The most hated in Sierra Leone and in Africa are women who take a stand without backing down. I am one of them.

In Sierra Leone and across the world women who participate in public discourse challenge the status quo face anti-woman vitriol even though without women’s participation sustainable development will remain a dream.

Women’s freedom of expression is itself a revolutionary act; whether we know it or not, we are putting ourselves in harm’s way when we speak. Outside of the internet young African women are rarely heard. We appear only in NGO reports as national indicators of underdevelopment. Social media has made it possible for the marginalized to have a voice, but it also amplifies hate

A woman who participates in public discourse pays a heavy price

 When we come online, society expects that we uphold the gender status quo; women must mind what they say and how they say it. We are expected to be good women who post photos with our children, our husbands in matching outfits going to church or the mosque, Bible verses and prayer chains, and food we have cooked, or makeup tutorials and fashion trends. Do that, and you’re loved and considered a decent and respectable woman. Freely express your opinion on anything that is not a woman’s issue and expect to be put in “a woman’s place.”

Forget about questioning politicians, the government, public spending, and corruption, forget about talking about structural violence against women, forget about speaking up period, and forget about challenging a narrative that juju and black magic is the reason why a football player missed a national match. Who born dog?

Over the past two years, I have been called a whore many times over for posting an opinion online. Whether it was in the lead up to the 2018 elections, or voicing support for a commission of inquiry into corruption, calling out the police and government for not protecting citizens in a bye-election or speaking against the cutting of girls in Sierra Leone. Each time my opinion is different from the status quo, I get attacked. It is not that people disagree with me; no, they vilify me.

The theme and the topic of the attacks are always the same: I am not woman enough, or not a woman at all, or a whore and a prostitute, a sex-deprived single mother, a husband snatcher, or no wonder my son’s father left, or no wonder I am single at my age. No matter the season, the attacks are gendered and misogynistic. The goal is to silence, intimidate, and punish me not so much for what I say but for having the audacity to speak.

 

The tone of the attacks is always full of fury. As if to say how dare you express yourself when we have not told you what to think and say. Why must you speak? Who do you think you are to speak? Who permitted you to speak on this?

 

Like who born this bastard, is she deaf? That is what is said about me, to me, that is shared and posted online.

 

Men post their opinions on social media, in thought pieces, WhatsApp voice notes, and tweets and their ideas get challenged. No one challenges their right to speak up. No one questions their manhood or their sexual virtue, but as soon as I give my opinion, the attacks follow.  

 

These attacks are meant to put me in my place, to tell the community that a woman like me is of no consequence, that I am nothing but a used vagina (Yes, I have been called that online before). The attacks are about intimidation, and the intention is to shame me into silence.

 

And make no mistake about it, other women, many women participate in these attacks, they will lead them, and they amplify the misogyny because by doing so they get to be closer to masculine power. It’s a form of Stockholm Syndrome.

 

The misogynists’ understanding of womanhood is about a woman’s virtue, so they attack that to hit at the core of what they think you hold dear as an African woman. Through their sexist lens, all women desire to be chaste and sexually pure, but feminist theory taught me differently, and thank God!

 

Men young and old; has-been child “prodigies,” footballers, and government officials expect that if a woman is going to use a public platform to give any opinion, it should be to stroke their ego, congratulate them, promote them, elevate them, but never to challenge or question them. Your job as a woman is to praise and to worship them.

Fear is why women don’t come forward to serve

Engaging in public discourse has given me insight into why so many women in Sierra Leone turn down public life and public service. Government officials say they nominate women to public office a high number turn it down. It is not that they don’t want to lead or serve. It is that they are afraid of the hate that is bound to follow. They know that their personal lives will be unfairly scrutinized, and their virtue attacked. The price of engagement in public life is too high for women in Sierra Leone.

 

To accept to serve, you either need to have no shame or have a husband who is powerful or has prestige. The rest, mistake, and you go sabi!  Women know what awaits is misogynistic abuse and harassment. Until society accepts that women have a right to participate in public life as full citizens and human beings, held to the same standards as men, many more will back down and step away from public engagement and participation.

Women must persist, and resist the hate

The latest misogynistic attacks were because I dared to challenge the narrative of a footballer who told the BBC that a witch doctor told him juju caused his injury, a narrative he peddled after people questioned why he missed a national football match. Today the furor against my comments on that issue has died down.  The next time I dare to speak up again, I know I will incur the wrath of the “woman be silent police.”

 

My advice to other women about public service and public discourse is this; speak up! Participate even though you are afraid. Speak truth to power and disrupt the narrative. Ask questions when things don’t make sense to you. Every time we back down we give them more power and normalize the notion that women should not have a place in public life.  Wi noh foh tok too strong, passionately, or with too much bite online or offline. In fact, wi noh fit tok at all

 

Come what may, no matter how vicious the attacks, women must resist and persist. We are revolutionaries. The reason why we bring out the misogyny in men and women is that they know we are being heard. They may not be ready for us, but they hear us, and we're building small tiny circles of influence. Our narratives put the, but in theirs, our posts challenge their authority--the ones they thought were their God-given rights that no one would ever challenge.

 

The more of us that find the power within ourselves to participate and engage in public discourse, the more we free other women to do the same. And little by little more and more women because of the internet, because we took up space online we will carve out a bigger space for women in public life offline. Our impact may not be felt today, but what we're doing right now on the internet; my friend Jemila is doing in Ghana, and my friend Schaeffer is doing in Kenya, what I'm doing in Sierra Leone daring to express myself without permission is revolutionary.

 

We are paving the path for those who will come after us and for ourselves. By refusing to be silent, we create more room at the table for women, and we build new tables, and others will have a place to sit because we refused to cease. These articles, blog posts, tweets, Facebook posts, and videos we create are changing the narrative of what it is to be young and female on this continent.

 

Though we know we are held to a biased double standard, we must demand full participation in public life and discourse. Women and men have the same, equal inalienable right to freedom of expression. And when we question and challenge men and the status quo, that is when those rights should be most protected not attacked.  

 

It is not that I am not afraid that these personal attacks could spillover from the internet into real life. Women have been physically assaulted in Sierra Leone for speaking near powerful people, and across the globe women have been killed for daring to express their thoughts and participate in public discourse. I am aware that the attacks though virtual for now could take a more real dimension.

 

The attacks against me on social media aren’t about me specifically but about power. People fear what they can’t control, and the scariest thing on this continent is a young African woman that has a mind of her own. We are sent to school to learn, but the expectation is that we never forget our place as women. Na dat make den kin say too much book for uman noh fine.

 

Too much education is why women like me think we can talk whenever we feel like it. We think we know.

 

Women like me, we think we are free like men.

 

Like men, we are free.

 

E peemieh kpess.