Can Feminism Be African? With Minna Salami
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Established in 2025. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash promo. All lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash promo to start selling with Shopify today. Shopify.com slash promo. Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorrenti. Our guest today is Meena Salami, the feminist author, social critic and current programme chair at the New Institute.

Her first book was 'Centuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone',

and her writing can be found in The Guardian, Project Syndicate, Al Jazeera and The Philosopher, among many others. In her new book, Salami explores the question: can feminism be African? Drawing from feminist thought, post-colonial theory, historical insights and African knowledge systems, Salami combines personal reflection with cultural criticism to offer a vivid and cohesive discussion about power, identity,

patriarchy, imagination and the human condition. Joining Salami to discuss the book is Hannah Dawson, historian of ideas and editor of the Penguin Book of Feminist Writing. Let's join Hannah now with more. Hello and welcome to Intelligence Squared. I'm Hannah Dawson and I'm extremely glad to be joined today on the podcast by Meena Salami.

Mina is Research Chair and Senior Fellow at the New Institute in Hamburg, Germany. She is a writer, social critic and public intellectual, a renowned speaker who speaks around the world and has spoken at a number of extremely august institutions, the UN, the EU, the Oxford Union, the Cambridge Union, Yale University and NASA.

She's published widely, been a contributor to various books, as well as in the mainstream press, such as The Guardian, Al Jazeera and The Philosopher. She's been involved in all kinds of extraordinary cultural productions, including having made an amazing prize-winning film called Black Feminism and the Polycrisis. Her first book was Sensuous Knowledge, A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone.

And her second book, and the book that I'm very glad to say that we're going to be discussing today, is Can Feminism Be African? published by HarperCollins. Welcome to Intelligence Squared, Mina. Thank you so much, Hannah, and thank you for your very warm and wonderful introduction. I really appreciate that. I thought we might start, Mina, by talking about

The question of your title, Can Feminism Be African? Because on the face of it, and this is your intention, it is a kind of jarring, paradoxical, odd, unsettling title. It's really not obvious how these concepts might go together or indeed why on earth they might not be absolutely twins.

And so that paradox is exactly the kind of space, the kind of uncertain open space that your book is interested in writing into and opening into. You know, immediately when one thinks of that question, you can think of a lot of reasons why the answer might be no. And yet it feels to me like your book is one way or another working towards a kind of yes.

And, you know, one just to sort of kick us off, you know, one obvious reason why you might think that the answer is no is that feminism might be thought of as a white colonial and neocolonial import and imposition that African people rightly want nothing of. And that African people have their own way of thinking about gender and absolutely have no truck with feminism. It's just another kind of colonial imposition concept.

And yet the book takes us in a very extraordinary, rich and other direction to that. So I wonder if you could start by talking to us a bit, Mina, about the paradox of the title.

Absolutely. Thank you very much for that question. The subtitle of the book, which one cannot see on the proof, I also still just have the proofs with me, is a most paradoxical question. Can feminism be African? A most paradoxical question. And the reason that the book is titled this is precisely because it is

a multi-layered polyphonic question. There's something obviously provocative about it. And, you know, it's been quite fascinating since the book was announced and since I've been sharing the cover on social media. You know, it seems to...

conjure very different reactions in people. In some sense, the aim of posing a question like this in a book's title is to provoke thought and to get a discussion going, because there are quite a few contentions around the notion of African feminism. Contentions, provocations, tensions, paradoxes, things like that. But really, if I were to try to

narrow down in a concrete way why I chose this title for the book. And I want to emphasize the word concrete because of course, in some sense, titles are magical entities that just sometimes just appear of their own accord and we go with it and then sort of explore the title, which

also happened with this book to some extent. But the concrete reasons that I can kind of give a rational answer, a linear answer to, there are three reasons. The first reason that I chose this title is because I would argue that feminism is having kind of a moment. You know, in the past

10 years or so, there's been an explosion of feminist literature compared at least to previous eras. There could always be room for more, but, you know, there's been a lot of feminist literature, nonfiction and fiction has been published. And a lot of this literature has taken an intersectional approach, which is fantastic. An intersectional approach being that these books are interpreting feminism and womanhood and gender issues

related issues with an awareness and a cognizance that womanhood is shaped not only by gender, but also by class, by race, ethnicity, sexuality, ability, and so on. And yet amidst this kind of

unprecedented interest and engagement with feminist literature, there is an absence of African feminist voices and African feminist perspectives from the continent particularly, but also from its diaspora. And so in some sense, when I'm asking the question, can feminism be African, I'm asking

can feminism be African already? Like, can we also include the African feminist perspective in this very important and wonderful conversation that is happening right now within the feminist space? And then secondly, I'm asking the question precisely where you are going with that, you know, there's a kind of

confrontational spirit almost there and, you know, saying like, why, how can you even ask this question, you know, to some people, to some people it's like, why would you want to create a distinction between feminism and Africa? And to others, it might be, you know, obviously there is no immediate automatic relationship between the two terms.

