The Distant Reality of Feminism and Gender Equality
[Music]
hi
thank you for having me in these crazy
times my name is nelly kalu i’m a
broadcast journalist
when i heard that i was going to talk to
you about gender
and feminism and how far nigeria has
come with it
i was a little unsure because i do not
consider myself an authority
on feminism or sexual politics i am what
i consider
a student of the movement one who
imagined someday having a conversation
with gloria steinem and chimamanda
adichie
now having said this i am here as a
woman
and a broadcaster and i’ll be speaking
to you in that capacity
as a child i was a dreamer and if i’m
honest
i still am i have lived a thousand lives
in my head and i’ve seen various
versions of myself in
every scenario of my dreams all
in my head every scenario i choose in my
dreams my life
is full i was no different from any
other young girl in any part of the
world
we began to daydream early creating this
fantasy world
where we you know reign and become
more dominant in i realize that it is
because
our limitations and our possibilities
are impressed upon us
from the moment we’re able to string
together the first few
words and the first few coherent
sentences even then
we knew that we can become anything
and whatever we want to be will only
happen with the help of everyone around
us but becoming what they want
us to be means that we get to be
accepted by them
some girls dreamed of prince charming as
the english storybooks teachers while
others
dreamed of a wonderful wedding i on the
other hand
dreamed of owning my world
this is a gated society in my dream
scenario
where i lived by my own rules in this
dream scenario i ran
an independent corporation employing my
friends who of course
lived in this world which i created
i was seven i of course i did not know
what an independent corporation was
i wasn’t a genius i even called it
nelly’s world
even till today i still do not know how
to name a thing
and this feels like a lifetime ago there
is no cooperation
not yet anyway but i do try to leave by
my own rules
this choice to leave by my own terms and
to leave on my own terms
is considered a major feat for a woman
in nigeria
every woman looks at me with this
conflicted admiration the kind that says
i wish i could be brave as you
but you’ll probably die alone
however to achieve these dreams i need
basic security
the kind that only my country can
provide i need
education i need financial independence
without which my choices are marriage
and marrying up i need health care
maternal mortality would likely be the
end of my dreams without it
in 2014 the supreme court made a
landmark ruling that allows
an evil woman to inherit from the
paternal line this ruling established
precedence
for another in orcas that allows a woman
the right to her father’s inheritance
some traditional leaders call this an
intrusion in the evil way of life
however this is pivotal for me
because i am an evil woman two years ago
my brother suggested that we invest in
agriculture
starting a large farm in our village and
employ
the local women i was all for it it
ticked all the boxes
women empowerment agriculture
diversification
why not then i found out that in my
village
i am unable to own land unless the males
in my family
gifted me one even then poverty
the even then the property remains in
their name
well look at that so much for my
corporate dreams
now my friend for la for lion says she
would like to become the director
general of the nbc someday
the national broadcasting commission
which recently now looks like the gag
man of free press in nigeria
all i do is laugh whenever she says this
it isn’t impossible and she might be the
only woman in that position
at the national level since it’s 28
years since
i laugh because i see what it would mean
and how hard it will be for her
how hard it already is to be a female
broadcaster
in this our beloved country now let me
tell you
about being a female broadcaster in
nigeria
my radio career began in 2010
2010 on a music station there were a few
presenters
many of whom were sidekicks to famous
male hosts
those who weren’t just seem to disappear
after a few years
but that was not the part for me so i
researched and studied myself and air
i had several sleepless nights i would
call on my friends and talk unendingly
about my prospects and sound off on
my possible decisions who was i
what was my value on a mic
the moment i was able to answer these
two questions
i quit i decided that it was time for
talk radio
so i moved to nigeria in 4fm where i
like to think that i grew up
you see being a sidekick and echoing the
words of the
and actions of what the male host says
was the numb
you were the sweet little voice in the
room but i was never
a sidekick and entertainment is
non-threatening really
try talk radio try having a voice
and a brain on radio in 2013.
