Opinion: How my Nigerian grandfather made my Hollywood career possible

Opinion by Uzo Aduba

(CNN) — In my grandfather’s Nigeria, school was no place for girls. They were raised to take care of the home, perfecting skills — cooking, cleaning, sewing and other chores — that they were told by their parents would be essential once they married and were running households of their own.

My grandfather took a different view. When each of his eight daughters married, instead of taking a dowry, my grandfather took just a single, symbolic dollar from the groom’s family. The gesture was in keeping with tradition, but at the same time made clear that he did not consider himself to be selling off his daughter.

I think of my grandfather as Women’s History Month ends and contemplate how his break with tradition changed the history of women in my own family. He might even have played a role in helping change the trajectory for women in Nigeria. Big changes start, after all, with the smallest of steps.

I also think about my grandfather whenever I cradle my infant daughter, who my husband and I welcomed into the world in November. Without his forward-thinking vision about what was possible for girls, my mother might never have received an education and perhaps I might not have either.

Even though his family struggled to make ends meet, my grandfather made sure that all of his children who had the desire and the ability — including the girls — were able to go to college. It was a bold move that was all but unheard of at the time by men of the patriarchal world that he was part of.

Where did my grandfather get the vision that not just his sons, but his daughters too, deserved to have the chance to realize their full potential? Perhaps it started with his relationship to his wife, with my grandmother, which was also somewhat unconventional.

My grandparents’ household was an equal partnership in which they didn’t make a single decision without consulting each other. My grandmother herself — I assume because of her own broadminded parents — was able to attend school. She didn’t go to college, but my grandfather always boasted that he was married to a “learned woman.” 

Thanks to my grandfather’s egalitarian attitudes — and his not insubstantial financial sacrifices — seven of his eight daughters were able to go to college. My mother not only attended university but went on to earn a double master’s and became a social worker. She later moved to the United States and married my father.

Together, they provided a good life for me and my siblings, enabling us in turn to do the same for our children. My daughter will grow up with untold opportunities that were denied my grandmother in Nigeria — and generations of women before her — because of their gender.

Lack of access to education undoubtedly still holds women back in many parts of the world, including in the Nigeria of my forebears, but what seems to be an even bigger impediment is that the responsibility of caregiving that usually falls on their shoulders.

As an actor working in Hollywood, I am always aware that my husband and I have the luxury of being able to pay for childcare services. Many women and girls around the world aren’t as lucky.

For millions of women around the world, outsourcing care for their children or other household duties is not an option. More often than not, the task of caring for young children as well as elderly family members falls upon them — responsibilities they have to carry out while also running a household and piecemealing a livelihood together. It’s the unspoken norm in many societies and in many ways it’s the backbone of our economies: An estimated 16.4 billion hours are spent on unpaid care work every day, which is equivalent to 2 billion people working eight hours per day for free.

Lacking parental leave or affordable childcare services, women shoulder the bulk of this unpaid care work, due to social norms that view childcare, cooking and cleaning as women’s responsibilities.

Because of the unequal distribution of unpaid care duties, women miss out on opportunities for stable paid employment and are blocked from equal participation in economies that rely on their free labor. Progress for women is alarmingly slow. In 2022, countries adopted the fewest gender-related reforms in more than two decades. This has to change.

Like all mothers, I want my daughter to grow up in a world that offers her equal rights and opportunities today, not 300 years from now, which is how long the UN says it may take to achieve full gender equality at the current rate of progress. And yet, we know that it benefits everyone if women earn more. In fact there is a potential $172 trillion increase in global wealth if women had the same lifetime earnings as men.

Gender inequality continues to be a function of what some societies feel to be the proper place for women. According to the Gender Social Norms Index published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), almost 90% of the world’s population is still biased against women. A staggering 2.4 billion working-age women live in countries that do not grant them the same rights as men. And gender bias is sometimes woven into the very structure of our societies, for instance in the form of tax laws that sometimes magnify gender disparities.

Higher tax rates for second earners, who very often are women, as well as a lack of recognition for unpaid care work reinforce persisting gender roles and social norms that set women back. Public spending that’s more equitable can support women’s economic empowerment, such as education and healthcare, and incentivize women’s participation in the workforce.

But we have the power to choose, as my grandfather did. My parents’ native Nigeria is showing that countries can choose gender equality.

Over the years, Nigeria has been changing. Today it is one of the countries leading the way in reforming its fiscal policy and tax system to advance gender equality. In partnership with UNDP, Nigeria is taking steps to leverage its tax system to improve the lives of women.

If Nigeria, with all its challenges, can do it, so can the rest of the world. UNDP is already working with 25 countries on transforming their systems and advocating for building gender-equal economies.

Just like my grandfather’s choice to educate his girls changed the life course of his daughters and mine, when governments choose policies that see, value and empower women, they can change the course of entire nations. Big changes start, after all, with the smallest of steps.

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