It's All About Women...Celebrating History Makers & Bias-Breaking Badasses
8th March Was International Women's Day and This Entire Month is Women's History Month
Happy belated international women’s day and happy women’s history month!
Women’s history month celebrates women who have made significant contributions to society and history.
Africa is full of such women—from empresses who fought and won wars to modern-day women who are breaking all manner of biases.
Enjoy this curation of badass African women. May they inspire you, may you build such legacies and may you inspire the next generation!
Women Breaking The Bias in Tech
Venture Capitalists (VCs) invest only 2% of their capital in startups founded and co-founded by women. In contrast, they invest 98% of their capital in men-led startups.
Despite the severe funding gap, women in tech are kicking ass and breaking biases. In a couple of years, the world will have the next Steve Jobs—she will be a woman, and she will hail from Africa (you heard it here first).
Read on for a list of 28 incredible female founders and co-founders in Africa who are breaking the bias in tech.
Empress Taytu Betul
Empress Taytu Betul of Ethiopia commanded 5000 infantry and 600 cavalries in a war to defeat the Italians who wanted to colonize Ethiopia. She won a key battle in Mekelle by cutting off the Italians’ water supply.
Taytu was smart and involved in political decision-making and diplomacy. She chose and named Addis Ababa (the current capital city of Ethiopia). After the death of her husband, Menelik II, she ruled the country all by herself until she was forced to give up power.
She proved that leadership has no gender. 👈 Watch.
Wangari Maathai
Wangari Maathai was the first woman from Africa to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She was the founder of the Green Belt Movement that has planted over 51 million trees.
“When we plant trees,” she said, “we plant the seeds of peace and the seeds of hope.”
She was an activist who was beaten and jailed for daring to be bold enough to protest the destruction of Uhuru Park in Kenya. PS. she won, and Uhuru park is as beautiful today as it was then.
Her husband divorced her for being “too stubborn, too educated, too successful, too strong and too hard to control.”
She was the first East African woman to hold a doctorate.
In 1977, The University of Nairobi (UON) rescinded her job offer because she was too ambitious a woman!
45 years after UON rescinded her offer, they now have as many female lecturers as they do male ones. I am an alumnus; I can verify!
She is an author who has written several books, among them “The Challenge For Africa” and “Unbowed.”
She crawled so that African women that came after her could walk.
She was jailed so that you can protest injustices without being jailed.
She lost a job so that you can fulfill your highest potential without an institution rescinding your job offer.
She got divorced so that you can get married (if you choose to) without someone telling you that your best feature—your brain—is defective.
Her books tell it all!
To get to a point where Africa is #NotAnAfterthought, the continent must and should include women.
As The Economist put it, societies that do not treat women well are poorer and unstable.
Thanks for reading, see you next Tuesday!
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