Where else might you eventually find "A Place Where Women Rule"?
Rebecca Lolosoli is likely to be quite busy on most typical days. Of course, you too would be quite busy if you were the de facto ruler of a city, village or town.
Ms. Lolosoli has attracted the admiration of the UN for all her mighty leadership efforts, and she has most assuredly earned it! She is the recognized matriarch of the Kenyan village of Umoja, and does not appear to suffer fools gladly:
[She] took the hand of a frightened 13-year-old girl. The child was expected to wed a man nearly three times her age, and Lolosoli told her she didn't have to.
The man was Lolosoli's brother, but that didn't matter. This is a patch of Africa where women rule.
"You are a small girl. He is an old man," said Lolosoli, who gives haven to young girls running from forced marriages. "Women don't have to put up with this nonsense anymore."
Not enough people understand (or care) that such defiance is risky in many parts of the world; indeed, Lolosoli has drawn grave threats to her safety. Nonetheless, her motivation for continuing in her current role has weathered much, and began from similar hardships:
Ten years ago, a group of women established the village of Umoja, which means unity in Swahili, on an unwanted field of dry grasslands. The women said they had been raped and, as a result, abandoned by their husbands, who claimed they had shamed their community.
Stung by the treatment, Lolosoli, a charismatic and self-assured woman with a crown of puffy dark hair, decided no men would be allowed to live in their circular village of mud-and-dung huts.
The very existence of Umoja is a grim reminder of recent injustices, but its residents have seen some prosperity. The nearby Samburu National Reserve attracts tourists who partake of the Umojan women's camping site and wares; this revenue has enabled the villagers to "send their children to school for the first time, eat well and reject male demands for their daughters' circumcision and marriage."
I wish that such basic self-empowerment was not so dangerously difficult for most women to grasp (and keep). Though Umoja's apparent stability is cause for a little more optimism, I'm more occupied with similar conditions in other nations. What are the odds that an all-female town or city could begin to arise in your country? Would the national, provincial, or local government be sure to crush the gathering at first notice? Would nearby citizens seek to disrupt a "women's town" or might they let it peacefully co-exist? If you don't think your own country/state/province would tolerate such a place, can you suggest one that might be more hospitable?
Ms. Lolosoli has attracted the admiration of the UN for all her mighty leadership efforts, and she has most assuredly earned it! She is the recognized matriarch of the Kenyan village of Umoja, and does not appear to suffer fools gladly:
[She] took the hand of a frightened 13-year-old girl. The child was expected to wed a man nearly three times her age, and Lolosoli told her she didn't have to.
The man was Lolosoli's brother, but that didn't matter. This is a patch of Africa where women rule.
"You are a small girl. He is an old man," said Lolosoli, who gives haven to young girls running from forced marriages. "Women don't have to put up with this nonsense anymore."
Not enough people understand (or care) that such defiance is risky in many parts of the world; indeed, Lolosoli has drawn grave threats to her safety. Nonetheless, her motivation for continuing in her current role has weathered much, and began from similar hardships:
Ten years ago, a group of women established the village of Umoja, which means unity in Swahili, on an unwanted field of dry grasslands. The women said they had been raped and, as a result, abandoned by their husbands, who claimed they had shamed their community.
Stung by the treatment, Lolosoli, a charismatic and self-assured woman with a crown of puffy dark hair, decided no men would be allowed to live in their circular village of mud-and-dung huts.
The very existence of Umoja is a grim reminder of recent injustices, but its residents have seen some prosperity. The nearby Samburu National Reserve attracts tourists who partake of the Umojan women's camping site and wares; this revenue has enabled the villagers to "send their children to school for the first time, eat well and reject male demands for their daughters' circumcision and marriage."
I wish that such basic self-empowerment was not so dangerously difficult for most women to grasp (and keep). Though Umoja's apparent stability is cause for a little more optimism, I'm more occupied with similar conditions in other nations. What are the odds that an all-female town or city could begin to arise in your country? Would the national, provincial, or local government be sure to crush the gathering at first notice? Would nearby citizens seek to disrupt a "women's town" or might they let it peacefully co-exist? If you don't think your own country/state/province would tolerate such a place, can you suggest one that might be more hospitable?