Let’s be honest, I am a feminist. I believe that men and
women are equals and should have equal political, social, and economic rights.
You will not be hearing me calling for “womyn’s” rights, but be sure that I
wholly believe that any differences that are perceived between the sexes should
not impeded the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness of any gender.
While our achievements stand on the strong shoulders of the feminist
women that came before us, among recent generations of women the term feminist
has developed somewhat of a stigma. Resulting from the perceived extremism of
some feminists that have been attached to the word, being called a feminist has
been at times thought synonymous with crazy man haters. Feminism seems so last
generation; it belongs to our bra burning mothers and grandmothers, not us. But
while great strides have been made in creating a world of equal rights for men
and women, feminism is still something our generation needs. Spending the last
two years living in Togo has taught me what it means to live in a patriarchal
society, the courage it takes to stand up for the rights of a marginalized
population, and has demonstrated just how much of an impact women’s rights has
on a community.
In what will be a project that bookends my service, I had
the opportunity to meet one of the preeminent women’s rights advocates here in
Togo. I got chills listening to her speak the powerful truths that are so rarely
heard here in Togo; women matter and as 52% of the population it is about time
that women receive equal rights as men. Seeing the audience of women become so
impassioned by her words reinforced in me the deep sense of how important human
rights are and how much they are worth fighting for.
Civic engagement is relatively low in Togo, particularly
among women. While universal suffrage exists, few take advantage of the right.
Near the beginning of my service I helped the women’s rights NGO I work with
write a grant to launch a project to work to increase civic participation among
women in our prefecture. This past Monday, in partnership with African Women’s
Development Fund based in Ghana, we opened our project with a training of
female leaders from each canton in Vo. Leading up to the May elections we endeavor
for female community leaders to learn about civil rights, the electoral process,
and voting. These trained leaders have been tasked with spreading this
information to the members of their community and to assist community members
in registering to vote. The project will continue through the elections,
encouraging people to vote, and with further educational sessions including
those about avoiding violence during and after elections.
We represent only one prefecture out of thirty that
exist in Togo. The project is only a small step in the effort to increase
peaceful civic engagement in a country and region where often little confidence
exists in the electoral process, but maybe getting women more involved will
help move things in the right direction. After all, not including women, who represent
more than half of the population, is like working with only half your brain. Only
when we engage everyone will we be able to finally achieve the results we want
to see in our communities.