And I've been writing a blog about African feminism for 15 years. I launched this blog in 2010. It's called Miss Afropolitan. And over those years, I have come to understand...

that the backlash against African feminism is not only massive, you know, there's a huge backlash against feminism in Africa, in the African space. And that backlash is very much driven by the argument that feminism is un-African. And this argument takes shape in multiple ways, right? But

To the extent that that backlash, I think, or that that sentiment informs this disturbing backlash that is very much still ongoing and even, I would say, you know, stronger than ever. The question is challenging that. And wanting, in some regard, to engage with that. So saying, can feminism be African? You know, because everybody, all these people seem to be saying that it can't.

So let's engage with the question. The last reason that I'll mention for the title question is precisely because it is so contradictory and paradoxical. And I believe that paradox is a very generative impulse. It's something that stops us in our tracks and makes us think. And so I really wanted to invite that kind of spirit into this inquiry.

Wonderful. That's a wonderful answer, Mina. And as you were talking, I was thinking about your epistemology, really, your interest in ways of knowing that transcend what in your previous book, Sensuous Knowledge, you described as Euro-patriarchal knowledge. And just as you were talking about the kind of absence of African feminism, it reminded me of the way you talk so beautifully in your book about wanting to

Well, you say at one point that you want to make a new lexicon because there isn't actually space in language or hegemonic discourse for African feminist thinking or not in any kind of fixed kind of categorical way. And in a way, you're writing into this

emptiness and this emptiness this absence as you put it earlier is both an opportunity and of course a kind of crime against African women and Africa and women and and and you talk so beautifully about Africa being erased and an absence within Eurocentric history about women being an absence within Eurocentric history and then you put those two things together and you have this extraordinary chasm but also this amazing space which as you say you're interested in kind of filling with

Things that are kind of beyond language. Language is our necessary tool, but you're interested in thinking with dreams and social imaginary and oral culture.

And I found that very, very powerful. That connects to another thought that I had about your book, which I loved, was the way in which you talk about feminism not just being against patriarchy, but also being a place of vision, which is what's so interesting about the way that you articulate it. We're going to go on now to talk about Africa as a concept. But I don't know if you want to say something about your...

methodology and approach? Yeah, I mean, the first thing that comes to mind in response to what you just said was that even though this book is sort of looking at a different theme than my previous book, Sensuous Knowledge, it is in some way a sequel to Sensuous Knowledge. And many of the conversations and reflections that have come up for me in the four years since Sensuous Knowledge was published are

themes that I further explore in this book. And one of those is precisely this thing about reimagining and in some sense reinventing the world. And in the book, I speak about, you know, the kind of intellectual arrogance

in some sense, that is required for feminists to do this work of reimagining the world. Because it isn't, you know, it is quite arrogant to say that, well, I want to reimagine the world. We want to do this work. But what else is feminism other than precisely that? And that is where language comes in. Because as Bartholomew

members of the human species, you know, this is the tool that we have available to us above all tools with which we employ our imaginative faculties and are able to re-dream new possibilities, you know. But I do, as I already in the book's dedication say, that, you know, language is

in itself has a limitation. It's not the kind of end destination. It's more of a conduit taking us toward that place of freedom and flourishing and liberation. And yet, you know, language is very central to this book. And the book is sectioned into three. There's a

The first section is about Africa, the second is about feminism, and the third is about being, which is also a word in the title question. And the aim in each of these sections is to use language to reimagine and to reinvent each of these three huge concepts, in a sense. Well, you've said it exactly. So just to repeat that the shape of the book moves from thinking about Africa to thinking about feminism to thinking about being.

