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This brilliant, influential, exquisitely written book describes in vivid detail the psychological effects of the cultural norms, entrenched traditions, and gender biases prevalent throughout the continent of Africa that undermine and violate women’s basic human rights. This book is particularly dramatic and riveting because it narrates in detail the personal, revealing account of those violations based on the author’s own experience as a child growing up in the country now known as Zimbabwe. Protected and guided by the wisdom and values of her grandmother, called ugogo in her native language, Blessed was able to survive and eventually thrive, although too many African girls and women have not been as fortunate.
Blessed skillfully invites her readers to traverse her journey through the numerous intersecting traditions and norms of the male-dominated African culture. The journey begins with a celebration of unique, colorful cultural traditions, then gradually guides us through the darker side of women’s experiences, including exclusion from education and from property ownership rights, marital subjugation and family isolation, genital mutilation, and all-too-common cases of rape, torture, as well as murder of innocent girls and women. Yet, despite the many severe challenges girls and women face, the narrative journey is reparative. Blessed concludes with a compelling argument that education is the key to gender equality, and the book ends with a history of notable women in Africa who demonstrate that educating girls provides a sustainable means to improve the quality of life for women at all levels and in all contexts-family, culture, nation, and world-then and now. Blessed concludes with the poignant, compelling point that girls’ education is a human right, not a privilege.
