Simidele Dosekun
Nigeria / UK
Feminism for me is the necessary and proud struggle for all women to enjoy our full rights and
humanity and to be respected as such – no ‘ifs’ or ‘buts’ as we say!
I currently live in London but work remotely in Nigeria. I am a PhD student
at King’s College, London in the Department of Culture, Media and Creative
Industries, focusing on gender. My PhD looks at a new trend of ‘hyper-feminine’
stylisation among young, urban and upwardly-mobile Nigerian women. I am
essentially asking who these women are and how they think of themselves
and their options and desires as women. Work wise I run a freelance editing
service in Nigeria and occasionally work as a gender consultant.
We need to grow our movement, so we need more women in diverse spheres
and walks of life to hear our message and come to champion it. We particularly
need more feminists in government. We also need to continue and grow our
intra-continental dialogue because many patterns and challenges recur across
our different countries. Finally, we need more African feminist research, writing
and publication. In a sense we need to know ourselves more and shape our
own narratives.
Feminism for me is the necessary and proud struggle for all women to enjoy
our full rights and humanity and to be respected as such – no ‘ifs’ or ‘buts’ as
we say! I call myself a feminist because I believe I am engaged in this struggle
in multiple ways and am certainly committed to it for as long as it takes. I also
consider myself to be an African feminist academic in the making, and I think
knowledge production is a critical site of feminist engagement, particularly
in Africa.
Both personally and professionally I constantly battle to assert my feminist
principles and in fact to live them when this means being a ‘killjoy,’ to use the
wonderful term of black British feminist Sara Ahmed, or means ‘being difficult.’
I ran a Nigerian publishing house for three years so I tried to use that platform
to insert more gender egalitarian content particularly into our children’s books.
I hope to eventually work as a feminist academic in Africa and so further
contribute in this regard.
The general cultural climate is hostile to women, never mind those who call
themselves feminists and challenge norms. Poverty and under-education are
overbearing obstacles in the lives of most African women, so as African feminists
we must necessarily address these issues. They also hamper our own activist
and organisational capacity. Then there is rising religious fundamentalism and
the perennial problem of violence against women, moreover with little or no
recourse to justice.
I am inspired by feminist ‘killjoys’ who remain full of joy! I often feel so
angry or depressed about one issue or another — sexism, gender violence,
corruption, abuse of power etc. — so I am inspired by those who do not
lose heart, joyfulness or compassion in the face of continued injustice. I am
also inspired by people who conduct themselves with honesty, integrity and
fairness, particularly when this is not rewarded or the norm, as is sadly the
case in a country like Nigeria today.
VPS II
. 43