Amina MamaNigeria Current Board Chair Global Fund for Women Amina is half Nigerian, half English. She grew up in a Muslim community in Northern Nigeria, which she had to flee because of anti-Muslim riots. Since 2008, she has been at Mills College as Barbara Lee Distinguished Professor Ethnic Studies. Before that assignment, she served as Chair of Gender Studies, University of Cape Town, South Africa. She is a leading scholar on issues of masculinity and militarism. Amina’s involvement with the Global Fund began when she met a group of Board members touring Africa in the summer of 1998. In her words, “It was quite unusual to encounter a number of cosmopolitan feminists so committed to internationalism, and so eager to gather insight into African women’s realities. In contrast to other donors, here was a funding agency that was not just spouting the right rhetoric about ‘women in development’ and ‘gender mainstreaming’ but was genuinely interested in supporting autonomous feminist movements on a continent that remains, for the most part, hostile to the idea of women’s liberation!”
Honored by the Global Fund for Women |
