The Art of Mothering Men I often wonder why breakups seem to be much harder on women than on men (most of the time.) After a breakup, it's commonplace to hear a woman speak of ‘finding herself’ but it is rare to hear of men embarking on these elaborate spiritual and emotional journeys, to find themselves again, to learn self-love, to learn their value outside of romance. There is this common phenomenon in women that I will call ‘wife-ication.’ I would describe this as the gradual loss of self, and the phase when one makes their male partner quite literally their entire world. It begins like this: You’ve gone out to the club, it’s girls’ night and everyone is having a blast. Your friend’s phone rings, it’s her man and he wants to see her. Goodbyes are said and she leaves to be with her man. Over time you hardly ever see this friend, she is always with her man, but funnily enough, he isn’t always with her. He still hangs out with his friends and maintains a healthy social life....
Breakups Suck I've probably been broken up with about 3 times now. My first real heartbreak was in 2019 when this boy I was insanely besotted with dumped me the day of our one month 'anniversary.' I cried at school the very next day to the point that I looked feeble and sickly and my Geography teacher had to ask me if I was okay. During my O Level exams, English Language to be specific, his name appeared in the exam paper and I literally broke down during the exam, but because success is fueled by pain I got an A* in that subject. Navigating heartache while I was in school was probably a lot better than trying to heal out of it, because at least I was forced to go to school and focus on studying and be distracted from my pain. Outside of school, as an adult, there's nobody to push you to get up, exercise, drink water and be productive. It's easy to just waste away and let grief totally encompass you. During my first heartbreak, it took me months to really g...
The Patriarchy Paradox: How Older African Women Both Challenge and Support Patriarchy Recently, I’ve been thinking quite a lot about patriarchy, its seeming inescapability, this looming towering giant that pulls at the fabric of our lives, and the women that weave this fabric, that support the patriarchy’s dismissal of our humanity, and help it steal away our happiness. I know of a couple that got married not too long ago, a Shona one, and when they had their roora ceremony I knew immediately that theirs was a marriage destined for disaster. The husband’s family was very ‘traditional’, in the sense that they viewed women as nothing but glorified mops, and I couldn’t name off the top of my head one woman who had married into this family and was happy. They had all struggled in some way, and in order to truly make it in that family, a great deal of sacrifice was required; sacrifice of joy, of time, of self. Now, the woman who had married this man seemed to have had somewhat of ...
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