LOUD WHISPERS: Tempus Horribilis
Queen Elizabeth II gave her famous ‘Annus Horribilis’ speech on November 24th 1992 to mark the 40th anniversary of her ascension to the throne of England . Before then, people were familiar with the more traditional use of the term ‘Annus Mirabilis’– wonderful year. The introduction of the phrase ‘Annus Horribilis’ fascinated British people and […]
LOUD WHISPERS: Patrick, Patricia, Frederica And Frederick
I was in Harare, Zimbabwe for the African Feminist Forum (AFF) which took place April 9th-13th. It was the 4th AFF and it brought together approximately 160 African Feminists from 30 African countries. On the first day, a representative from the Zimbabwe Feminist Forum (ZFF), our Zimbabwean hosts, told us how, when they were conceptualising […]
LOUD WHISPERS: Mother Of The Year – The Angelina Option
A few days ago, I was in a conversation with a friend about the frightening levels of violence against women and girls across Africa. In Nigeria, the levels of abuse have reached such an unprecedented high that we should be clamouring for a state of emergency on the issue. Many times, people say that since […]
LOUD WHISPERS: Adults And Good Manners
Recently, I was in a cosmetics shop to buy some items. As I was browsing through the merchandise, I could hear a woman talking on her cell phone. It took me approximately twenty minutes to make up my mind about what to put into my shopping cart. All this time, the woman was still on […]
LOUD WHISPERS: The Queen’s College Lagos Sexual Harassment Allegations: Five Lessons For All Of Us
Over the past three weeks, there has been a lot of discussion about sexual abuse and harassment allegations concerning a teacher at Queen’s College, Lagos and a student. I believe the case generated a lot of controversy because of the school involved – Queen’s College. This is a school that has traditionally been associated with […]
LOUD WHISPERS: All Humans Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others
In last week’s article about the ‘Foot in Mouth’ Senators in Nigeria for abovewhispers.com, I wrote about the patronizing attitude of some of our male Senators towards Nigerian women. I did not expect that the distinguished gentlemen would take up more time and space this week, with the dismissal of the Gender and Equal Opportunities […]
LOUD WHISPERS: The ‘Foot In Mouth’ Senators
On March 8th 2016, as part of the activities to mark International Women’s Day, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, Chair of the Senate Committee on Women Affairs tabled a motion to pay tribute to Nigerian women. As part of her motion, she said, ‘We represent courage and resilience, and without us, I don’t think this country will […]
LOUD WHISPERS: #MySistersKeeper2016
One day, when I was still working at the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) in Ghana which I Co-Founded as Executive Director, one of my staff members from the Grants department, Ndey Jobarteh, brought me a newspaper article to read. It was a report in the Daily Graphic, one of the national newspapers, about a […]
Mother’s Day message: A Mother’s Pain
Labour pains are very intense and all consuming. Mothers don’t dwell too much on the pain they go through because as excruciating as the experience is, beholding the face of the miracle from God that is the end result, is enough to forget everything. Till the next time of course. What mothers do not talk […]
LOUD WHISPERS: When Will ‘Servants Of God’ Stop Preying On Women And Children?
On Friday, February 26th, the Supreme Court of Nigeria gave a ruling in the case of the ‘Reverend’ Kingsley Ezeugo, Founder & General Overseer of the Christian Praying Assembly. The Supreme Court upheld the rulings of the lower courts and found the ‘Man of God’ guilty of the murder of Ms Ann Uzoh. He is […]
LOUD WHISPERS: Women Are Not Beasts
‘We have too many women reading too much meaning into everything and agitating about anything, like the television commercial in which a joyous father of a newborn yells into his mobile phone’s mouthpiece; ‘Mama na boy o’. To them, such an advert constitutes an offensive patriarchal mindset’. ‘To be a feminist, if not a […]
LOUD WHISPERS: 10 ways for women to improve In-Law relationships
A few days ago, at Abovewhispers.com, we featured an article from Iheoma Obibi on ‘Learning not to be angry’. It was about managing in-law drama, stemming from her recent experience of attending the funeral of her father-in-law. As Iheoma stated in her article, it came from a rant on Facebook that she posted when she […]
LOUD WHISPERS: Every Woman Has A Story
I have a friend from South Sudan who I will call Janet. She fled her country in the 1980s during the civil war in Sudan and was a refugee in Nairobi, Kenya for many years. Janet suffered terribly during this period, going through many of the horrors associated with violent conflict. She reunited with her […]