Men are power, children mean power. Taiye Selasi, celebrated author of Ghana Must Go, opens up glimpses into inescapable gender hierarchies. Through the eyes of an 11-year-old girl The Sex Lives of African Girls tells the story of a fateful day in a village in Accra, on which male dominance unfolds in all its harshness, the more so as it is supported by women. The girl Edem has no mother, her auntie Khadijeh can’t have children of her own, both don’t stand a chance: “In the peculiar hierarchy of African households the only rung lower than a motherless child is a childless mother.” An excerpt from this story accompanying the Violence edition of the Dictionary of Now. To article...