African Women Writing Resistance: An Anthology of Contemporary Voices

Part 2. Speaking Out: Young Women on Sexuality

Part Two Speaking Out Young Women on Sexuality In this section, the complicated terrain of sexuality is mapped by women from a range of African countries. The common denominator among these stories is the struggle of women to define for themselves the terms under which their sexuality enters into play in the realm of social relations. These women writers bear witness to the many challenges African women face today regarding their sexuality. In “Woman Weep No More,” Sibongile Mtungwa describes her coming of age in a small village in South Africa, where girls were taunted by their agemates if they did not follow the custom of engaging in thigh sex, or sex without 39 intercourse, before marriage. Young men may have many such premarital partners ; young women are expected to limit themselves to just one man, to whom they may eventually be wed. In young Sibongile’s case, she stays with her first boyfriend for many years but ultimately decides not to marry him, a decision that brings the reproaches of her family and the fury of her boyfriend, who attempts to kidnap her and force her into marriage. She saves herself by going to the civil magistrate for a restraining order but remains bitter over the system that sought to entrap her from the moment she was considered old enough to engage in sexual practices. “Letters to My Cousin” is presented as a series of letters from an older woman to her younger relative, warning her of the dangers of getting involved with an older man who may or may not be married and may or may not be carrying the HIV/AIDS virus. The author, Catherine Makoni of Zimbabwe, seeks to provide the guidance that can be sorely lacking for young girls in many contemporary African contexts, as they seek to move away from the traditions of their parents into the uncertain waters of urban African society. In “Story of Faith,”Mamle Kabu of Ghana presents a kind of modern-day fable of the difficult decisions faced by even those privileged African women who are able to go to university. The protagonist, initially a modest, studious young woman, learns from the example of her roommate and other students that the way to get ahead in her society has more to do with using her body than her mind— with, in this case, disastrous consequences. Two pieces in this section give voice to a segment of African society that is still rarely heard from: lesbian women. In “To Be or Not to Be a Lesbian: The Dilemma of Cameroon’s Women Soccer Players” by Cameroonian writer and activist Sybille Ngo Nyeck and “My Name Is Kasha” by Ugandan gay-rights activist Kasha N. Jacqueline, two young women describe the challenges they and their sister lesbians face in acting on their sexual desire for other women in societies that remain resolutely hostile to any departure from heterosexuality. In “Lovesung for a Father,” Nigerian writer Zindzi Bedu relates the disturbing story of a young girl’s awakening to sexuality at the hands of her own father, otherwise seen as a paragon of immigrant African society in the United States. Her mother and grandmother in Nigeria, who send her to the United States to seek education and opportunity with her father, know nothing of the repeated rapes and beatings she suffers with him and are powerless to protect her. A similar story of powerlessness is told in the poem “It’s Not Rape If . . .”by Kenyan Ann Kithaka, a somewhat tongue-in-cheek description of the blurry boundary between sexual harassment and rape, for female employees as for wives. Yet in the act of writing about these situations of apparent powerlessness , the authors enact resistance to the oppressions they describe and give themselves and their readers the courage to fight back. 40 Part Two. Speaking Out Closing this section is a series of four poems by Cheshe Dow of Botswana that sound a slightly more positive note, as the narrator reflects on her relationship with her own body and her ongoing struggles to find a man who will love her for her intellect and emotions as well as for her physical beauty. This seems to be a call repeated by many African women today as they work to level the playing field in their relationships with men, seeking love and commitment without compromising their own self-respect...