WOMEN IN ECONOMICS AND WOMEN AND SOCIAL NORM
Artist Statement:
The project explores womenomics- women’s economics, and also women’s roles in shaping and continuing societal norms. Throughout Africa’s history and indeed humanity, women play a strong role in the lives of the people and societies despite the under reportage of women’s exploits in world history. In many nations like in Nigeria, women are a major force in their economy. According to the CFR Women and Foreign Policy Program’s new digital report, with data from the McKinsey Global Institute, Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) could grow by 23 percent—or $229 billion—by 2025 if women participated in the economy to the same extent as men.
I was selected to be a participant at “Mapping New Bodies” with Adeola Olagunju, supported by CCA Lagos and Goethe Institut Lagos. The workshop looks at variations of violence as a means of understanding and interrogating the causes, forms and the mechanism that produces and maintaining them. After the interactive section with the participants at the “Mapping New Bodies “workshop for women photographers, we took to the street for field work. I took a walk to Sabo Market interacting and documenting several women- Alero, Basirat and Patience who hawk and trade by the roadside to make a living. In relation to societal norms, being the purveyors of lives, through pregnancy and childbirth, women are usually the first contact humans have and this brings the opportunity for the shaping of lives and generations.
It is therefore paramount for women to be knowledgeable to input the right vices in their offspring. Perhaps this role is often underestimated or overlooked for the remarkable opportunity it truly is: To make a lasting positive difference. This is not to burden women alone with the task of societal transformation, but to remind us that we wield great power. Like Bob Marley said in one of his songs “The biggest man you ever did see” was once a baby. We are always someone’s child, irrespective of our age and stage in life, and our mothers are an unending aspect of our lives
