I am grateful that we live in an era where people are no longer hush-hush about difficult conversations anymore. The things that were once considered taboos or unsafe are the things freely talked about now. I’m glad because having these difficult conversations or talking about these topics make women more self-aware. It also makes it easier for women to make more informed decisions.  Long ago, many women stumbled into motherhood, marriage, and made many decisions out of pressure and societal expectations. I can almost say that most of the women of old didn’t do these things or make those decisions because they were prepared to. They found themselves walking into it because they were expected to. At the end of the day, some of them were shocked at the things they discovered afterwards. Many of them wished they knew more about these things and had more time to put things into consideration. They wished they were more prepared before making these life-changing decisions.  T...

I have been called a tomboy in the past because of the way I do certain things. To some people, I walk like a boy, dress like a boy, and cut my hair like a boy. While there are people who deliberately choose to be tomboys, it has never crossed my mind to behave like a boy. But then, in our society, once you deviate from the typical definition of femininity, the boxed roles, and expectations, you are seen as a tomboy.  Interestingly, many things I do are just things I want to do. Some of them come to me naturally like the way I walk, for example. I walk fast. It is something I have been doing for as long as I can remember. As a focused and goal-oriented person, I believe in getting to my desired destination as fast as possible. It saves time and seems to shorten the distance too. Some other things I do are just the choices I made. Like my hairstyle, for instance. Low cut suits me perfectly and is far more comfortable than braids for me. I also love that I can pour water on my head e...

 It is my third blog anniversary, and I really feel my emotions cringing under an overwhelming weight of mixed feelings. One, I am exhilarated that I have stayed true to my vision despite the spate of challenges that have beset my quest over the years. The courage has not been totally unwavering, the resolve has not been purely untested, but staying the course, despite the many turbulent waves that have rocked the boat of my blog, has always kept me afloat, has always been the driving force behind my constant need to surge forward, to move ahead, to never look back, and to never back down. Two, there are times I do want to throw everything out the window when I consider the average bad reception that my posts receive in consonance with the varied assumption that people (Nigerians especially) do not read. That, in itself, is discouraging and exhausting, and most times, it plays out on my mentality and affects my quest to push on.  Three, more often, I blame myself for not exhau...

  My parents bought the same toys for my brother and me. They didn’t raise us to think that some toys were feminine, and others were masculine. They just bought different toys and we played with them. Maybe it’s because we are twins or because, as children, it was common to always want what the other person had. Whatever their reason was, I can say that buying similar toys for us helped shape my perspective. It made me see toys as gender neutral. If I wanted a helicopter, my mum got it. If my brother wanted a stuffed rabbit, it was his. But many people didn’t experience life as I did. They grew up being told that there are toys for boys and toys for girls. Even in stores, the toys are sectioned into boy’s toys and girl’s toys. Do you know what appears in the girls’ section? Different kinds of dolls, while cars, superheroes, bikes, and so on are for boys. Are they really? Or are we creating gender distinctions that don’t exist? I once heard about a woman who took her little girl to ...