Congrats, Black Looks/ Women Who Rock

Seeing as I have a quotable from Nawal el-Sadaawi a few posts ago, it seems fitting to mention that the premier grant-making organization for African women NGOs AWDF has a list out of the top 50 African feminists doing big things.

As you've probably guessed, el-Sadaawi herself is on that list. So are other notables like Nigerian actress Joke Silva, singer Angelique Kidjo, Ghanaian filmmaker who directed the remarkable "The Witches of Gambaga" Yaba Badoe, and the green champion herself Wangari Maathai.

Still, the list would have been incomplete for me without fellow blogger Sokari Ekine, who got a mention for "Utilising the power of blogging and new technology to promote the rights of women and LGBTQI persons". Congratulations, Woman!

And if you're curious about The Witches of Gambaga, a film following 2 women -- among the over 1,000 accused of being witches of northern Ghana -- from a camp that housed them after they were ostracized back to their homes, check out The Guardian's video on the documentary here.

For the Ladies - In Rap, as in Life

I've been re-listening to Biggie, especially some of his gems on Ready to Die and came across some of the Junior Mafia tracks that features Lil' Kim. It got me wondering about Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj. And, for a hot second, Jay-Z and Foxy Brown. All the female proteges were hot rappers on their own, but word is Weezy writes some of Nicki's stuff. Ditto for Biggie and Kim. I'm not sure about Jay and Foxy (was in Nigeria at the time, and I was a kid) but I bet there was talk of that, too.

Seriously, what's up with that??

It's not like these ladies can't rap. Before Nicki put on so much plastic she's now somewhere between Terminator and Barbie, she was actually a sick rapper (OK, still is). I heard her rhyme tight on that "Warning" remix she did back in the day, and if that was any indication, she does NOT need anybody writing for her. Even for Kim, when you hear her stuff after her Biggie, you can see she's a dope rapper. It makes you wonder why the hand-holding was necessary.

Rap is obviously very much a testosterone-filled industry mostly catering to young guys with a need to let their id run wild. My point is that if you're going to have a female rapper, then have a female rapper who's dope, who can slay anyone in front of her in a battle, who has earned her place.

I refuse to believe that overt sexuality among female rappers precludes them from being toe-to-toe with other rappers male AND female(Of course, Eve definitely tones it down more than, say, Kim or Nicki). Someone should ask the more popular female rappers what they think the relationship between them and the male rappers is. And if its not the sexuality holding them back -- and I don't think it is -- them what is it? Why do they feel as though they have to split the playground and separate the players by gender? I remember how annoyed I was by Busta in that "Touch it" remix he said "I'm not even gonna talk to y'all/I'mma let the queens of the game get at y'all" (What, you're too big to talk to haters, so you'll send your minions after them?). It's especially grating when Eve or Trina or whoever else talks smack obviously directed to other female rappers. I know the Busta thing is just one instance - look also at Ludacris' "My Chick Bad" remix with all the female rappers in attendance where he played the magnanimous host to all "his chicks". These women are seen as being no threat.

My suspicion is that if you were good enough to take some prominent rappers down, you'd never make it anywhere near mainstream. By and large, female rappers make it to the top by proving that they're not coming after the Kings of the Game and are only comparing themselves to fellow female rappers. A woman, the minority in this case, has to prove that she's no threat for her to be acceptable to the larger fold. And in that way, being a minority in rap is just like being a minority in every other field in modern life.

'GRA Women' and the Men That Love Them (or Not)

We're getting a new soap opera!

Beyond the glitz, glamour, facade of exotic cars, apparels and lifestyles, people, albeit women, who live in posh neighbourhoods, do have their own fair share of challenges, just like the average individual. This is the idea behind ‘GRA Women’, a soap opera that was premiered at the Protea Hotel, Ikeja GRA, in Lagos, on Friday July 9.

Written and produced by Nigerian filmmaker, Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, the event had an array of stars in attendance, many of whom said they could not get enough of the highly intriguing drama.

Speaking at the premiere about the idea behind the soap opera, Anyiam-Osigwe said, “GRA Women is an idea I had all along for a long time now, but decided to produce after I got the right team to work with. A lot of families who live in the GRA have old family connections, as such you see that everyone is connected to the other in one way or the other. Those old family connections and things that happen in GRA are some of the things I want to showcase with this family drama.”

