The rebels fought for resources. Charles Taylor fought to stay in power. Young boys were recruited to fight in a war they barely understood. And the women of Liberia, they fought for survival, theirs and Liberia’s.

Pray the Devil Back to Hell is a gripping, tear-jerking, yet empowering story of the resilience of the human spirit and the capacity of our survival instinct to triumph over the greatest challenges.

Read the rest of Nekessa's review here.

Uganda is under attack and, as always, it’s the mothers of the nation who are to blame. 

An anti-homosexuality bill has been tabled before the Parliament of Uganda. Many have risen to denounce and oppose it, both within the country and from across the globe.  Many others have risen to support it. Some in the Church have argued in favor of the capital punishment in the Bill, others have argued for life imprisonment. The ones arguing for life imprisonment are actually considered to be in opposition to the Bill. After all, in Uganda “homosexuality is already an offence under the Penal Code of Uganda as is same-sex marriage, which is prohibited by the Constitution.”

Dan Moshenberg shows why Uganda is NOT under attack.

I have written about gender violence before, and I am afraid I might sound like a broken record. The problem is this issue still persists.

And I am a little frustrated that I have to keep writing about it. But we all know that all over the world there are men using violence to keep their women "in check". Every corner of the globe, there is a man hitting his woman. We know that the problem is worst on our continent. We know that it happens in Kenya.

Read more. It gets personal. He abused m.....

On the first of January 2008 we were still fearful. We didn’t open our business.

I worked at the Eldama Ravine shopping centre at Mama Faith’s Shop. We owned the shop. It was just next to my house – they are joined together.

But I stayed at home that day because I was scared. We left the shop locked up.

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A few years ago I met a female Somali member of parliament. She was part of the transitional government that was based in Nairobi and flew into Mogadishu as often as they could.
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In August 2002, after eight years of working as an Executive Assistant at Morgan Stanley, I decided to resign and pursue my dream of starting a home-based boutique public relations firm. I also wanted to work for myself so I could be more involved in my daughter's life and school (PTA).

One morning as I lay with my 6-year-old on her bed I felt a lump in my left breast. This was abnormal for me, so I immediately scheduled an appointment with my gynecologist. Initially he dismissed my concerns because I was young, but he scheduled a breast sonogram which was inconclusive, and so a biopsy was scheduled six weeks later.

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A couple of years ago a friend of mine had a debate about the right to dress a certain way. Being relatively conservative, I was of the position that women (and men) had a responsibility to dress in such a way that they would not "provoke" negative reactions from the wider society.

Read more from Nanjala Nyabola here.

On Saturday the 24th of February, 2008, I went to a meeting of women in Kibera, Nairobi. It was in the open, in the field next to the Kibera D.O.'s office. Under a tree, next to a dusty soccer pitch on which a few energetic children were playing, sat some women listening to the meeting's moderator, Ms. Jane Anyango.

Read more from Wambui Mwangi here.

A few years ago my favourite song sported the refrain "I am not my hair...". This song I loved not because it made profound musical sense to me or added any excitement to a night of vigorous dancing, but because it said, in words simpler that I could ever have thought sufficient, what I had been trying to say my whole life: "I am not my hair, I am not this skin, I am not your expectations (oh!)..."

Read more from L. Akitelek Papakemus here.

From the beginning of time, the human male has announced himself the champion of the universe, the dominant sex and the master of the all that he surveyed.

Recent scientific discoveries are working with our experience of the world around us to challenge this view, which has for all of time been considered a universal truth.

Is man (the male human species) becoming extinct??

Ronald Matheka writes more here.

Leso Munala responding to former President Moi's call to women to take on responsibility as leaders in the community.

It is one thing to say that qualified women should fight for positions in public
office but another to actually create policies that will enable this to happen.
Women, given the opportunity are going for the highest level of education they
can attain in their various fields of interest. They too are ambitious and want
the very best for Kenya. Just like their males counterparts in Kenya, they
should not have to fight for positions in public office if they have the
relevant education and experience. This mindset will only change if the nation
as a whole embraces the notion that character, relevant training and experience
rather than gender should be the driving force when considering who to elect as
public officials to serve the country.

Read more here.

L. Akitelek Papakemus battles with the idea of being a modern-day feminist.

Having said that I think the feminist movement was, in retrospect, a grand waste of time. Even more so than the American civil rights movement - unless “African” is honestly a better label than “black” and “black” a step up from “negro” - if the intent remains. The hyper femininity that resulted from women’s OWN rejection of the feminist movement as a “carpet muncher’s” voice box, has left the modern woman with an absurdly unrealistic notion of who she should be.

Read more here.

Nekessa Opoti speaks to Nicole Khalani a teenage mother and the challenges she has faced.

Without a social welfare system and a society where women still bear the brunt of society's responsibility to take care of children born out of wedlock,the challenges of a teenage girl raising a child are enormous.

Read the rest here.

Read President Kibaki's Madaraka Day speech here.