LITERATURE: Women Writers Struggle to Find A Voice

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

John Deng

HARARE, Sep 9 1997 (IPS) - Before women in Zimbabwe can use the power of the word to tell their stories, they must first learn to read and write. This is one of the major challenges faced by the Zimbabwe Women Writers (ZWW), an umbrella organisation of women writers seeking to give women a voice through literature in this Southern African nation.

“One of our objectives is to promote literacy among women in Zimbabwe and to encourage them to read women’s writings. But our programmes have shown us that literacy is still a problem,” says Chiedza Musengezi, a member of the ZWW executive. “Many women do not know how to read and write, while others are being discouraged by their husbands never to read the publications written by women.”

The education of women is becoming more of a problem in the face of economic hardships, says John Vekris one of the founder members of Padare — a men’s forum on gender.

“ESAP (Economic Structural Adjustment Programme) has had a devastating effect on the education of young women, many of whom are being withdrawn from school prematurely when the family budget cannot meet the costs of educating all the children in the family,” Vekris says. “Government and parents must reconsider seriously their priorities so that young women can have unrestricted access to educational facilities and opportunities.”

ZWW is involved in several programmes to promote literacy among women, and a positive image of women in popular forms of media and literature. In cooperation with the Zimbabwe Adult Learners Association, ZWW provides literacy training courses for its members nationwide.

The organisation prides itself on providing public readings in urban and rural schools, and other venues nationwide where women can read their stories and poems, and perform plays. ZWW, founded in 1990, helps to promote women’s writings; develop women’s writing skills; promote the publication of women’s writing; and to encourage the positive image of women in the arts.

Since 1993, ZWW has been involved in a unique project sponsored by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to write biographies of Zimbabwean women who have been successful in fields dominated by men. These stories, Musengezi says, provide young girls with role models.

The organisation also is a part of efforts by the government and other women’s and human rights’ groups to popularise the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

“This has turned out to be a very exciting project. Stories and poems in Shona, Ndebele and English have been written on CEDAW,” Musengezi says. Shona and Ndebele are the two local languages spoken in Zimbabwe.

But women writers are also silenced, because the media amd publishing institutions are controlled by men, says Jonah Gokova, also of Padare. According to one of Africa’s well-known women authors, Ama Ata Aidoo of Ghana, the world has failed to acknowledge “the forces” that silence women’s voices.

“Without the right to free expression, women cannot defend their rights, nor can they influence cultural changes in our society,” Aidoo said during the Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF) held last month. “Nowhere on earth are women’s voices given the same respect as men’s.”

Joanna Foster, Regional Coordinator of Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF), echoes this view, arguing that the pressures from the family and society combined, keep women from writing and talking about their experiences and lives.

“These pressures silence women, but even if she is not silenced, what she says may not be believed because of the social prejudices, notions of privacy and cultural norms,” Foster says.