And let's start with Africa. So as you talk about from various angles, it's very hard to get a grip on what that word might mean. I think you begin your discussion with this amazing quote from Wole Soyanka that Africa is a European invention. And then you say there's no true Africa, there's no one Africa. And I wonder whether you might talk about that kind of instability of the term.

while also discussing its possible merits as a kind of conceptual mechanism of solidarity or identity.

Wole Sheinka says that Africa is a European invention, and I guess I start from a place of agreement with him, and probably to some extent also end there. So I just want to make that clear before I try to unpack then. The notion of Africa is one that is so...

incredibly rife with symbolism and meaning and contention in ways that other continents are not. You know, we see Africa on

as tattoos, as photos, like when you just hear that word and it conjures a whole host of images and symbols and meanings. And many of those are sort of biophysical. So people just think of the actual sort of geography of Africa. It's layered with meanings that are all about the history of Africa, the greed, the violence, but also the kind of ancestral legacies of

You know, for some people, it's all about the people of Africa and what they look like, their phenotype, their genotype, also their, you know, their traits, their character. There's so many layers. I mean, I say in the book that Africa is almost as symbolical as the cross. You know, it's got so many meanings to it. And yet, in some sense, all of these things are pointing toward a way that we very reductively interpret.

think about Africa always in these very empirical terms. So it's, yes, it's, you know, it's material, it's biophysical, it's a place, it's located, it's something that we can measure and, you know, it becomes a metric sort of for one thing or the other. And what is lost in this narrative is the ways in which Africa is beyond physical. So it's metaphysical and I call it metaphysical Africa to speak to the way in which

Africa is shaped by narratives, by states of mind, by dreams and imagination and language and all of these things. And when we remove that fact, when we deprive African people of thinking about Africa in this way, we also end up

staying in these places that are very harmful and oppressed and extracted from without the corresponding

opportunity and possibility of conjuring new ways of thinking about Africa. So I'm not saying that because Africa is a European invention that it can not become an African invention or something that Africans own. But in order for it to do that, we need to engage with the concept itself. When we became African people, which was quite late in history, you know, it's like in the 19th century or so,

it was really a terminology that was handed over to people who had never heard this word before, right? So we still need to reclaim it and make it our own is what I'm trying to say in a nutshell. And this, of course, just to quickly add to that is all very, because people might say, what does this got to do with feminism? And one of the things that I'm always pointing out in the book and want to mention here too is that

African feminism is, per definition, a political philosophy that is looking at gender, race, ethnicity. So it's intersectional in that sense. And the word African in that phrase plays a big role. We have to also unpack and reconstruct the notion of Africanness to be able to fit into it as women. Yeah, sure thing.

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I mean, I wonder whether now you might get into some of the kind of conceptual architecture of that section and describe how you see the mechanisms of patriarchy and neocolonialism

working, how they do their work in conjunction. And you have these, you invoke your own concept of superiorism and you bring that in with Hegel's dialectic of the self, the master-slave dialectic and the way in which the self dominates the other. And also you have this very interesting chapter on the ghost of whiteness.

which I found so powerful, the way in which the kind of fantasy, the phantasm of racism kind of infects the interior landscapes of people in Africa. So I wonder if you could exactly talk about the sort of mechanisms of neocolonialism and patriarchy. Yeah, it's perfect that you frame it that way, actually, because

so much of this section is probing even more deeply into what in "Centruous Knowledge" I coined as "Europatriarchal knowledge." And so it is precisely this combination of neocolonialism or Eurocentrism, if you like, and patriarchy. And that really necessarily sets a foundation for the spatiality in which African women find ourselves in today.

And African men, too, of course. You know, I start way back, historically speaking, looking at the invention of Africa, but also the invention of Europe. Because I believe that, or as I show in the book, that that framing and that arising of what we know as Europe, its narrative is one that is what I call superiorist.

And so when Europe then later encounters Africa and pursues it in this empirical way as a place to extract from and to exploit both resources and people and so on, I want readers to understand

how that happens, because the better we understand it, the better we can come to understand ourselves and the kind of challenges that we're facing. I call it superiorism, and I find it useful to kind of place at the centre the thing that is happening in oppression, whether it is racism or patriarchy, sexism, classism, you know, to just really centre the act of

And what it is, is that, you know, there is one group that is saying that we are superior to another group. I kind of unpack how this comes to be, like, what is the thinking process behind superiorism? And I call it

This is the term that I use throughout the book rather than racism and so on. You know, I think that this is something that the world at large can really have a use of as we're trying to come to grip with so many of the urgent issues that we're facing.

