This article is dedicated to Golder, who should always just take the darkest jam! J
If you were competing against a slacks-wearing man, how well would you do? Keep in mind that this man will be in flat shoes with a comfortable and well-fitting trouser and shirt. This man also has short nails and short hair or even locks but tied back in a bun the way that the cooperate world allows. Picture then that a superior at work has given you both something to do and he will judge later how well you both do. Picture that you both have 24 hours in your day but you have to choose an outfit, go to the salon and walk slower strides. The below is not a middle finger to the values of beauty girls are raised on but it is most definitely a middle finger to following these values blindly.
If you are the perfect picture of the cooperate lady then you are in a tight skirt/trouser a blouse/shirt/top/blazer. You also have heels for shoes. You may even have my type of nails; you know the type that makes you hate emails and anything that will require you to use a keyboard. You might have hair that you went to the salon for, spent no less than an hour there making it look good. Then this morning you had to style it or comb it or tie it or put it in some sort of a style that costs much needed sleeping time.
For every minute that you spend on one of these ‘lady’ activities, the man spends on some other activities, presumably plotting on how best to beat you. Count how much time you have spent today alone on your looks and try to imagine how much time the aforementioned competitor would have spent today on his looks.
I volunteer as tribute, I am currently shouting in my best Katnis Everdeen voice. That shaky yet determined voice that shows you are scared of what you are about to do but you know that this is the right thing to do. I shall show you here how much time and/or money I have spent this month on my very normal and slightly ‘unlady’ like looks.
A week or so ago I had a wedding of a friend. I spent an unhealthy amount of time wishing I didn’t have to go because I did not have anything to wear which is girl code for ‘I have many dresses but I have worn all of them in public and thus cannot repeat them’. I thought of where to go buy and how much this might cost and what best to wear. All this spent much brain power and even more time.
Having asked a friend of mine who is as male as they come if he wanted to go with me he said yes and spent 15 seconds trying to recall where his one suit jacket was currently located. He said “oh yeah” having remembered and that was that, he was settled; he had his outfit he would wear that jacket, THE END. Time spent 15 seconds.
Back to me, I then got a dress after having consulted two of my friends for advice. We texted about it and decided which was best. But all this was useless because I was still thinking about it.
Time spent: a lot
Text messages used: many
Brain power at work: enough to build a rocket
Then there was the issue of hair, dear sweet universe the hair drove me crazy because in my obsessive yet frugal way I wanted to do hair that would cover 2 weddings and a trip. But there was a problem with this, I didn’t want this hair to stay on for a whole month because it was the kind I couldn’t shampoo while I showered as I usually do. So I called my friend so we could discuss this and see what was best. After a 10 minute conversation we had not come to a conclusion on either my hair or my timetable on the wedding day because I had limited time and wanted to miraculously do my hair, do my nails and wax on the same day as an afternoon wedding.
Time spent: 10 minute conversation ; includes a serious conversation between two intelligent adult girls discussing where to do the nails, where to do the hair and where to wax and what time each should be done. A Conclusion was never reached.
On the Day of the wedding and I think this is the best time to remind you that this is not my wedding and I am not the bride’s mother or sister. In fact I am not anyone whose absence will be noticed. I wake up early and go pick up a friend at a salon where she went again after she had done her hair the previous day but decided that she didn’t like it so this morning she went and redid it again (you can understand why me and her are friends now). I pick her up and we go to the nail salon, I end up spending the next 2 hours there and by the time I was done there was no time for hair or wax or anything else.
So I have an unhealthy lunch which tasted like heaven and drove to the nearest shoe shop to shop for what was to be a no heel shoe because I am never falling for that trap again. I get my shoe and it wouldn’t be a shoe shopping trip if I didn’t end up with an extra pair I never intended to buy so of course I end up with an pair of sandals I later ask myself why I bought. Then I drive manically to go bath and dress while my unused hair sits in the back seat of my car clearly mocking me.
I dress and pick up my friend only for him to show me that my dress is actually not clean. He says this dressed in the suit jacket that took him 15 seconds to decide on. I then totally lost it, I wanted to uninvite him as if he is the reason I forgot to take it to the dry cleaner. I then go back inside and change it then off we go, me with my sulky face and the dress I’ve worn before and him with his suit looking very relaxed. I am a complicated human being.
Being a woman is complicated; it is ridiculously full of juggling unimportant things that seem paramount to us. When I was young, my father bribed me with a lot of money to cut my hair because my mother said she would not be doing my hair. I accepted mostly because I wanted the money to buy one of those big biology books that were way beyond my years. I was to travel and my mother told me to go to my auntie’s house so she could plait my hair for the journey. Of course I did not go because I was on holiday and the prospect of watching TV ad snacking was more attractive than an afternoon of getting your hair pulled and put in those complicated corn row styles every Tanzanian girl faces at some Christmas holiday.
