Women Academics From Ghana

"Don't only think of succeeding in what you are doing but excel in it and use your position to solve problem."

"The competitive spirit among the students in my alma mater encouraged me to work hard all the time."

"Because I like reading, I travelled in my mind and got into the world the book talked about. That gingered my power of imagination and broadened my outlook."

"Ghanaian women have served Ghana, They have served in our communities, our mothers, Because we don’t give them names, the home economist, and the human resource managers in our homes who are able to make magic with often very meagre resources."

"Yes, I agree! Adult education in our environment is a very necessary complement for education. Adult education as an institution has to be re-energised and reorganised by reminding the public of its importance. In a society like ours with so many adults literally having had no formal education, adult education should be dynamic so that it helps fill some of these gaps. The fact that adult education seems to have declined so drastically is also a symptom of what has happened to us as a people and as a country, both in terms of education itself and in the application of knowledge generally."

"The exclusion of women is not something that we in Ghana have inherited. In a greater part of Ghana at least, even those tribal areas that are ‘patrilinealʼ, girls are just like other children. So this business of women canʼt do this or do that is very new somehow. I didnʼt grow up in a home where I was forced to learn how to cook. Maybe my people were too strange. Nobody ever told me not to do anything because I was a girl."

"Religion and religious practices interfere with education to a large extent. Remuneration and other support is poor in state-sponsored schools. The boarding school system is a major problem in senior high schools. No education system in an advanced country centres its secondary education on boarding. They brought it from England, the colonial masters. Those public boarding schools are all completely private in England today. The state schools are day schools. How can you have the teenage children of an entire country housed in boarding schools? Unless we do something about that, there will be no significant improvement in the country’s education system."

"Children in this country are receiving virtually no education. Even in the so-called private schools, where they are paying so much, the children are taught extraneous things and in the end donʼt receive a good education. The teacher-student relationship is poor, affecting teaching and learning."

"I survived as a woman where men dominated because my people were supportive of women. In so many places in the world, there is an assumption that African women are the most oppressed. It is not true, we are not! At least not all. As an Akan, Fante woman, I grew up in a society where there was not much discrimination against girls. That is why I could be a writer and nobody could tell me writing was a man’s job. I had to go to University to be told by someone that I speak and do other things like a man. My regret is that we Ghanaian girls are not using the freedom we have inherited, and men are now moving in to colonise us."

"Well I think it is because first of all, they assume that feminism is equal to lesbianism, which it is not. Feminism is an ideological orientation, a perspective on the world and life. The other is a sexual orientation, and the two shouldn’t conflict as they belong to different spheres of human life. One is a mental state, and the other is sexual. In a paper that I worked on in the 80s, entitled African women at century’s end, I stated that everybody should be a feminist, including men. Feminism is not an ‘ism’ that belongs to women only, but a way of looking at the world. It insists that young women in this life should be given the best possible facilities for our development, health, well-being and employment, so that when we become old we can be catered for like old men are."

"Yes I am. It is about a group of people who escaped a terrible epidemic like AIDS, and they felt the only way they could be saved would be to leave their current surroundings and build a new place somewhere else and stay there. Putting some mechanism in place will help them stay safe from the rest of the world, possibly away from other human beings. Inside that country, they have some rules and regulations that they thought could help them, including a decision to build a steel wall higher than the Great Wall of China. Since I don’t know how it ends, I cannot say how they will end it. Whether it will help them, and whether they will be saved or not."

"One of the issues that parents educating their wards around here unfortunately donʼt seem to be aware of is that, to help young people develop, you just have to give them positive stimulants, like interacting with them nicely, loving them, taking care of necessities, talking by word of mouth and correcting them where necessary."

"I started writing when I was very young. I didnʼt know at the time that I was to become a writer. I know that I read all the time. The house was full of books, and I remember rummaging through the cupboards and drawers looking for books to read. There were always books to read. I grew up in a village, a small town in the central region called “Abiadze”. My father was the chief of the village then called “Kyiakor”. He actually opened the village school with our class and some excellent teachers. My mother and another man from the village used to tell us stories every night. I think all of this prepared me to be a good writer."

"Nobody could tell me writing was a man’s job."

"In a society like ours with so many adults literally having had no formal education, adult education should be dynamic so that it helps fill some of these gaps."

"We have to get girls educated. Education that does not put them down is needed in society. We have to open up, talk and write, hold up these negative trends for discussion, analysis, abolition, and possibly banning. As far as Iʼm concerned, society needs attitudinal change."

"My regret is that we Ghanaian girls are not using the freedom we have inherited, and men are now moving in to colonise us."

