museum in 1978 and the movie The Battle of Algiers. The necessity of education is a persistent theme—Nabaweya Moussa refers to the Egyptian proverb: “Teach girls to spin, but don't teach them to write.” Personal narratives include girls learning through eavesdropping on brothers' lessons, young women applying to school in secret and paying the tuition themselves, and illiterate mothers sneaking their daughters into academies (one girl goes on to earn a doctorate becomes a physicist). Faiza W. Shereen's previously unpublished short story “The Gifts of Time” spans decades and continents to narrate family and history. We can only hope that the call at the close of Mona Nawal Helmi's “From this Day Forward I Will Carry My Mother's Name” is right: “We've had enough futile, ineffectual babbling!”

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, May 28th 2009

Pray The Devil Back To Hell

admin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:15:00 +0000

Directed by Gini Reticker

Fork Films

Imagine all the worst atrocities that can be committed against women. Think of all of the greatest evils that stain a country with corruption and greed. Then, in the direst of situations, imagine how a group of women could change the face of blood and hopelessness. This is the story of Pray the Devil Back to Hell.

Not the devil with a pitchfork, the devil referenced in this film is the evil that we all fear—women and men alike. The darkest of all oppression are the sins committed against innocent children: turning sons into drug addicted child soldiers, the rape of young daughters, and the burning injustice of war. This is the story of Liberia, a country founded by freed slaves in 1847 that erupted into civil war in 1989.

This film focuses primarily on the story told by Leymah Gbowee, a social worker and organizer of the Christian Women’s Initiative, which joined with Muslim women to fight for peace in Liberia after years of hunger, death, and silence. Gbowee explains the misery of an oppressive government led by president Charles Taylor and the unrestrained rebels, the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), who only knew violent tactics to overthrow Taylor.

Pray the Devil Back to Hell is like an elevator ride that first descends into the depths of hell itself with footage from the mangled streets and haunting images of young, smiling boys with guns. The accounts of rape and the killing sprees are graphic, sharply and painfully illustrating an almost surreal world of unimaginable terror.

Then the elevator ascends, jaggedly and slowly into the unfolding vision by women—both Christian and Muslim—who first plead, then appeal, and then demand peace. The strength and vibrant spirit of community unify the Liberian women in their praying, organizing, protesting, fasting, marching, and sit-ins. The film points the viewer to all the stages where women’s presence is necessary, from the spreading violence of warlords to the United Nations peacekeeping "experts" who organized the near disastrous disarmament, to the electing of the first women president in Africa.

This film is a succinct seventy-four minute lesson and testament to the fear and power of grassroots organizing and the legacy of a women’s movement birthed in a harrowing era of Liberian history. It is stripped of lofty academic jargon and nothing short of mesmerizing, horrific, and jolting. Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the living conflict of prayer, action, and justice-seeking love of country and brethren.

The importance of this film cannot be overstated. It is a model of what is possible and what should be strived for in times of naked tyranny and oppression. It is the inspiring and empowering story of what can be overcome when women are gathered for common purpose and love.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, April 7th 2009