When Women Speak

Traces the stories of 16 Ghanaian women who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. It follows their experiences (as told in their own words) as Ghana passed through periods of military, single-party and multi-party rule. These women were prominent in public life – in the law, the media, academia, politics, and various governmental and non-governmental organisations for women. Their stories tell us about the issues around which women mobilised, and their modes of activism and advocacy at home and abroad, during the ‘lost decades’. They challenge the popular perception that gender activism is a foreign import, which came from ‘the West’ and found its way to Ghana with the restoration of multi-party democracy in 1992.