NEWS

Tuesday 14 August 2012

Inspire: Challenge for African First Ladies & African women in power

http://inspireafricans.blogspot.com/I received this email from one of my many mothers. It possed a challenge to African women in power and even a regular woman like myself & so I felt it was worth a share.
#Be Inspired.

Role of the First Lady

The title 'First Lady' originates from the United States sometime ago in the eighteen hundreds, where it was used to describe the spouse or hostess of an Executive. A a couple of hundred years later, the title is held by the wife of the reigning president of a country (except in South Africa where Jacob Zuma gave the country FOUR first ladies!) and is shaped by tradition and individual interests. Its not an elected office nor is it an appointed one, yet the First Lady can play a significant role in the Presidents' administration.

"The First Lady has no assigned duties or responsibilities, so the role is really hers to craft as she choses", says the Curator of the First Ladies collection L K Graddy.

If this is the case and taking African tradition into account, then why is it that we cannot even identify or relate to our African First ladies from their hobbies, interests or causes? Is it because they do not have any interests or socially empowering agenda's for the nation which they mother, or is it that their causes and activities or not being documented enough if at all, so much so that the only thing our First Ladies are being associated with is sleeping and eating?

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