"We have a long way to go"

So here I am helping my host sister cook dinner, conversing over a light and simple topic named women’s rights. I asked her if she and her brothers had learned to cook when they were younger to which she replied with a scoff. “Only little girls from the age of 9 learn to cook. The boys just come home, sit down, and do nothing.” She preceded to tell me that women’s rights in Senegal is a hot topic and a much debated issue. Even though there are equality laws, there is still and ineffectiveness in how they’re implemented. To this I responded, “Are you frustrated?” “Beyond words,” she replied.

After we all ate dinner and we’re sitting around, eating the most delicious fruit I’ve ever had, women’s rights came up yet again. Mama began discussing her job working at a women’s rights NGO. She told us how her organization was trying to get the current candidates for president to sit down with them and discuss what they would do for women if elected. She discussed similar frustrations as her daughter did, about how they were expected to contribute to the household income during the day, and keep the house afloat at night. As she discussed her frustrations, a scoff emerged from her husband. He said that if there are women’s rights, there should also be men’s rights. Before I could even respond, Mama said to him, “There have been only men’s rights for way too long.” Clearly her husband did not agree with what she does for a living, yet he still respected her as a human being and did not stand in the way of her goals and desires.

So yes, there is such a thing as women’s rights in Senegal, a predominantly Muslim country. However, we cannot use the western definition of feminism to describe the movement for equality in West Africa. Because if we were to do so, we would be completely misconstruing what women’s organizations like Mama’s are arguing for, and we would be advocating the idea that the West knows best. In reality there are so many different forms of feminism dependent on culture, and we must be conscious of what terms we use to describe such advocacy in countries that are not our own.

I am still in shock at the incredible conversation we had with Mama and how forward thinking a woman if her age is. She was happy to discuss all her work with me and how much change has occurred in Senegal for the past couple of decades, but she reiterated a point which had begun our conversation, “We still have a long way to go.”