During the lecture Mineke talked about how women and men were presented in different texts (particularly, in ancient), books, religious literature, and provided the audience with a multi-angled overview of what was it like to be a woman twenty centuries ago and what is it like now. At the beginning of the speech, she quoted several religious and rare texts from different cultures, where the process of creating a man by God was described. In all of them a woman was created after a man, which afterwards led to the idea that men are more important than women. For example, an ancient Nigerian text says: “Hinegba took some earth and made man out of it. He took some more earth and made woman out of it. Man is physically stronger than woman because he was created first”. This and many other texts show us that the perception of female as a weaker sex is rooted into the history, dating back to the era of ancient societies.

 

The second part of the lecture was about female genitals. Despite the sensitivity of this topic, Mineke openly talked about how female private parts were represented in different cultures and countries and how people are trying to raise awareness about it in the modern world. Surprisingly, it turned out that in some countries and communities women are not perceived as weak. On the contrary, their nature, their bodies, especially vulvas have a secret energy and power, that can even affect weather or protect the community from dark spirits.

 

Mineke finished the lecture with a small talk about modern social movements (like #MeToo) and the processes that are happening in the world related to male/female inequalities and human rights in general.