Uncategorized

Although there are so many aspects of women in Africa that we should discuss, I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss an amazing African women who is now gaining the ears of Westerners with her latest book: Winner Takes All.  Dambisa Moyo [dambisamoyo.com].

Dambisa is a women after my own heart.  Born and raised in Lusaka, Zambia [https://maps.google.com/maps?q=lusaka+zambia+map&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x1940f37d3cbcaa49:0xd0d093c1462013eb,Lusaka,+Zambia&gl=us&ei=eFsyUIaEC-Hw0gGx04GwBQ&ved=0CAkQ8gEwAA] she paved her way with an extraordinary education spanning the US and the UK.

Dambisa has authored several books including “Dead Aid” and more recently  “Winner Takes All.”  Dead Aid focuses on how external aid efforts are affecting African economics and how we could be inhibiting African growth through our “humanitarian efforts.”  Winner Takes All offers a compelling look at how China is slowly but surely buying rights to an extensive amount of commodities.  This will allow for a stronger hold by China on our entire world.

Africa is an important place for everyone — the amount of natural resources that remain untapped on the continent are vast, maybe even perhaps greater than we can envision today.  It is important that we as Americans understand what is at stake and take steps to empower the native people in a way that helps everyone (think the Tragedy of the Commons: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rdeyoung/tragedy.html) — and perhaps if we don’t China will end up pushing everyone – native or otherwise – out of the way and will ultimately land too much control.

Thanks to a great African woman — the world now can have a clearer vision of what is at stake for our global economy.

Comment from Dr. Martin Samuels:

Speaking of Ellen Sirleaf, there was an incredible women’s movement, uniting both Christian and Muslim women, that helped lead to Charles Taylor’s ousting in Liberia. Leymah Gbowee led an abstinence movement (“No peace, no sex”) despite incredible odds and threats of violence. I first heard about it on Bill Moyers’ Journal: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06192009/profile.html. Her work in Liberia was captured in the movie “Pray the Devil Back to Hell”: http://praythedevilbacktohell.com/. She is now heading up a new women’s peace initiative in Africa: http://www.wipsen-africa.org/wipsen/

Now that I am starting to migrate to this new writing forum — please  bare with me as I am not exactly tech savvy… yet!

The next several posts will be based on Women in Africa and the Middle East.  These posts are inspired by my travels abroad and my love for the continent of Africa and the very diverse nature of its landscapes and people.

Women of the continent of Africa suffer much more than our own basic career challenges — salary negotiation means very little in a place where where there are no careers other than to survive.  Although, there are several ongoing efforts to help protect young girls from HIV infection and becoming pregnant too soon [http://www.girleffect.org/question] – there is little information on the issues that women face and how they are fighting for change in their countries.  These are very serious issues and ones that we, as women in the Western world, need to be aware of and to help to take steps to alleviate the pain and suffering of women globally.

Recently, a friend of mine passed along this article to me: http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/african-states-ahead-of-the-west-in-female-political-representation/.  It is interesting because we are starting to see a shift in leadership in developing countries.

This article discusses how many African nations are now promoting women into office.  But does women leadership outweigh the difficulties that these nations face?  Ellen Sirleaf, decidedly an idol of mine since I heard her speak at Harvard’s 2011 commencement, is a graduate of the Kennedy School and is the first female president of Liberia.  She now has won her second election — but what is going on in her country?  Is she really doing justice for her people?  http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/liberia/index.html

However, there is hope that women can transform their countries – and we should note how they do it and why it works.  In Senegal it is now suggested that female representation in the government should become approximately 23%.   Women in Senegal have been working hard – both for themselves and for their country.  The Senegalese women, like many of their African country-women, suffered from female genital mutilation.  FGM is a terrible practice by which young girls have their clitoris and other genitalia removed.  In 1999, Senegal made FGM illegal [http://web.archive.org/web/20080112051855/http://www.state.gov/g/wi/rls/rep/crfgm/10107.htm] and although some rural tribes still practice FGM women are taking a stand [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/world/africa/movement-to-end-genital-cutting-spreads-in-senegal.html?pagewanted=all].  Perhaps as leaders, women can begin to challenge both the cultural norms of their African nations and give the new generation of women a better life than they had?

We hope you can join us for an informal networking night on Tuesday, August 21st at a bar in Cambridge.

We’ll be posting more details as the date approaches.

In the meantime, sign up for our email list and be the first to hear about events.