Random Thoughts of the Lady Next Door

Went shopping for a washing machine with my uncle the other day. He'd offered to accompany me because my preferred brand was quite scarce.  On getting to the first store, we discovered the price was above my budget for that product and so we had to leave. We went to another store but the prices were even higher, so we returned to the first. "Welcome back, oga ," I heard the manager say as we arrived. Then he proceeded to ask my uncle what our final decision concerning the product we'd priced earlier was. They spoke for a while, and when we eventually got some privacy, I turned to my uncle, bemused, and asked him, "did you see what just happened?"  But he hadn't noticed anything.  Two people walk into a store. Surely, the manager could direct a general greeting at them both. But no, the clown ignores the woman, his real customer with the money and instead engages the man who has tagged along only for moral support. It hangs heavily in the air, the soft bi...

Absolutely loving this year's IWD theme because it reaffirms the guiding principle of my life. Although I do not subscribe to unnecessary contentiousness, I have, at the same time, dedicated the entirety of my personal life to challenging systems. Every day, I challenge unreasonable rules. I challenge obsolete traditions and practices. And most of all, I challenge stereotypes. Stereotypes fuel negative bias. They stifle genius. They impose cumbersome expectations, and vilify mavericks. Here's to all girls and women: Just being is enough. Yes, you are awesome just as you are.  And to the heroes without capes who in their fight against all forms of discrimination and stereotypes pave the way for other females across the globe, we see you, we thank you, and we celebrate you. May we never run out of the courage to #ChooseToChallenge Happy International Women's Day!

So I've had a long day sitting at a desk and crouched over my laptop in a rented workspace. I'm a freelance writer and I have a client's job to deliver with hardly any time on my side.  (I don't have any picture from today, but trust me, I look something like this every day. Casually dressed because I don't make enough money to slay like I work for the New York Times.😅) At past 7, I reluctantly shut down my laptop and left the office for home. Remembering that my granny had asked me for some cash and I didn't have up to that amount on me, I stopped by an ATM gallery to make a withdrawal. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other from time to time, struggling under the weight of my backpack, and when I caught a figure approaching the queue from a corner of my eye, I looked up and beheld one of the finest middle-aged men I've ever seen in a long time.  I couldn't help but steal a few more glances and although it all happened so quickly, I...

If I ever tell you I'm not beautiful, pay me no mind. I'm only being modest. No, I'm not drop-dead gorgeous, but neither am I ugly or unattractive by any standard. This acute awareness of my own beauty is why, to a large extent, I stopped posting my pictures on my social media pages ( Facebook and Instagram especially). I don't need the validation of strangers on the internet to feel attractive. It's also why I never feel pressured to dress up to the standard of other young ladies of my ilk. I only baff up on my own terms.  Maybe I would have put more effort into my physical appearance if I were lacking in other areas, like intellectually. But the fact that this is not so worsens my conceitedness. I'm perfectly cool with showing up anywhere in a basic outfit and zero makeup, knowing that the moment I open my mouth to speak, most wrong assumptions about me are corrected. I think that these liberties I and others like me take is what has, for a long...

Another set of men to watch out for during this rape saga: the ones who sieze the opportunity to engage in virtue signalling.  Oh, you men don't spare a moment to remind us how good you are by virtue of having never raped a woman. You get angry for not being praised for your 'magnanimity,' so you throw tantrums when we come down hard on rape apologists without acknowledging your very basic decency As a matter of fact, you are so twisted in your misogyny that you actually believe that not raping females is a favour you are doing them. After all, your fellow men do the same. But what happens when someone falls out of favour with another (especially a vindictive person)? They lose all the privileges that came with the estranged relationship.  Isn't this enough reason to even castrate you who expect to be praised for not taking women forcefully, before you, with your warped mindset, get a situation to demonstrate your covert rapey tendencies?  Your sense of dec...

I don't know which is more painful: Uwa's rape and murder, or the reactions of some depraved humans that I share the same society with. I have seen so many screenshots of responses (of various internet users) to the crime that I am both angry and sad. I wonder if there is any winning against this evil. UNIBEN's authorities have, without recourse to emotional intelligence, made a soapbox of Uwa's tragic murder to sermonize on how to not get raped. Absolutely galling, especially considering the fact the official statement by the VC, a woman, was released by the PRO, also a woman. And then there are the authorities of the church where the victim met her death, while addressing the crime, calling it everything but its name. It is unsettling to see that in the 155-word statement issued by the church, the word "Rape" was conveniently and conspicuously left out. I'm struggling to not see this gesture as the church shunning its moral sensib...

RATED 15+ I think one day of my adult life I want to continue to remember as significant is the first time I rocked a dress to an event, braless. Like a typical church girl would, I squirmed when I first stepped out in the dress (I felt naked 😅). But as the day progressed, I began to enjoy the comfort of not having my chest constricted by metal underwires and hooks.  Society might never immediately understand why the contemporary woman attaches so much significance to bras—or the freedom from having to wear them, especially when she has no real need to (I'm speaking for small-breasted women here, please).  I'm thinking back to every single time I have felt the pressure to present myself in the image of an ideal woman: with perfectly round, sizeable mounds on the chest, when all of my breasts could easily be cupped in one palm. How did this do-or-die affair of mine with padded bras begin? Why did I feel indecent for not wearing a bra? Social conditioning? I have ce...