Kathambi Kinoti
Kenya
I am a feminist because I yearn and work for rights and justice for women everywhere.
I live and work in Nairobi, Kenya. A lawyer by training, I have extensive
experience in the field of women’s rights. I am a writer and researcher,
passionate about women and Africa. For the past few years, I have worked as
the Women’s Rights Information Coordinator of the Association for Women’s
Rights in Development (AWID), and currently I am a founder trustee of the
Young Women’s Leadership, an organization that works towards the holistic
empowerment of young women.
I am a feminist because I yearn and work for rights and justice for women
everywhere. I embrace feminist theories that trace the cause of women’s
inequality to patriarchy, and I believe that for fundamental change to occur,
we must dismantle patriarchy.
As African feminists, the list of issues and challenges that we are confronted
with is extensive. Whilst, there are countless efforts across the continent to
address these challenges, we fall short as African feminists in sharing our work
and telling our multiple stories. This often leads to our wonderful work being
told by others, or even misrepresented and sometimes appropriated by other
actors. To find appeal and connection to women across the board, we have to
take seriously this challenge to make our work known, accessible and connect
it to women where they are. Whilst the African Feminist Forum through the
Voice Power and Soul publication is attempting to do this, more of us need
to be challenging the discourse about African women and African feminism.
At another level, the backlash against women’s human rights defenders,
against the gains that feminists have made seems to be increasing in certain
contexts. It always seems like we are moving two steps forward one step back.
The consequences of voicing out and confronting injustices need to be borne in
mind when we develop our strategies. And of course, to achieve our goals we
need enough money, but there isn’t enough of it finding its way to the feminist
movement on the continent. What we need is more funding; more sharing of
strategies and stories; and greater celebration of African feminists. We could
also make better use of the Charter of Feminist Principles for African Feminists
by sharing it more widely, including with movements in other regions, and
translating it into other languages so that it can be accessible to more women.
Finally, in our organisations, we need to find ways to operationalise it so that
the principles we hold so dear do not remain a dream, but become living
practice (with the challenges that come with it) in more feminist organisations
in the region.
At a personal and professional level, my contribution has been to write to
about the challenges, and to explore and share what has worked in different
countries, regions or communities. I am deeply inspired by positive and uplifting
stories as it is an affirmation that it’s not all doom and gloom in the world. I am
also energised through creativity, beauty and ultimately justice.
VPS II
. 69