I grew up surrounded by books. Some of my earliest memories involve reading books brought by my mum who taught English at a secondary school that I went to.
As a child, I also remember reading books by Enid Blyton and Christian historical romance fiction in the Heartsong series. Reading opened me to new worlds and gave me the tools to navigate the world around me.
In one of my most memorable childhood events, I remember that my mum came home with multiple books from the newly opened Cassava Republic publishing house.
What marks it as a turning point in my reading journey, was that it was the first time I was reading long form prose and short stories from women authors who were not Nigerian. It was my introduction to Ghanaian authors like Marilyn Heward Mills and Ugandan authors like Doreen Baingana; both of whom I still read from time to time.
From reading the works of Doreen Baingana and Marilyn Heward Mills as a young woman, I realised that women’s experiences world over often bear similar traits and usually had slight differences in the manifestation of sexism.
Asides the work of Baingana and Heward Mills, I remember discovering the work of the Egyptian writer Nawal el Saadawi and the Zimbabwean writer Tsitsi Dangarembga who both taught me that women are often seen as sex objects and that male child elevation cuts across cultures.
I say all this to say two things.
First: Women as a group need to learn to read from women whose cultural experiences seem to be worlds apart from theirs.
By reading from women who seem unlike you culturally, you realise that your fate as an Igbo woman can also be tied to the fate of an Akan woman in Ghana.
Therefore, you learn that there must be solidarity amongst one another as women.
Second: Reading from women unlike you makes you realise that patriarchy from one culture can easily be passed onto another culture because to put it simply men copy each other’s shamelessness.
By reading from other women, you not only build solidarity but also copy other women’s methods of overcoming the sexist attacks on their collective sense of self.
Personally, it was reading books like Headscarves and Hymens by the Egyptian writer Mona Eltahawy that gave me the courage to boldly question why Nigerian women gave so much time and energy to a male focused fight like ENDSARS.
It was her work I referenced in asking why throughout most revolutions where women fight side by side men, women not only face insults and erasure from the men they fought with, they also face sexual harassment during the protests.
Five years on and no month goes by online without people referencing that women need not have expended that much energy into ENDSARS.
To better understand the importance of women reading from women unlike them, I asked a few women to share their thoughts.
For Zainab, she believes that reading fiction exposes you to the reality that all women share similar fates.
In her words: “To me, reading fiction exposes not just our imagination but trickles into reality. Books reflects that sometimes we may be separated through geography or language but we go through the same thing as women and they also show us the different ways sexism rears its ugly head and how it affects other women.
Mariama Ba is a Senegalese writer I have learnt from. Her epistolary novel So Long A Letter and her other novel called Scarlet Song explore the lives of Francophone African Muslim women. I see her as one of the pioneers of Muslim African Feminists though she was uncomfortable identifying as a feminist.
Feminist fiction influences me because there’s a constant bias check and I’m more outspoken towards sexism of any kind.”
Speaking with Grace, she shared how reading Palestinian fiction reminds her that freedom can be an illusion for immigrant women.
To quote her: “I read this beautiful book A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum and it was about a Palestinian girl, barely 17, who married into a Palestinian family that lived in the US.
Despite their exposure to the US culture, they were still Palestinians in their thinking and the freedom she thought she’d have by leaving Palestine and coming to the US was only a facade because they still did things like they did back at home.
It was such a sad book but it opened my eyes to the struggles of women from another culture, how our struggles as women can be so lonely yet so collective.
Good book, overall 👌”.
The honest truth is that women as a group will only achieve a fraction of our feminist goals when we actively build solidarity with other women.
By reading from women in diverse cultures, we not only build empathy but also strengthen our collective sense of feminism.
Angel Nduka-Nwosu is a writer, journalist and editor. She moonlights occasionally as a podcaster on As Angel Was Sayin’. Catch her on all socials @asangelwassayin.