nigeria info fm was the first time in a
long time the nigerian audience
heard female anchors with opinions on
air saying them boldly
and unapologetically questioning
everything that passes
everything and they weren’t sidekicks
they were running the show and it was
maddening
in 2013 there were seven females and
just three male hosts
and we had male callers who were
unfamiliar with being told that their
loud opinions
were wrong and that they couldn’t go on
talking forever on radio
oh goodness it created monsters in the
audience
at first they would try complaining to
our male colleagues on air
expecting that they will reign us in
when they did that didn’t work they
decided to handle it themselves
they called us antichrist devils whose
feminism would bring about the end of
the world
some of this they reserved for me witch
antichrist prostitute and lesbian
these are not insulting when you think
about it a person can be antichrist
but pro-buddha for instance intelligent
women have been called witches as far as
the
salem witch trials so we turned it
around
and owned it we started a radio show
called the coven
it was simply a show with unapologetic
opinionated women who owned their voices
and really i think we should legalize
sex work
people ask me how i got them to stop and
how the nigerian info that you
experienced today came to be
it was because we established ownership
i was in charge here i decided what we
discussed
what was allowed and where we go from
here
but it was also a teachable moment not
just for me
but for our male listeners for every
punch we took we it hit
really harder every time i was called a
prostitute
i talked about consent and safe sex for
every time they said lesbian
i talked about lgbtq rights and freedom
i demanded respect they want they also
learned to learn constructive words and
how to apologize
they learned a compliment could be
patronizing
they would even caution a new bee
misogynist who dared to misbehave
all the while acknowledging that i did
not need their help
what this experience taught me is that
true equity and equality is a war
fought on resilience authority
perseverance and elimination
the more resilient the message is the
more universal
its acceptance even when progress
is slow but it should never be this hard
it is in fact wrong for it to be this
difficult
many of these men changed and more
progressive male callers became normal
it simply became that those who couldn’t
change
disappeared i believe these changed men
are those we call allies today however i
do not believe in allies for feminism
and equality especially when it seems
the modern thing to be
is formed when people need to join
forces towards a common goal
don’t get me wrong the path to equality
is a long drawn-out battle but it’s also
a choice
of right and wrong it is a stand for
good
and evil i refuse to give a badge to a
father
who treats his daughter equal as his son
or a boss who
gives his staff equal pay it’s either
right
or wrong and every man’s choice should
be clear to him should be clear to him
i’ve never believed in allyship towards
equality or feminism or to push global
equity
i think it allows for performative
feminism or performative support
of unpopular ideas which really should
be normal
and popular because it’s fair let me
give you some context
only see oj adaba was my boss in nigeria
info
and oh i gave him headaches but he has
proven to be irreplaceable
i am here today because he let me shine
he let the strength of my voice
be heard when he even when he had to
bear the consequences
for my authenticity he ignored every
request to control me
why why is she so bold they’ll ask
why is she so blunt that’s so
unprofessional
yet will i call oj an ally no he doesn’t
need to be called one
he knew that his male and female anchors
were equal no question
he did what he believed to be right
equality equity and fairness
for me it is not something you’re either
for or against
it is not a debate it is either wrong or
right
good or bad the concept of the good
versus the bad
should be quite familiar to a highly
religious society such as ours
yet it is something that we struggle to
understand
it is in the way a father raises his
daughters it is in the way that my
father
let me contribute to conversations and
allow my voice
be heard it is in the way that his
friends let me debate them on varying
issues so that i grew up with a voice
you can either choose to hear a woman or
silence her
it is not a debate
and this defines what it means to be a
nigerian woman
nigeria has one of the lowest rates of
female representation
in parliament across africa and globally
it ranks 181st out of the 193 countries
according to the international
parliamentary union
in the current nigerian 9th assembly
women occupy 7 out of 109 senate seats
and only 11 out of 360 seats in the
house of representatives
nigeria is far behind ethiopia
rwanda and south africa now here’s
another record for you
nigeria recorded the child rights act in
2003
now this act among other things protects
our young girls from underage marriage
another area where we rank so high we
just put every other country to shame
17 years on 12 states are yet to adopt
this act
during the lockdown weeks nigeria
recorded astronomical rise
in domestic violence just between march
and april
according to the un it was 56 percent in
the first two weeks alone
this is what it means to be a woman in
nigeria
it means making up moving up more than
50
of the informal labor force without any
support or government policies to
advance my development
all the while suffering double taxation
it means dominating the agricultural
sector
but relegated to subsistence farming
with crude tools
it means poor maternal health and it
means making up 38
of nigeria’s out of school children
another area
where we dare the world to catch upon us
but it also means that we turn things
around
by resilience and amplifying our voices
it falls on the journalists to seek and
demand
female representation in all of nigeria
and we cannot be effective at this if we
do not stand for the same in our
industry to get better representation at
national level we need to be intentional
in covering female politicians amplify
their voices and eliminate
these trophy seats in 2015
remission ayah was the only woman on the
ballot for the nigerian election
that in itself was unprecedented yet i
remember saying on radio
that i will not be voting for a woman
just because she’s a woman
even though today i still stand by that
i should have done
the work i should have educated myself
and my listeners
on why she’s just she’s more than just a
woman
on a ballot what made her different from
her female from her other female
politicians
i will never be making such a mistake
again
the media knew that she couldn’t stand a
chance in this country
but we should have amplified her voice
more than we did that
is only fair fairness and equity
are right and that is our role in the
media that is how women
in the media will find equality
we must be intentional in gender parity
telling the stories that no one else
will
and tell it until people begin to listen
as a broadcast trainer with broadcast
radio masterclass
i vet scholarship applications and the
thing that stands out for me is a lack
of effort and commitment
in the female applicants we must
encourage our young women
to apply themselves to put in the work
as men do
let us earn our place let us not depend
on a quarter system
that offers us a seat we need to grab
those seats
learn read train give no one an excuse
to shut the door on you
there’s so many women breaking ceilings
and the cards are already stacked
against us but we need to keep the
windows of our minds
ready and alert for the slightest crack
in our individual and collective
ceilings
i have been called many things but my
favorite are stubborn
and rude i stubbornly hold on to my
values and believes that fairness knows
no gender
and race no orientation
i am impolite in living on my terms i
hold on to my dreams and values
i am inspired by my mother’s resilience
as she holds on to hers
at 60 despite sacrificing them to
marriage and children
as i once said don’t be afraid
to be different don’t get sucked in the
prevailing
corrupt system which needs to be changed
i remember fondly the seven-year-old
who wanted a world of her own to be free
i built that world every way in every
given day
now i promised that i was going to say
this so thank you
for coming to my ted talk