Azola Goqwana
South Africa
The history and the context of our lives do not leave us as African women any choice but to
be feminists.
I live in Cape Town, South Africa. I was born in a small remote rural village
in the Eastern Cape called Mqanduli. Even if I were to go anywhere in the
world I would still go back home because it is the place that reminds me of
who I am; it keeps me grounded. I have worked in countries like Malawi
and Zambia.
Currently, I am a writer, an entrepreneur and also someone who works for
a feminist movement building organisation. Thus far, my work has focused
in building feminist movements in Zambia and Malawi. I have found it
incredibly exciting to work with groups of women to develop political
awareness such that the women themselves start processes, campaigns
and initiatives that confront and challenge power. In addition, working on
initiatives to strengthen and amplify a political voice of young feminists in
the Southern African region has been inspiring. I believe that in the next 5
years or so Southern Africa will have a strong collective of young African
feminists. If I were to dream out loud I would love to see the young women
in the region mobilising and organising around a collective issue that
would dramatically shift the realities of young women (and other women).
I mean the issues can go from the state policing on women’s bodies to the
availability of basic things like sanitary pads for young women.
It probably sounds clichéd but I owe my feminism to my grandmother.
I grew up with 4 cousins and she was the only person that was looking
after us as our mothers had to work in the nearby towns. None of us had a father
present in our lives, so a male presence was a foreign thing in our house. I am not
suggesting that grandmother did not give the boys preference in something’s like
house chores but she also taught us independence of being able to do things like
shopping without her. Knowing that you had been given a huge amount of money
for the month’s groceries was scary because it meant that if you lost the money
there would be no food for the whole month. So even then we learned to be careful
with things like money.
It is easy for me to call myself a feminist. The history and the context of our lives
do not leave us as African women any choice but to be feminist. With that said
I think that the term feminism can be limiting to a lot as women who are feminist
can easily reject it as they think that they have to act and speak a certain way if
they call themselves feminist. I also think that because feminism cannot be easily
translated into many African languages, it is seen as an ideology of the educated.
Whilst acknowledging that this may be an old argument, I also think we need to
do more to address it.
I am inspired by teenagers who are so sure about what they want to do about
their future and the amount of knowledge that they have about sexuality and
sexual health, at a very young age. I am also inspired by women who stand up to
harassment and demand respect and dignity.
VPS II
. 57