As a young girl growing up in Limuru, Kenya, a rural village roughly 25 miles west of Nairobi, Loise Muya watched her mother harvest maize and potatoes to sell in the local market.

“My mother tilled the land from morning until evening,” says Muya, who is one of seven children. “But when the money came in, it all went to my father. My mother had no say in how it was spent — not for her, and not for my brothers and sisters and me. That is the way it is for women. It’s part of the culture.”