Yes, yes. Yeah, I found it hugely helpful, heuristic, as you say, to unlocking not only many disparate crises, but exactly, you know, the way in which these crises intersect. And of course, at the end of that section, you have a very wonderful sort of glimpse of a way in which these, we might come out of it.

And you talk about a kind of non-dualistic approach to mutual recognition. And I can't really believe the example I'm about to give is of two white women in a film, but I think it's Woman on Fire, isn't it? That amazing movie, which is about a woman painting another woman.

And often when we're thinking about painter and sitter, we think about kind of subject and object. And obviously we often think of the male gaze and the female object, the female body. And what's interesting about this film is it's a woman painting another woman. It's not just, but of course the female gaze is powerful. But the point is that the sitter...

says to the painter, you think you're observing me, but I'm observing you. And there's this way in which you articulate the capacity for mutual recognition, which collapses the dualism between self and other. I wonder if you'd like to talk a bit about that kind of resolution that we find at the end of that section before we move on to thinking about feminism.

Absolutely. I don't actually think that it is a problem that, you know, that that scene or that you refer to that scene because I refer to it in the book. Yes, I think whatever images we can use to help

explain emancipatory ideas are the ones that we should use. And that's such a perfect scene. So I just want to recap it very briefly. So in the movie, there is a scene between two women. One is an artist and she's painting the other woman. And they are simultaneously painting

kind of falling in love with each other. This is taking place in, I believe, the 17th century or so. And, you know, there's obviously a lot of taboos around lesbianism. But yes, there's this sort of

erotic charge in this scene. And the woman who's painting the other woman, the artist, she kind of mockingly says to Eloise, as the name of the so-called, you know, love object is, that, you know, she starts pointing out all of her mannerisms and says, oh, when you're nervous, you do this. And when you're that, you do that. And rather than kind of feeling self-conscious, Eloise responds and says, when you are looking at me, who do you think I am looking at?

In this chapter, which is titled The Trickster Dualism, I should preface just by saying that I perceive myself to be a non-dualist feminist. One of my big irks about the dominant conventional ways of knowing is dualism. I'm

I'm pursuing a non-dualist kind of mission in this chapter and in this book and in my work at large. The reason that I'm arguing that we need a kind of trickster dualism is because we are so programmed to thinking in dualistic ways. And one of the key dualisms of our society historically and contemporarily is the dualism of the self and the other. You know, this is the dualism that we find in all kind of hierarchies, whether it's where

women and men, science versus emotions, Africa, Europe, like, you know, there's always this dualistic way of thinking and embedded in that is a power hierarchy. And so in order to disrupt that way of thinking, I am offering this trickster dualism, which is the observer and the observed. And that is why this particular scene in the movie is so fitting, because it's

Well, I'll let people read the book, but in a sense, the observer and the observed sound like they are a dualism, but they're actually not. And so that helps us to think about changing the relationships between whatever dualism we're looking at that is laden with a power dynamic that's harmful. Brilliant, brilliant.

Such a good instance of the genuinely innovative work that you're doing in this book, Mina. So let's turn now to part two of the book, to feminism. And I wonder if we could begin by talking about the experience of kind of contradictoriness that you found in yourself in relation to your work.

being as a woman and your African-ness and your blackness and you talk about what to do about the fact that there is oppression of women in Africa.

And that there are all these kind of family codes and religious norms. What you do with that experience, but also the generativeness of that experience. Yes, I mean, I see why you're being mindful, because it's also a difficult question. And so maybe the first thing I'll say is that, you know, we actually, I think as women, all experience,

encounter this regardless of where we're from you know because there's a there's just this inherent tension with womanhood and nationhood uh and identity if you like but maybe it's it's you know it takes a certain shape in africa and it's um it's definitely a pronounced one and yes i mean for me you know i i grew up in lagos in nigeria and um

And I grew up in a time in the 1980s when, you know, we were sort of the first generation of post-independence Nigerians had come of age because Nigeria gained independence in 1960. And so there was really this very progressive spirit. You know, things were tough, for sure things were tough, but there was still this spirit of

political and social possibility. And I was really attuned to that, partly also because, I mean, I think generally these discussions featured everywhere, but my parents also were friends with a lot of journalists and activists and politicians. And, you know, so there were these conversations were always around.

