Welcome to Breaking Down Patriarchy. I'm Amy McPhee, Allibest. Throughout season one of this podcast, we studied essential texts in gender studies through Western civilization. We learned the historical roots of current struggles, such as prescribed roles that men assign to women. We learned that sex is biological, gender is cultural.

We learned about hundreds of manifestations of the universal system of patriarchy. But what if

many of these concepts are not universal after all? What if Beauvoir's concept of sex and gender

is predicated upon her being a 20th century, white,

French woman? What if people in other parts of the world read our quote unquote essential texts?

And the arguments not only don't feel true, they don't even make sense. Today's episode is going to

challenge some of our beliefs and assumptions and disagree with some of the authors we've studied that we hadn't even thought to question.

We'll be centering the episode on the country of Nigeria, and I'm so excited for this chance to expand our understanding and complicate the narrative with our guest, Olu Timeng Kukoi.

Welcome, Olu.

And I hope I got your name okay.

You absolutely did.

I think the rehearsing was worth it.

Very well done.

Thank you.

Did rehearse.

Well, if it's okay, I'd like to start with a formal bio to introduce you.

And then I would love you to introduce

yourself afterwards with maybe some more personal details. But to introduce you formally,

Olu Timeng Kukoi is an award-winning writer, speaker and public intellectual whose work

focuses on love and freedom. She's known for her insightful analysis of issues relating to feminism,

gender, sexualities, and pro-poor urbanization. Her TED talk on urban inclusion, which was called

Who Belongs in the City, was delivered at TED Global in 2017, and it was acclaimed as one of the

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