Why Africa’s legal gender gap persists despite progressive policies

Across Africa, women are entering the legal profession in record numbers. Law schools are fuller, bar admissions are more balanced, and courtrooms increasingly reflect the societies they serve.

On paper, the progress is impressive. Many African countries now rank highly on progressive gender policies within law and justice systems.

Yet a quieter, more stubborn reality persists: leadership in law remains largely male, and where women do rise, workplace culture and entrenched norms often limit how far and how freely they can lead.

This contradiction sits at the heart of Africa’s legal sector today. Reports, including those by the International Bar Association, show that while women’s participation has surged, leadership opportunities have not kept pace.

Women remain under-represented at senior levels in law firms, corporate legal departments, judicial leadership, and decision-making bodies. The issue is no longer access alone; it is power, influence, and institutional culture.

It is against this backdrop that the Difference She Makes movement emerged in 2025.

Framed as a Pan-African initiative, it positions itself not as a celebration of numbers, but as a challenge to the systems that have allowed gender equity to stall at the entry level.

Its central claim, that representation without authority is insufficient, reflects a growing consensus among legal professionals across the continent.

The movement’s reach is notable. Through storytelling, dialogue, and cultural platforms, Difference She Makes has engaged more than six million people across Africa, with active work in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa and a broader continental lens.

But its significance lies less in scale than in emphasis: shifting the burden of change away from individual women and onto institutions themselves.

This distinction matters. For years, women in law have been encouraged to “lean in,” mentor one another, and build resilience in systems that remain opaque and exclusionary.

Difference She Makes instead argues for institutional accountability; transparent promotion systems, open leadership pathways, and cultures that reward merit rather than proximity to informal power networks.

In doing so, it pushes back against the myth that gender equity has already been achieved simply because women are present.

Voices from within the profession echo this concern. Advocates involved in the movement speak less about barriers to entry and more about the ceilings that follow.

As one legal practitioner observed, women may be seated at the table, but rarely shape the agenda. Token representation, the campaign argues, can coexist comfortably with inequality.

The movement also reflects a generational shift in how advocacy is pursued.

Rather than relying solely on policy briefs and conference resolutions, it places storytelling at the centre of reform.

Through podcasts, digital series, and journalist–lawyer collaborations, it surfaces experiences often excluded from formal legal discourse: stalled careers, biased evaluations, informal gatekeeping, and the cultural penalties faced by women who assert authority.

One such platform, a journalist–lawyer fellowship under the Voice and Verdict initiative, pairs legal professionals and journalists from Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa to produce investigative storytelling on systemic bias in the legal sector.

The intent is clear: to move conversations on gender equity from abstract commitments to documented realities.

By naming the problem, the movement suggests, institutions can no longer ignore it.

The campaign’s regional ambitions also extend beyond national borders.

In partnership with NALAFEM, Difference She Makes is linking African experiences to global policy spaces, including the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

This approach challenges the tendency to frame African legal systems as lagging, instead presenting them as sites of both innovation and unresolved contradiction.

Importantly, the movement does not claim that policies are absent. In many African countries, gender-responsive frameworks already exist.

What it questions is implementation and the cultural resistance that quietly undermines reform.

As several contributors to the campaign note, progressive laws mean little when informal norms continue to decide who is promoted, heard, or trusted with authority.

There is also an effort to broaden who gets to speak. From senior figures such as Zambia’s first female Bar Association President, Linda Kasonde, to younger lawyers and retired judges, the movement deliberately spans generations. This intergenerational approach acknowledges that progress has been made, while insisting that it has been incomplete.

At its core, Difference She Makes taps into a larger debate unfolding across professions in Africa: whether equality is measured by access or by influence.

For women in law, the answer is increasingly clear. Entry into the profession was a critical first battle. Leadership and the culture that sustains it is the next.

The challenge now is whether institutions will respond. Cultural change cannot be achieved through campaigns alone, no matter how visible.

It requires law firms, courts, bar associations, and public institutions to interrogate their own practices and relinquish comfortable myths about meritocracy.

Until then, Africa’s legal sector will continue to tell a familiar story: one of progress that stops just short of power.