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Why is feminism a dirty word in Ghana?

Being a feminist means no man will want you, you're a loud difficult woman who'll bring her husband problems, or you want to sleep around and cannot even do the most basic of household chores.

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Opinion: When you hear the word feminism, what do you think?

At it's core it means equality - women are equal to men. This should be reflected at work, in the home and through society.

Women and men should be afforded the same rights and opportunities, but the word and the movement exist because across the world things are not equal between the sexes.

While International Women's Day has passed us for another year, at Pulse.com.gh we are dedicating March to Pulse Women's Month so I asked Afua (last name withheld) a young, Ghanaian feminist for her take on where a woman stands in society here.

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She tells me being a feminist means no man will want you, you're a loud difficult woman who'll bring her husband problems, or you want to sleep around and cannot even do the most basic of household chores.

At 22-years-old, Afua's insight is deep, and her anger at how women are treated is relatable. She is one of the most active people in my Twitter feed, using social media to discuss feminism and gender inequality here.

She operates in a space where women are severely under-represented in leadership roles, churches preach women should be subservient and girls on average receive two years less schooling than boys.

Afua is dedicated to fighting for women to be treated fairly in society: "Not being treated like some pinnacles of virtue torn down at one small mishap that a blind eye would have be turned to if it were a man."

She rallies against the expectation women should be submissive to men, where society ensures the man is unquestionably right and a woman is second to him.

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Women's bodies are highly policed and being considered a "good girl" is paramount. She says religion is the base of these beliefs and people hide behind religion to get away with harming women and girls.

The ingrained rules Afua grew up with, demand a woman never raise her voice to a man, but when she needs to convince him to do something "stroke his ego and speak in a soft voice".

There are unspoken rules to put women below men, "you just know them. See and learn," she says.

A man has to be richer and smarter, and a woman can not withhold sex, ever speak about menstruation or ask her partner to get sanitary items for her or "you'll turn him into a barima kotobenku [an emasculated man/a manwoman]," Afua says.

Afua says there's pressure to choose a career that will allow you to pack up and follow your husband wherever his takes him.

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However, Afua says there is hope.

“Gradually, the younger generation of men are seeing how important gender equality is.”

Afua says she use social media  as a form of rebellion to speak out against societal norms.

"[That] women should not be too outspoken, shouldn't talk about sexual activities, they should focus on making themselves good women for their future husbands' and then we have this girl, not a Ghanaian living abroad, no. A Ghanaian, living in Ghana, saying all these things."

Afua says it's impossible to note  her views were formed from foreign exposure because she was born and raised here. She expects this makes people uncomfortable, but in the future she wants to provide women with the resources they need to live lives on their own terms.

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Until then she is using her writing to "raise awareness and encourage people to think about all we've accepted and then ask 'why?'."

And it's not only in Ghana where the gender balance is severely lacking.

In December, the United Nations released its Human Development Report, which showed that women earn an average of 24 percent less than men and occupy less than a quarter of senior business positions worldwide.

Women carry out 52 percent of all global work, and are less likely to be paid for their work than men, with three out of every four hours of unpaid work carried out by women.

The report included 2009 figures from Ghana that found total unpaid work per day for women was 220 minutes and 68 for men, while social and leisure minutes was 169 for women and 254 for men.

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And, when they are working, women are earning less. Figures for estimated gross national income per capita for women in Ghana in 2011 was $3,200, and for men, $4,515.

The gap in education is also striking, 2014 figures found the mean years a girl will be at school is 5.6 and for a boy, 7.9 years.

And while my country New Zealand will proudly boast we were first to give women the vote, as the report shows, New Zealand isn't exactly winning when it comes to gender equality.

Looking at 2014 figures for estimated gross national income per capita, women earned $24,309 to men's $41,372.

Statistics from 2009 -2010 show New Zealand women undertook 247 minutes of unpaid work a day, while men were at 141 minutes. Paid work for women was 143 minutes and for men 254 minutes, however, the leisure minutes were the same.

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While International Women's Day was just March 8, we should be mindful of these huge gaps between the genders everyday, and work to lift women up, and close that gap of inequality, whether that means taking shared responsibility in household chores, fighting to get more women into parliament, or stopping the judgement and policing over what a woman chooses to wear.

A longer version of this piece originally appeared on Stuff.co.nz

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