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Stella Nyanzi Quotes (1974-)
President, Writer, Poet
About Stella Nyanzi
Stella Nyanzi (born 16 June 1974) is a Ugandan human rights advocate, poet, medical anthropologist, feminist, queer rights advocate, and scholar of sexuality, family planning, and public health. She was arrested in 2017 for insulting the Ugandan president. In January 2022, she was accepted to live in Germany on a writers-in-exile programme run by PEN Germany, with her three children.
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βMen with guns can't shoot at nipples.β
βIn a way, motherhood keeps me very grounded.β
βMotherhood is important for me because everything I do is about creating a better legacy for my children.β
βI wear lipstick, I speak like an academic, I take off my braβ¦ and this is usually not what politicians look like.β
βNow, I am sure the poor woman in her graveβ¦ is shocked every time I perform my own version of womanhood and femininityβ
βI also get a lot of motivation from my children because if I didn't have children, I would not need to change the world.β
βWhen I put my nipples on the frontline, I learnt they fight harder than any bazookas. Men don't know how to deal with that.β
βGood girls and respectable women are trained to avoid taboo topics and βbad wordsβ particularly in their public articulations.β
βI don't get inspired by high and mighty women, it's everyday women. It's grandmothers, stepmothers, second wives, all swearing at their men.β
βI think it is very liberating to embrace the many forms of motherhood in all its diversity. We must not be trapped by homogenous ideas of motherhoodβ
βIn my experience, there is much greater currency and power in my deployment of irreverent idioms of satire, mockery, and ridicule of oppressive power.β
βDouble standards demand that feminine respectability bars women from articulating, writing, or deploying words, concepts, and ideas deemed to be taboo subjects.β
βMy multiple identities empower me to fashion my writing into an effective weapon fighting against injustices meted out by holders of abusive power onto underprivileged groups in society.β
βCustody and punishment for writing freed me of the fear I previously held of being imprisoned. Physical and emotional torture during my two terms in prison radicalized me in unexpected ways.β
βBut do women have agency to enter politics on their own? Or must we be beholden forever to male patriarchs, and misogynistic dictators, to whom we are answerable for our political participation?β
βI use nudity because it's a weapon of the weak and the poor. The cost to pay is called shame, but I think I'm not ashamed of my body. It's a beautiful big mama body, and I am glad to deploy it for war.β
βThese women are working, no matter where they are placed within politics. They entered political participation with the heart of the masses, the heart of the people, with the will to work against oppression.β
About Stella Nyanzi
Stella Nyanzi (born 16 June 1974) is a Ugandan human rights advocate, poet, medical anthropologist, feminist, queer rights advocate, and scholar of sexuality, family planning, and public health. She was arrested in 2017 for insulting the Ugandan president. In January 2022, she was accepted to live in Germany on a writers-in-exile programme run by PEN Germany, with her three children.