My mum got back to finding me and the whole of my hairy scalp in the same corn rows she left me in the morning with. She got mad, there was a row and promises of not braiding my hair ever again were made by her meanwhile threats of cutting my hair were also made, also by her. During the Journey we took a 3 day train to go see my dad and as the holidays progressed my hair kept getting worse by the day. Mum kept her promises and started putting pressure on me to cut my hair. I wasn’t very attached to my hair, for one thing I was already reading secondary school biology, I did not have time for things that mortals concerned themselves with. When mum got too agitated dad had to intervene and a deal was struck, I then agreed to cut my hair because
- I was going to have to cut it anyway when you go to secondary school in a year’s time
- I would be paid enough money to buy a new biology book and I had already exhausted the one I carried around.
- The biggest class party would take place in about 10 months’ time and I needed an outfit so it was better to start the year making mum happy.
I did it, I cut my hair and the next year was amazing, I no longer had to abandon Sunday afternoon cartoons to go get my hair plaited.
Fast 13 years later and I am reduced to the kind of person who drives an hour to get her hair done and who obsesses over dresses once worn. When you grow up as a girl you get exposed to rules on how to ‘be’ a ‘girl’. Girls like shoes, girls like heels in those shoes, girls have manicured nails and girls buy dresses for parties, girls pluck out their eyebrows just to draw them daily and the list is endless.
As I grew older I started abandoning the things that I had promised my younger self that I would never do; Want babies, want to get married, do my eyebrows, do weaves, never have a kitchen or wear heels. When I was younger most things girls obsessed over seemed so trivial and useless and not functional. But I later discovered that I loved some of these things and wanted to do them but there was the tiny issue of money and time. Most things require money and take too much time to do.
I bought shoes some months ago, heels that my friend convinced me I would be able to walk on because the heel wasn’t that high. Now, I realize that some ladies are blessed with the kind of legs that would tackle and throw Thor to the ground and as a result they can wear six inch heels and run after a bus. Unfortunately those ladies are not me! I do have some superpowers, I can put on ridiculous amounts of weaves and braids in the hottest day of summer and live happily without once scratching my head. Wearing heels is not my forte if anything it is my weakest point but I kept on trying so that I can look ‘female’.
So I bought these shoes and wore them (or not wore them) as a bridesmaid. The small amount of time that I was ACTUALLY wearing the things I kept walking like I needed sticks to help with movement. My legs hurt, my toes were killing me and my ankles were swearing they will give in at any moment if I did not set them free. No amount of vodka helped.
I still felt the pain so at last I stepped off them and danced barefoot. This wasn’t my first time on the barefoot rodeo; this was me every time I told myself I could handle heels. Months later and I still haven’t worn them and they sit on my shelf looking pretty but not being functional. This weekend I decided to give them out to a friend and I made a vow to never buy another pair of shoes I wouldn’t wear to work. I watched a YouTube video by Caitlin Moran a few days ago called “giving up on heels” and it solidified my decision. This video I imagine is God giving me a thumbs up on giving up these contraptions called heels. God is nudging forward towards my future where if someone decided to give chase I can run. A future where I and any boy can get down on the dance floor equally and the only reason I won’t be able to moon walk is because I can’t moonwalk and not because I am suspended 6 inches from the floor.
This has also opened up a new line of thinking for me, what else am I doing that is wasting me money? Keeping me uncomfortable? And putting me on a disadvantaged plane from men? I understand that the idea is that as women we can take over the world in 6 inch heels carrying our babies on our backs while our manicured nails never look a day old as we balance being sexy/interesting to our ‘men’. I am here to call bullshit on this and to say that I will be attempting to take over the world in comfortable unflattering Steph Curry sneaker like shoes.
I am even thinking of getting a uniform of dresses for work. The same dress in different colors x 30. Because while men are sleeping, watching TV, texting, relaxing, exercising I am standing in front of my cupboard cursing like a sailor because I can’t see anything to wear to work that day or any day really. This despite the fact that my cupboard is full of things I assume I thought I would one day wear.
I am not saying you should not wear your heels or spend an hour choosing an outfit or getting type-proof nails or getting your eyebrows removed only to draw them again or spend a lot of money to get your hair braided so you can put someone else’s hair on top. No do what makes you happy because I for one like having other people’s hair on top of mine, what I am saying is if it doesn’t work for you then question why you are doing it. If it gives you no joy and you don’t honestly see the point then stop doing it and spend your brain waves and time and much needed money on other things.
How much time does your male counterpart spend on his outfit trying to match his white shirt and black trouser? What could you be doing with the time? How much movement would you be doing if you could and take any stairs at any time to go tell your boss upstairs that you deserve a promotion? How much money do you have left after the hair, the nails, the shoes, the dresses? Have you ever sat down and wondered how you too can sit on the big boys table? Do it today, think how you can be the best version of yourself and how much of the bullshit society told you about what girls should do can you throw away and free up some much needed time and money.
I will see you all at the top.
Article By Ronica Mwafulango
About Me?? I have my hands tied to the back in the deep ocean but my eyes are open and I can swim to where I want to be. I want to be a kick ass writer who is also an academia but somehow also a ninja who has tattoos and remembers to moisturize. So like a beautiful writer academia ninja with great skin and big hair. Does that make sense? It really shouldn’t and if it did then welcome comrade, read. I will try to post as frequently as I possibly can given my limited ninja schedule. We might have fun you and I. We won’t find out unless we try right? *Japanese bow* Youkoso… Check out my blog Above 20
