Meet Joan Thatia the African feminist who is not afraid to speak her mind

Joan Thatiah is a woman of steel who believes that young women should be enlightened about their bodies and advices them on how to handle life changes. The 29-year-old feminist who has been a journalist since 2011, does not sugar coat what African women should expect from a man. She is like an older sister who dishes out details about marriage and love. Basically information that other African writers shy away from.

I met her at the Nation Centre in Nairobi. She had a lot of positive energy as she spoke about her passion for writing for women.She said , "I like to call myself a writer. I write articles and books for women. I am passionate about women, I write about women for women".

She writes to women about the issues that are seen as a taboo in society. Joan Thatia is a feminist and believes that young women can still be brilliant if they are encouraged enough. Thatia specialized in writing for African women because most self helping novels do not cater for African women. According to her the African woman has a different culture and some writers do not address issues that she goes through, the content that is sold to African women from western countries do not cater for the African woman.

Joan said, "They don't have literature for women or life based motivation literature, we don't have that. All of the material that we are consuming is from abroad. So I want to create that for Kenyan women". She also prefers to deal with an older audience and wants to write books full time. Her stories are not controversial; they are raw and unsettling truth. The column that she writes for on the Daily Nation is called the plain truth, according to her it's the truth in our everyday lives that sometimes we don't see, or the lies we tell ourselves.

Thatia has also written two books, the first one is called things I will tell my daughter, the second one is called I am too pretty to be broke. Her inspiration comes from being a journalist for six years and meeting hundreds of women. According to her an interview with a woman is never just about her job or about her business it gets personal. As a journalist she usually goes home with many stories of women and lessons. She wanted an avenue to put her content. That is what inspired her to write the books. "I had these lessons, like a ton of them that I wanted to share and I couldn't write them all in my column". She said.

Her target audience is mature, women. She acknowledges that there are some young adults who can read the book but her approach and style can be misinterpreted by a 15-year-old.Her inspiration also comes from interacting with people from different walks of life, she said, "I can’t say there's one person who inspires me. But I think everyday, I meet somebody that inspires me, they could be a child or an adult. I don't have one person that I can say I look up too. I draw my lessons from my everyday experiences".

Her advice to young women who are feminists is to listen to your heart. You will meet  a lot of people that don't see your dream like you do and that's okay, because it is your dream ,so follow your heart most of the time it will take you to the right place.