Sally Ncube shares her top recommendations in honor of
Zero Discrimination Day
To draw attention to the inequality and injustice that currently exists around the world, Zero Discrimination Day 2022 calls for urgent action to end discrimination related to income, gender, age, illness, impairment, sexual preference, substance use, gender identification, racial group, class, ethnic background, and religion.
We asked Sally Ncube, a Women’s rights, Gender and Civil Society development expert and the National Coordinator of the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe to share her top five publications on discrimination of women and girls. The Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe envisions a society where there is zero discrimination against women and girls and one where they enjoy their rights fully.
You can connect with Sally via LinkedIn and Facebook
Find her recommendations below!
A Beautiful Strength - A Journal of 80 Years of Women’s Rights Movements and Activism in Zimbabwe since 1936
By Rudo B. Gaidzanwa, Isabella Matambanadzo
This book documents women’s movements in Zimbabwe including achievements, challenges, and strategies implemented pre and post-independence. It is premised on the hope that future generations can look back and reflect on the journey of women’s movements in the country hinged on compelling storytelling. It opens up the possibility of developing inter-generational collective memory through personal journal entries and photographs of the various women who were involved in the fight for equality and non-discrimination in Zimbabwe during different eras. What makes the book interesting is that it does not conform in style or language to academic rigour.
Things Fall Apart
By Chinua Achebe
The book paints a picture of how gender inequality and patriarchy are destructive to both the people who are oppressed by it and those who supposedly benefit from it. No one wins under the patriarchy. In Things Fall Apart, the main character deals with an obsession with masculinity, what we often call “toxic masculinity” now. The book shows how much misogyny is built into society. In early life, the main character and his father were often called “Agbala” as an insult, meaning woman or lesser-than-a man. It is noticeable how these roles also affect the women in the tribe. This is a clear example that not only do women and gender-nonconforming people suffer because of patriarchy, but so do men. It is an important realisation to come to because we need to rid ourselves of the oppressive systems that hold us all down.
Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia
By Jean Sasson
This book looks into the life of Sultana, a Saudi Arabian princess, a woman born into generational wealth. She has the finer things in life but in reality, she has no control over her own life. Although set in Saudi Arabia, as you read this book you can vividly relate and resonate with the story given the discrimination that women and girls face in Africa, and Zimbabwe.
Nervous Conditions
By Tsitsi Dangarembga
This book deals with the themes of poverty and the challenges encountered by women while striving towards success. This novel brings attention to the politics of decolonization theory and women’s rights. Through its negotiation of race, class, gender and cultural change, it dramatises the ‘nervousness’ of the ‘postcolonial’ conditions that still follow us. African women can see themselves in Tambu’s character and the women in her family.
We Should All Be Feminist
By Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie
In a personal essay adapted from her TEDx talk of the same name, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie offers readers a unique definition of feminism from a twenty-first century
perspective. She draws extensively from her own experiences and deep understanding of the often masked realities of sexual politics. She explores what it means to be a woman and makes a case for why we should all be feminists.
The book is amazing but so is the TedTalk presented by Chimamanda herself, you can watch it here
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