And it was the spirit of Pan-Africanism and rebellion. And these conversations were being shaped, of course, by key thinkers. Kwame Nkrumah, Fela Kuti, Chinua Achebe, Wole Shoyinka mentioned already. All, of course, men. And so the conversation around African identity was...

was and is so much shaped from the thresholds of male experience. And as a young woman, as a girl, and then as a young woman, and later as an older woman, I mean, because of this kind of atmosphere, I was very proud to be African. And also because of what I spoke about earlier, Africa being this very symbolic kind of word, you know, a notion. And I really embodied that. I carried that with me when I was

my family, when my mother and I moved to Sweden when I was a teenager, I was devastated. I had a lot of friends who were moving and they were very happy because they were going to America or London or wherever, but I was really sad about this. So I was a very proud African child.

And yet, because I was also a feminist, and to some extent, I believe that I was born a feminist, I just always had this spirit of nonconformity and anger toward the injustice that women face within me. And once I started to articulate my feminism more and more, there was just such a clear tension between that and feminism.

the kind of mainstream version of African identity, which had been defined from the thresholds of male experience, which in the book I refer to as "andro-Africanism". These are the kinds of tensions that I think are really important to have space. I mean, I'm writing about my experiences and of course, because I'm mixed race, my mother's from Finland, you know, one could say that I'm also influenced by the kind of quote unquote white feminism.

But I think it's more the kind of the element, the spirit of nonconformity that I'm seeking to conjure and hopefully inspire African women to think about. Yeah. And also to think more abundantly than African feminism is often pigeonholed into. I mean, you have a very excellent work.

way of thinking beyond the usual box into which African feminism is put. So you talk about the way in which it's often sort of reduced to humanitarian women's issues, FGM, child marriage, all of which you absolutely acknowledge are deadly serious issues, but they limit the capacity for selfhood, I guess. You don't want that to be all.

that African feminism is and that it can transcend, it absolutely has to be allowed to, as a matter of justice, transcend that, but it also, by transcending it, it points to an extraordinarily abundant feminism for everybody.

And that connects up to another really interesting point that you make about the kind of feminism that you're interested in, which you describe as harmony feminism, which on the face of it sounds so odd, because obviously, as you say, you know, feminism is this is a definitionally kind of agonistic form, you know.

It's against patriarchy. And, you know, we know from all sorts of kind of civil rights fights that, well, as Frederick Douglass said, you know, power doesn't give up anything without a demand. And we know the history of violent struggle, which has arguably been integral to patriarchy.

emancipation or equality. I mean, I don't know. I mean, you're very good as well on the distinction between those two things. But anyway, you pit these two amazing figures against each other in a way. Miriam McCabe are on the one hand that extraordinary singer and then Winnie Mandela. And I wonder if you want to talk about those two women and the sort of poles of

approach that you're interested in navigating? Sure. Yes. So I just want to say that, you know, with this notion of harmony, that it's not so much that I'm interested, like I'm not sort of saying that that's what we should go with. So I'm not advocating for harmony feminism in the book, as much as I'm trying to

produce a level of tolerance for it and help us to understand where it's coming from like harmony being something that Africans have been craving for really like understandable reasons you know there's been so much disharmony forced upon the continent I just want to acknowledge that what we might call harmony feminism exists and it has a potential as well and and so then I

suggest that Miriam Makeba is a harmony feminist and I'm speaking of Miriam Makeba and Winnie Mandela as icons and kind of what they represent you know Miriam Makeba has this image of like she's called Mama Africa you know and of course this motherly kind of

vision of her evokes feelings of harmony, of nurturing and peace. But actually, she was a very rebellious woman in many ways. She married five times and so on and so forth, which is great for a woman of that time. It's very radical. But there was something quite harmonious and gentle about her demeanor. And then on the other hand, we have Winnie Mandela, who in some sense was not as...

quote unquote, feminist. I mean, neither of them explicitly call themselves feminists, but, you know, insofar that she very happily played the role of Nelson, of being the wife of Nelson Mandela for a very long time until she then quite famously didn't. When she was just the wife, even then she was, you know, a tough cookie and she always spoke back against the law enforcement. And, you know, she just has this spirit of the kind of feminist,

The feminists kill joy. So, yeah, so I found it generative to try to juxtapose these two sentiments, ultimately to show that they both are of great value to the African feminist movement. I mean, maybe there's a slightly bold and risky argument.

attempt that I'm trying to do here by creating a binary. And I say in the book that because I'm a non-dualist, I'm opposing binaries. But nevertheless, in this case, with like evoking a similar Martin Luther King, Malcolm X juxtaposition, because I think that that juxtaposition has been quite generative for Black people around the world.

