On Audacity and Taking up Space

for the girlies, a late IWD post + giveaway announcements.

Auguste Toulmouche’s 1866 painting “The Hesitant Fiancée”

Hello guys!

How was your week?

This week I wrote three exams within two days, and when I tell you it took so much from me!

I am spent.

I have a love-hate relationship with exam periods. There’s this maddening anxiety I feel when I’m doing last-minute revisions and I discover new material (as a law student you can never know everything you’re meant to know). But at the same time, there’s beauty in entering into a flow state — clear mind, complete focus. Suddenly, all the things I didn’t understand during the semester begin to make sense. It’s almost as if my brain recognizes that I need it there and then, and opens the floodgates so that I find myself actively learning and truly enjoying the process of studying.

Our brains are such wonderful creatures.

I brought this up because while preparing for my Human Rights paper on Tuesday, I remembered that the popular Roe v Wade case that gave women the right to make decisions regarding their reproductive health has been overturned in the United States. You may have your reservations, but I believe every woman should be able to choose, and the latest US Supreme Court decision has put the health of many women at risk. Then I open Twitter and guess what? Gambian lawmakers are tabling a bill to remove the ban on female genital mutilation. It’s insane! Feels like everywhere I go, the rights of women to assume full agency over their lives are being renegotiated, and it’s crazy that this is happening post-2020!

So that’s what I wanted to talk about today.

I wanted to talk about how a lot of girlhood is fear.

You are taught to be careful of everything — boys, uncles, old women, people that don’t wash their hands, and people who smile too much. At the same time, you are taught to be easy and agreeable. “Greet uncle” “don’t be rude” “allow him to pick first” “share your toys.” You leave home and get to school, and it’s worse. You start facing new problems, like wanting to fit in with other girls, and staying out of the way so the wrong people don’t fixate on you. I remember contorting myself into shapes as a child so that I could fit in and make friends at school. I remember how badly girlhood meant wanting to be liked.

A lot of girlhood is anxiety. It is constantly questioning yourself and your decisions because you are not taught that your words carry weight. People shut you up, or speak over you, (which is how you develop the habit of speaking faster than is necessary to get the point across as quickly as possible). And everybody sympathizes without genuinely trying to understand. Eventually, you grow accustomed to not being truly listened to, and it makes you less willing to assert yourself in situations that demand it. Afterall, assertive girls are considered rude and hard-headed, and the world generally treats them with less kindness.

A lot of girlhood is about making yourself smaller. Not demanding too much, not asking for attention. And then you get older and carry these traits into adulthood. That compelling need to always explain yourself even when nobody is asking. To apologize, even when you have done nothing wrong. To not accept compliments, or to be self-deprecatory when accepting them. You carry it into the workplace. Before applying for a role, you are your first interviewer, mean and cutting, disqualifying yourself before you even try. Studies show that men apply for jobs when they can meet 60% of the qualifications, but women only apply if they meet 100%. O wrong!

Some months back I went out for dinner with two of my male friends. We ordered drinks and when they were served, one of them realized that the drinks were alcoholic and he didn’t take alcohol. In this scenario, we had not been mindful of our order. We had made all the mistakes, and yet my friend was bold enough to ask if the drink could be taken back and if his order could be changed. Guess what? They did.

That incident left such a huge impression on me because I would have either settled with my drink or simply asked for another, which would have led to my having to pay for two. It made me question how much audacity I navigate life with, and how it flowed from the little things, like asking for drink to be taken back and your order changed.

I think young women as a collective need to exhibit more audacity. Apart from the fact that it saves us the time and energy we’d spend negotiating our choices and opinions with people who don’t care, our sociopolitical rights are also in jeopardy if we choose to remain soft and pliant. You think the rights your mothers fought for are engraved in stone, then one day you wake up and find that a group of men with fat bellies and no brains can decide to throw it all away.

We cannot let that happen.

So I have made it a point to make adulthood about training my audacity muscle. Afterall, we have to start from somewhere, no? For me, this looks like being more involved in the things that pertain to me. What I want to look like, how I want to dress, my boundaries, and the shaping of my personal culture. This article by Teju Adeyinka puts my thoughts and feelings on the subject into words in the most amazing way.

It also means asserting and advocating for myself even when it is scary. For the first time, I took a leave from work inorder to write my exams, even though this is my third time writing exams while working at this company. This is a form of self-advocacy, and it’s been interesting navigating the guilt I have felt in the aftermath of this decision, but I remain firm in my resolve. I don’t have to be nice or available all the time. I don’t have to sacrifice myself just to be liked. I can say no, and I don’t have to explain why. I can apply for jobs that are above my experience level or pay grade, without worrying about whether I am good enough or what anybody will think. I can do the things that genuinely scare me, like cutting off all my hair and dyeing it blonde, or starring in a music video simply because it looks fun!

I want more women to take up space. To realize that there is a correlation between standing up for themselves, and standing up for womanhood as a whole.

Being badly behaved can inspire systemic change. Ask the women in South Korea.

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Giveaway Winners!

When I say that I was shocked at the amount of attention this giveaway got, I will not be lying. You guys showed up and showed out, and that is so amazing!

As of 11:59pm yesterday, these were the stats:

Congratulations to Oyinkansola, Victoria, and Grace! Please send me a DM here on Substack to reclaim your prizes!

Thank you to everyone for participating in this giveaway! More to come in the future!

And thank you so much for your lovely, lovely comments, I read every single one of them and may have shed a tear or two.

I truly appreciate you guys for being here, and I wish you the most amazing week ahead.

See you after exams!

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Before I forget, Here is the Media I Consumed this Week . . .

Reading my school books (dfkm). Father, please take this cup away from me.

Listening to a lot of Trap. I have enjoyed JID and this song, especially. I also heard Hallucinogenics by Matt Manson and Lana Del Rey for the first time this week, and it changed my life. I need to listen to a mix of it! I need to discover all the ways it can be modified by electric sound. I need it in my veins. I also discovered Spookie Coochie by Doechii and uffff. SO GOOD! All the songs are in the 20 Something Playlist, as usual.

Watching the video of LMLY by anendlessocean (because I’m in it). Also watching Dune (2022) at piecemeal to prepare myself for the cinema date I’d go on for Dune (2024) in a few weeks. Have you seen Dune 2? Did you like it? Tell me but no spoilers!

Ok OK, BYE for real this time!