There was a time when the table was never set for women. I have spent so much time going through documentations and speech of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Priyanka Chopra, and many others. I can’t contain my joy as to how much women have been able to relatively stand so tall in positions, entities, and leadership compared to older generations.
I see histories, cultures, traditions, and positions in the past where decision-making circles echoed with only male voices and power was passed down like inheritance, never shared. But today, the tide is turning. Women are no longer waiting to be invited to the table; they are bringing their chairs and sometimes creating the table themselves. This is inspiring to me and many.
This shift didn’t happen overnight. It was born out of decades of resistance, sacrifice, and painful persistence. And behind every seat now claimed by a woman once deemed “unfit” for leadership or intellect, there is a story — one that needs to be told.
A Childhood Shaped by Silence
I come from a place where a girl’s worth was measured by how well she could prepare for marriage, not for exams. Although many parents wanted their children to attain at least secondary school education, but that was it, nothing more. Not because they were not interested, but major due to the mindsets, environmental structure, and resources. Where I grew up, Education was a fleeting dream.
By the time most of them completed secondary school, their next step was not to further their education, it was being an apprentice to acquire a skill and then marriage. But something so strong in me resisted intentionally!
“Perhaps it was grief that awakened that fire”. I lost my mother when I was just nine. Or maybe it was hunger! And not the typical hunger for food, but for more. For a voice! For a better future! I dared to look beyond my means, beyond my gender, and my circumstances. And I walked toward education like it was the only road out. To my dear self Chidinma, it was an escape route and the only path to excellence.
The Road Paved by Powerful Voices of Women
My journey like that of countless other women has been shaped and inspired by fearless feminists who lit the torch before us. Women like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who taught us the beauty of being unapologetically intelligent, feminine, and assertive. Her words “We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller… But I am trying to unlearn that lesson” became a mantra for many of us clawing our way out of silence and out of the status quo society has designed for us.
We also owe our seats to legends like Malala Yousafzai, who took a bullet for the right to go to school. Each of these women broke ceilings not just for themselves, but for the generations watching them.
Why Women Are Finally Sitting at the Table
So why now? Why are women finally being seen, heard, and respected in spaces where they were once invisible? There are countless reasons why! I mean, we can see now that the stories female legends (dead or alive), once whispered are now being screamed into boardrooms, parliaments, and pulpits. Better access to education has turned hidden potential into global power.
Social media has become a stage for silenced voices and a battleground for justice. Women have stopped asking for permission to do the things they need to do, and women are now being supported by fellow women and real men. And because the world is finally and slowly recognizing that no society thrives when half its population is pushed to the margins.
Our Seats Are Sacred and They’re Not Just for Us
As I study for my Master’s degree in Economic Behavior and Governance in Germany, far from the dusty roads of my childhood, I carry the faces of the girls who never made it this far. I carry the hope that my story will widen the path for them. That they will not have to choose between dreams and survival.
I don’t sit at this table for myself, I don’t stumble and strive to rise for myself alone. I take action for every girl who was told to stay in the kitchen, every woman who was paid less for doing more, and every sister who was taught to shrink.
And dear champion reading this, you belong at the table too. Not because you’ve earned it more than anyone else, but because your voice, your vision, and your victory matter.
Women Are Still Rising
Let us honor the women before us, the ones who burned so we could shine, and let us pull up more chairs for those behind us, because when women rise, societies thrive, because when women speak, the world changes, because education enables us to fly, and we are far from done flying.