I am about to write words I wish 16-year-old me, could have read or came across when she so needed to embrace all that she is. Sometimes I think of her, afraid yet bold, naïve yet very aware of things around her. I revisit her very often. I do it with care, cuddling with her, pouring words of comfort that I have grown to find the language to articulate what she felt when womanhood found her, when she was just a teenager. Likeability is a rent she couldn’t afford at such a young age. Most of her identity crisis when growing up was a mix of herself as a fire sign, doing whatever she wants and then also trying to fit the expectations of everyone around her.
We don’t talk enough about patriarchal conditioning to desire likeability as women, about the narrative of being a good girl, running after communal validation by making sure you fit every societal expectations of womanhood. But mostly we don’t talk enough about how our survival as women is rooted in embodying respectability politics. How we swallow our tongue to keep patriarchs not threatened by our?existence. How we gatekeep and justify every violence done to us….
Read it more here: https://africanfeminism.com/i-dont-want-to-be-liked-i-want-to-be-free/