02/10/2026
Released on 29th September, 2026
PRESS STATEMENT
WHEN WOMEN DIVIDE, UNEQUAL POWER WINS: POWA CALLS FOR AN END TO GENDERED ATTACKS ON LORDINA MAHAMA AND SAMIRA BAWUMIA
The Progressive Organisation for Women’s Advancement (POWA) is deeply concerned about the rise in personal attacks, insults, and gendered mockery directed at First Lady Lordina Mahama and former Second Lady Samira Bawumia.
POWA considers these attacks more than partisan political exchanges. They reflect a troubling pattern in which prominent women are subjected to personal humiliation, undermining women’s collective dignity and political agency.
We wish to make one principle clear: women can belong to different political parties, hold different political views, and disagree strongly without becoming enemies.
Lordina Mahama and Samira Bawumia have both held highly visible positions within Ghana's political leadership. In these roles, they are women in the political sphere and have platforms to advance the interests of women, girls, and vulnerable communities.
Those platforms should not become instruments of pitting women against one another.
POWA therefore calls on Women's Rights Organisations, Women's groups, Civil Society Organisations, and all right-thinking Ghanaians to reject the normalisation of gendered insults and personal attacks on women in public life.
Our concern is not to shield either woman from legitimate public scrutiny. Women in political and public office must remain accountable for their words, actions, and policies. However, accountability is fundamentally different from humiliation, misogyny, and personal attacks.
Women's political experiences are shaped by gender as well as by class, party affiliation, and access to institutional power. When women are encouraged to expend their political energy fighting one another, attention can be diverted from the structural inequalities that continue to limit women's participation and influence.
When women divide, unequal power systems benefit.
Ghanaian women continue to face significant challenges: inadequate political representation, economic inequality, violence against women and girls, unequal access to opportunities, unpaid care burdens, and barriers to decision-making. These issues require collective action.
POWA therefore believes that Ghana's most visible women in politics should use their platforms to identify areas of common interest and advance a collective women's agenda, even when they disagree politically.
Lordina Mahama need not agree with Samira Bawumia, and vice versa. Solidarity does not require political uniformity.
It requires recognising that advancing women’s collective development is bigger than any political party.
We call on women across Ghana to resist the temptation to reproduce the very divisions that have historically weakened women's collective bargaining power. We call on men who believe in equality to reject gendered political attacks. We also call on political actors across the divide to demonstrate that political competition can coexist with respect for women's dignity.
POWA further calls on First Lady Lordina Mahama and former Second Lady Samira Bawumia, two of Ghana's most prominent political women, to consider leading a broader conversation on women's political solidarity beyond party lines.
Ghana needs more women at the table. It needs women who can disagree without destroying one another. It needs women who can compete politically while still cooperating on issues that affect the lives of millions of women and girls.
Women’s power is people’s power.
Let us not allow partisan politics to pit women against one another when there is so much work to be done together.
Signed:
Victoria Lakshmi Hamah, PhD
Founder & President - POWA
