Bibi Bakare Yusuf
Nigeria
I am a feminist because I believe that things can be different and feminism in all its
imperfection is the only movement for change that has successfully integrated all the different
issues that affects us for the benefit of all humanity.
I was born in Lagos and spent my early childhood there. I left Nigeria to
attend boarding school in England when I was 13, and from there, I went on
to study Anthropology and Communications at Goldsmith’s College, University
of London. I then did an MA in Gender Studies at the University of Warwick,
followed by a PhD. In 2003, I returned to Nigeria to take up a Senior Visiting
Research Fellow at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) at the Centre for
Gender Studies. Following on from this, I began to work as a consultant for
various private organisations and development agencies.
In 2005, I co-founded Cassava Republic Press, a company focused on
publishing the best in African writing. We publish fiction and non-fiction
titles for adults and children. We are about to launch Ankara Press, a new
imprint devoted to romance with African characters, as well as a “Cassava
Crime” series. I am very excited about these new imprints. If there is sufficient
dedication, publishing like any of the other creative industries has the potential
to influence and change ideas and expectations and shape how the next
generation thinks. It is a potentially transformative industry.
This potential for social transformation informs our selection of materials
to publish.
I call myself a feminist because when I think of who I am today, my strength and
my passions, my joy and pain, my desire and restlessness, they are the result of
the women who have come before me, the women whose words have become
my own, the women who have refused to sit quietly in a little corner or kneel
to serve their men; the women who have fought and continue to fight against
the tyranny of patriarchy; the women that I want my children to be and the
women I pray all women will want to be. I am a feminist because I am angry. I
am angry at the inequality, the continued violence, silencing and repression of
women’s voices and will to power. I am a feminist because I love to be in the
community of women even when they sometimes cause me great anguish! I am
a feminist because I believe that things can be different and feminism in all its
imperfection is the only movement for change that has successfully integrated
all the different issues that affects us for the benefit of all humanity. But the
journey ahead is still long.
VPS II
. 133