About
The Project
Unmothering the Woman began in 2020 with a question that had long sat in the room: why do we revere motherhood as an ideal while failing the women who live within it?
What started as a digital storytelling campaign became, over four seasons, an expanding body of conversation, research, and creative work exploring the lived realities of mothering in Kenya.
The project used video interviews, podcasts, convenings, and community dialogue to surface what women experience but are rarely asked to name: the silence around postpartum mental health, the legal precarity of divorce and custody, the stigma carried by sex workers who are also mothers, the invisible weight placed on firstborn daughters, the unspoken economics of domestic labour, and the cultural myth that sacrifice and suffering are simply the cost of being a good mother.
Across its seasons, Unmothering the Woman interviewed dozens of women and men, collaborated with thematic experts, medical professionals, legal practitioners, and feminist organisations, and built a digital resource database connecting women with psychosocial and reproductive health support.
Unmothering the Woman is where Meza Yetu Collective began. The questions it opened continue to shape everything we do.
Explore the full Unmothering the Woman archive at unmotheringthewoman.africa
