#WIASummit: How Do Women Engage The World & Create A New Paradigm?

What was! Where ‘the’ story began…

“If you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way is to do is tell their story and start with, ‘secondly’. Start the story with the arrows of the Native Americans, and not with the arrival of the British, and you have an entirely different story. Start with the story with the failure of African state, and you haven entirely different story.” Mourid Barhouti

There is nothing that is disruptive as telling a people the same thing over and over again, even if it isn’t true it becomes embedded in them. What I’m trying piece together is that the way we tell stories have a definitive stimuli. The narrative about African women or any women has been the same song with poetic and rhyme to justify the stereotype. A single story that have been told in different versions. For so many uncounted years woman were defined in terms of barriers rather than their triumph. Can it be changed? The imminent question that lurks over our shoulders. Is there something different, the unsung songs and the untold stories? A deeper exploration than the usual surface.

The answer is yes, yes and yes! For long people around me where disturbed about how dark my narratives are. But that is how I tell my story. Everyone is different, every woman have different talents and forms of expression. So what if in our unique ways we tell our story in a way we are familiar with? Who else is better at narrating your story than you? The only character in the story… For anyone to be successful in changing the old to the new they have to relate to the story. Hence, the reason why I had to take you on a trip down on memory lane so we can start on this journey on how women are changing the paradigm.

The future has a woman’s face… How is she creating a new 

paradigm?

Fast forward… In the recent years Africa has seen phenomenal growth in social media use and almost all forms of online media. Political protests, discussions on rights, marches for justice, petition for increasing age of consent and others have all been broadcast to the world via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc. All these allowing the people on the ground to control the narrative broadcast to the world. Social media and online have become tools for change for the African girl child. The discussions strongly against patriarchy, sensitization of feminism, rape culture and harassment in the everyday of an African woman have all been led by simple clicks on a phone or computer. For example, at only 11 years old Purity Soinato Oiyie a Maasai girl from Kenya escaped female genital mutilation and child marriage. Instead of following culture and be married off to a 70 something old man she chose to complete her education at 22 and further on addressed the UN’s largest gathering on gender equality and woman rights. Now that is leadership, kudos to her!

You know what is the best part of this development? Online media is being used as an invaluable tool to tell such stories through blogs or vlogs (video blogs) like WordPress, Blogpost, YouTube etc. Once deemed weak now these avenues are enriching the depth at which African women use their voice. Long before the stories were limited to what international news stations would report and what people with access to journalists at press conferences would say. The beauty of change is that a simple Twitter user is now a journalist to the world, reporting with the emotions felt by those experiences all the life that’s on the African continent.

#Hashtags like #FreeDianeRwigara went viral speaking on the oppression women face in rising to be in the highest offices. With the help of social media, the rally behind Diane on Twitter raised awareness on the case. It was now her voice against violation of power by the officials. That just one  of many testimonies platforms like twitter helped conscientize the case.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Maya Angelou. Life is tirade of lessons, the most important of all time was learning the power of storytelling. It fills in in the gaps with words and conversations that were once a taboo or out of reach. Society is the loudest storyteller when it comes to stereotypes or narratives but with technology each and every woman now have the power on their fingertips. Chimamanda Ngozi has redefined storytelling, the essence of what they mean when they say tell your story in a way people can relate. A long tail of having one single narrative about woman has been erased from the books.

 From books like Dangers of Single story, her presentations on Tedtalk that I admit take most of my time to other wise words she shared to the Harvard class of 2018. Now that is what I call presenting yourself to the world, with a straightforward narrative on how you would want to be addressed. When they said there was no possibility of woman being strong, independent and lead, she is a great example there is more to woman. In her words, “I learned that the world was a little bigger than the four corners my mind had conjured. With this knowledge arose the desire to explore, to conquer and to make a difference. With my desires came my mistaken idea that the world was a little better, that the mistakes of the past had been learnt from, and no one is inclined to repeat those actions.”

Using technology as the liberating force Lola Omolola founded IN (FIN) a private Facebook group that acts as support network for women worldwide. Another woman doing the most is Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala who is an advocate for empowering female entrepreneurs. Hit with the armory you know best, what you know and have expertise on is your weapon use it to fight your battles. Troubled by Boko Haram’s kidnapping of Nigerian schoolgirls in 2014, Lola Omolola decided it was time to act. She remembers: “My initial idea was to create a space where I could find women who were like me, who were as worried about the same thing, so we could all come together and form some sort of a resource.” In one interview she expressed her goal as, ““I would highlight another woman’s voice and make that clear by using quotes. That communicated to members that they could and should tell their own experience as well,”

After all is said and done! African women are rising, they are engaging the world in a raw and relatable way to put across themselves and build their own voice. Through the power of social media and the internet it has now become easier to share her story, in her own voice and make a difference.