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I mean, I was very drawn to this chapter precisely because of that sort of craving that you describe, but also because of that sort of dialectical generative possibility of exactly what happens when you have those two juxtapositions talking to each other. Because how can you find peace if all you're doing is fighting?

And that was what was so interesting, exactly, and it's so brilliant to kind of compare your juxtaposition with that King-Malcolm X juxtaposition because precisely in this feminist space you get this really interesting different kind of tune which can precisely encompass the force with the music.

I mean, in all sorts of ways, not just from a sort of affective angle. That is just a hugely helpful and hopeful way of kind of shifting our approach, it seems to me, to injustice.

to think about the music too. Let's turn now, shall we, to your final part, this glimmer of African feminism and the way in which you weave in, on the one hand, a kind of Jungian understanding of individuation, which is a very specific concept, with the Yoruba tradition and thinking about particular concepts from that African Nigerian tradition itself.

Tell us about that synthesis. So in this section on being, I'm really trying to get us thinking deeper about the notion of being in itself, but also really grappling with

the contention that exists between the individual and her community. Because so much of the sense of being in an African context really is like that discussion of individualism versus communitarianism informs it so, so, so vastly.

And it's such a reductive conversation. It's been going on forever and ever and probably will continue to go on for a very long time still. But I want to make an intervention and something like to find again a way to disrupt and get us out of this dualistic way of thinking about it, which creates so much harm because it's so much more complex than the conversations suggest.

And individuation, which indeed is this Jungian concept that many will be familiar with, I think provides this wonderful intervention because it's a concept about, you know, coming into the becoming of oneself and the being of oneself as well. And within that are all these like

complex layers of individuality, but also of a kind of interconnectedness and synergy with one's environment. And so individuation in that sense is so rich. But then I also found it so interesting that the discussions are indeed Nigerian, but even more specifically in this section about the Yoruba. And I found that there are so many

parallels between Jung's individuation and the Yoruba philosophy of life, in a sense. And so I'm connecting those two to show that in an African context, we already have this language that points in the direction of individuation. That's the extraordinary note that you end on exactly, is that Africa is enriched by feminism and that feminism is enriched by Africa.

I mean, that sense of kind of, of actually in the end, there is this wonderfully poetic reciprocality or reciprocation between the two concepts that you began by kind of opposing or thinking about as oppositions. And in helping us see that feminism can be African and that Africans can be feminism, it gave me, not an African, just an amazingly...

I'm so grateful for this whole new set of resources and ways of thinking and feeling about feminism, but also, yeah, and positionality and dualism. I think it's a really remarkable book that speaks to its topic, although it speaks to its topic and speaks much more widely, although you do have this amazing line. Yeah.

your line where you say you couldn't bear it when people asked you what you were writing about, what's your topic? And you said, I don't have a topic. I have a wound. And you're writing out of that wound. And I found that amazing. I mean, we're at the end now, but I wonder whether there's any last kind of message that you don't feel I've sort of helped you to be able to express in this interview that you'd like to end with. Yeah.

You have been so great and really helped me to unpack the themes in the book. And I am very honored and grateful for what you just said as well. And I'm super happy that the book has been useful and a pleasure for you. There's a notion from Nigeria called Shakara.

And it means something like insouciance or defiance, boldness. There's a kind of erotic power to it. And it's a word that I want to bring into this conversation because it really speaks to something that I think African feminism offers the world at large and offers women especially. And it's this kind of bold playfulness,

the kind of intellectual arrogance that I mentioned earlier and even arrogance just generally because you know of course this is a negative term as such but you know in some sense if we're going to get our feminist project

done once and for all we will need this kind of shakara so I just would like to end with that. That is a perfect way to end Mina thank you so much. That was Mina Salami, author of Can Feminism Be African a completely brilliant book that I recommend to you all, available now online or at your local bookshop published by HarperCollins. I've been Hannah Dawson, you've been listening to Intelligence Squared

Thank you for joining us. Thanks for listening to Intelligence Squared. This episode was produced and edited by myself, Mia Sorrenti, with additional editing from Bea Duncan.

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