"In so many places in the world, there is an assumption that African women are the most oppressed. It is not true, we are not! At least not all."

"Feminism is not an ‘ism’ that belongs to women only, but a way of looking at the world."

"Love? Love? Love is not safe, my lady silk, love is dangerous. It is deceitfully sweet like wine from a fresh palm tree at dawn. Love is fine for singing about and love songs are good to listen to, sometimes even to dance to. But when we need to count on human strength, and when we have to count pennies for food for our stomachs and clothes for our backs, love is nothing. Ah my lady, the last man any woman should think of marrying is the man she loves."

"Guilt is born in the same hour with pleasure, like anything in this universe and its enemy."

"There are powerful forces undermining progress in Africa. But one must never underestimate the power of the people to bring about change."

"Clearly, she was enjoying herself to see that woman hurt. It was nothing she had desired. Nor did it seem as if she could control it, this inhuman sweet sensation to see another human being squirming. It hit her like a stone, the knowledge that there is pleasure in hurting. A strong three-dimensional pleasure, an exclusive masculine delight that is exhilarating beyond all measure. And this too is God's gift to man? She wondered."

"it is quite clear now that all of the peoples of the earth have not always wished one another well. Indeed we are certain now, are we not, that so many people have wished us ill. They wish us ill. They have always done. They still do."

"Sissie knew that she had to stop herself from crying. Why weep for them? In fact, stronger in her was the desire to ask somebody why the entire world has had to pay so much and is still paying so much for some folks' unhappiness."

"We are victims of our history and our present. They place too many obstacles in the way of love. And we cannot enjoy even our differences in peace."

"But what she also came to know was that someone somewhere would always see in any kind of difference, an excuse to be mean."

"The very old certainly do not go back on lunch remains but they do bite back at old conversational topics."

"People are worms, and even the God who created them is immensely bored with their antics."

"The best way to sharpen a knife is not to whet one side of it only. And neither can you solve a riddle by considering only one end of it."

"Money making is like a god possessing a priest. He never will leave you, until he has occupied you, wholly changed the order of your being, and seared you through and up and down, Then only would he eventually leave you, but nothing of you except an exhausted wreck, lying prone and wondering who are you."

"When you are a house wife it is assumed you don't work, But if u calculate the amount of time that goes into cooking, cleaning, washing and taking care of children it's a lot."

"The objective is to look at women at the work place and how they can be helped to make the maximum impact."

"Peace promoted investment and that effective governance was measured by the quality of its public services and the ability to deliver on its promises."

"Respect for each other is one of the recipes for sustained peace and tranquility and urged all to be decorous in their utterances."

"You need the help of both men and women to negotiate, and sustain peace, stressing that the country is touted as a peaceful nation for now but for how long."

"There cannot be peace when Africa governments failed to ensure free flow of information to the people it governed. Information is treated as if it is the property of few, there is the need for transparency to achieve effective sustainable peace."

"You have so many years to live and so if you think that just going to school and finishing is all that you need, then you have a problem because there is so much that happens in life through everybody that if you don't learn from them, you have a serious problem. That is what molds your character, thinking process, relationship with people and so on."

"Fathers should not leave the responsibility of the upbringing of the girl-child to women alone because if fathers contribute to the raising of the child, it will go a long way to benefit this country."

"Most of the lessons which influenced her successful career in academia were passed on by her father who took keen interest in her upbringing."

"Having a daughter is not punishment."

"The golden rule; do unto others as you would have them do to you."

"Faith; have faith that God is in control of your life. Trust him and depend on him for courage to overcome your challenges."

"Prayer; I always start my day with prayer to thank God for keeping me alive and safe. I also ask him for wisdom and strength to go through the day."

"Avoid excuses; avoid blaming others and giving excuses. Face up to situations, even when they are unpleasant, and deal with them."

"We had a very interesting experience and the teachers at a time didn’t even know how to handle us and the boys in the class, some of them were a bit uncomfortable and wouldn’t answer a question they were not too sure about."

"Mfantsipim was an interesting experience, we were the second set of girls who went there for the sixth form because Wesley Girls then didn’t have the sixth form. Before that, there was a group of girls from Wesley Girls School who did their sixth form at St Augustine’s and then later the headmistress decided that we go to Mfantsipim."

"I took extra interest in guiding and nurturing students along their academic path because it was one of the things that made her fulfilled."

"Take responsibility and say sorry if you must. It can heal many wounds and resolve complex situations."

"Everyone needs someone they can freely relate to and confide in. No matter how high you rise, preserve the bonds with people who can relate to you with sincerity."