The case of Ms d’Almida is unusual as she does not run a newspaper dedicated specifically to women. "Le Bninois is a general information newspaper. It deals with politics, sports, as well as society and culture. There is something for everyone," she says.

"Women journalists should leave the society pages and get interested in issues that men have made their privileged field. I am talking about the political and economic columns," Ms d’Almida says.

Le Bninois does have a weekly section on women, but it has nothing to do with fashion or make-up. "The section deals with development issues and the promotion of the status of women. It deals with all the questions that interest them such as: the place of women in politics, in the rural world, in the economy, etc," she says.

Ms d’Almida regrets that men in her staff did not offer to contribute to the section. "There is one woman who is in charge of that section. When the section was set up, some male reporters showed their willingness to write for it, but none of them has given concrete proposals," she says.

Ms d’Almida is confident that other women will follow in her footsteps and direct general interest newspaper. But it will not be easy.

"The misogyny of men and their greediness allow them to ban somewhat our ascent. But we have to recognize that there are very few women in the media in Benin. And the small number of them who are journalists, in my opinion, do not work enough," Ms d’Almida says, adding that "as women, we have the duty to promote our gender. It is not men who are going to do it for us."

The fact that a woman runs Le Bninois does not hurt the credibility of the paper, says Ms d’Almida. "On the contrary, our readers, our colleagues and the people our staff interview are more confident about what Le Bninois publishes," she says.