Sounds a bit like Sex and the City (hold the sex) meets Real Housewives of... Lagos. Or something. Among the cast of characters is "an adulterous pastor, and wife who do not have a child; girls on the fast lane; a philandering senator and his lonely wife, amongst many others." So basically, easy to typecast and sell as familiar. Unless the writing is good and the emphasis is places less on leather chairs in the living room and more on the quality of the work. And there have been some good Nigerian soap operas. I remember being a huge fan of "Domino" when I was in Nigeria and who in their right minds didn't like "Checkmate" when it aired?

"Superstory" is where it ends, though. Don't know whether it's still running, but I can't stand "Superstory".

Maybe I wouldn't be so inclined to make fun of this if the filmmaker hadn't said she wants this to be a "family drama". At its best, this should be like every bad edition of National Encomium (or other Lagos-based tabloid article) come to life, full of gossip and cattiness and hilarity to no end. But that would be awesome. I would love to watch that.

More seriously, I'm always on edge whenever Nigerian filmmakers have to depict Nigerian women. I don't care that this filmmaker is a woman -- the trouble with chauvinism is that it makes its convinces the people being shoved aside that they deserve it. I bristle when I hear women saying that they'd rather not have female bosses, and that women are more likely to drag each other down. The trouble with women in Nigerian cinema is that they're never personalities, just caricatures. The long-suffering wife who is thus revered by her children as some kind of saint, the university good-girl-gone-bad, the good girl who is demure and goes to church, to bad one who smokes cigarettes and goes to clubs. I don't know this filmmaker's work -- I'm most familiar with Emem Isong among the female Nigerian filmmakers -- but I wonder to what extent she buys the narrative, and how she will take it on in this series.

Women Run This Town

Writing for the Atlantic, Hannah Rosen calls it, and puts out South Korea as an example:

Man has been the dominant sex since, well, the dawn of mankind. But for the first time in human history, that is changing—and with shocking speed. Cultural and economic changes always reinforce each other. And the global economy is evolving in a way that is eroding the historical preference for male children, worldwide. Over several centuries, South Korea, for instance, constructed one of the most rigid patriarchal societies in the world. Many wives who failed to produce male heirs were abused and treated as domestic servants; some families prayed to spirits to kill off girl children. Then, in the 1970s and ’80s, the government embraced an industrial revolution and encouraged women to enter the labor force. Women moved to the city and went to college. They advanced rapidly, from industrial jobs to clerical jobs to professional work. The traditional order began to crumble soon after. In 1990, the country’s laws were revised so that women could keep custody of their children after a divorce and inherit property. In 2005, the court ruled that women could register children under their own names. As recently as 1985, about half of all women in a national survey said they “must have a son.” That percentage fell slowly until 1991 and then plummeted to just over 15 percent by 2003. Male preference in South Korea “is over,” says Monica Das Gupta, a demographer and Asia expert at the World Bank. “It happened so fast. It’s hard to believe it, but it is.” The same shift is now beginning in other rapidly industrializing countries such as India and China.

Why?

As thinking and communicating have come to eclipse physical strength and stamina as the keys to economic success, those societies that take advantage of the talents of all their adults, not just half of them, have pulled away from the rest. And because geopolitics and global culture are, ultimately, Darwinian, other societies either follow suit or end up marginalized. In 2006, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development devised the Gender, Institutions and Development Database, which measures the economic and political power of women in 162 countries. With few exceptions, the greater the power of women, the greater the country’s economic success.

We can quibble with specifics, of course -- women certainly don't set the beauty standard, for instance, in Korea or anywhere else -- but it makes sense to me that a combination of cultural shift and economic empowerment plays a role in the advancement of women. Read all of it.

Aiding and Abetting Fake outrage

When my friend sent me this article on sexual abuse in Lagos, my two-word emailed response was "Na today?"

“The truth is that the whole thing has made me begin to distrust anybody that is not a close friend or relative around my daughters,” said Ifeoma Akanwa, a banker and mother of three. “I used to have a house boy, and since he left last year, I have been reluctant to get another help, despite that my youngest child is just a year old. I prefer taking her to a crèche, or even locking her up with my eldest child (aged 10) at home at times.” Uwadiegwu Otisi, a sociologist holds the opinion that this portends a dangerous trend, and might fracture the fabrics of Africa’s familial culture if left unchecked.

I find that I say this a lot, but to reiterate, can we stop acting surprised when certain things happen? I know I heard so many stories like these from the weekly Yoruba show Feyikogbon to NTA news. This isht is not news. Stop acting like it is and do something about it. Sensitization exercises. Organize hotlines with Starcomms or MTN, so young girls can text you free and you can call them free of charge. Ads in the paper. Talk in schools. Something.