Women's Stories

Hope Chigudu and the JASS Southern Africa team gathered Malawian women's stories to give a glimpse of work on the ground in Malawi, the shifts that the women have made to change their lives and the dilemma of monitoring and evaluating the shifts. This series of stories demonstrates that there are parallels and connections, and points of intersection between the oppression of HIV+ women in Malawi, and social and cultural expectation and poverty.  These elements actually overlap and reinforce each other.

I come from a militant leftist family that always spoke about equality between men and women, although, like many leftist families, we faced challenges when combining theory and practice. These contradictions in my family and later in development and human rights organizations, showed me that equality is not a given – instead, it must be built, which isn’t easy in such a deeply machista society.

Maria Mustika learned first-hand the isolation and trauma that comes from shame and stigma in families and communities. Her LBTI activism (lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex) is grounded in her personal experience of coming out as a lesbian. For more than ten years, she has been taking the lid off sex and sexuality in her community. First, as part of community outreach for Gaya Nusantara – one of the most vocal and visible gay rights organizations in Indonesia – Maria supported other young people kicked out of their homes and circles of friends because of their sexual orientation.

The F-word, “feminism,” is taboo in some spaces and arouses mistrust and criticism. That was true for Zimbabwean activist and sceptic, Fadzai Muparutsa, who spends her days doing advocacy around the L-word in “LGBTI” – lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex.