I wrote about rape (again) for Olisa.tv

You can see links to all my writing published elsewhere here, but I just wrote a piece about rape and victim-blaming over here, in reaction to an infuriating debate I had yesterday.

Victim-blaming is far too common, and like racism, which many people think is defined very narrowly as 'hating Black people', there are some kinds of victim-blaming that are 'benevolent'. A good example would be how parents/authority figures tell girls not to do certain things to 'limit the chances' of them getting raped.

I call bullshit.

"Stop and think, for a moment, what your desire to victim-blame is rooted in, and how much sense it really makes. Victim-blaming, in any context, assuages your fear of the possibility of experiencing a similar fate and shores up your knowledge that bad things only happen to a certain kind of person — a person less intelligent than you, less worldly-wise than you, less obedient, more slutty. 

Victim blaming ensures that you will always feel like bad things can happen to anyone but you (and people like you). If you know better (and you will prove that you do by citing all of the things the victim could have done to ‘prevent’ their rape), then they should have known better. And if they didn’t know better and they got raped, well there you go. Better luck next time!"

Read the whole piece here.

This Woman is Becoming

This evening my heart is breaking and swelling, all at once, for myself and for women like me. There is a burden that I can't place or name, but it is so, so real. 

I am thinking about self-love of the radical variety, the kind that allows me to strip myself and accept myself, to break down this person that I have been told I must be to be worthy, and to become the woman I will be proud of dying as.

I am thinking about love for my sisters - African women, single mothers, lonely women, women who have tamed their voices so long they don't remember the sound, women carrying trauma because they don't know how to set it down, motherless women, shamed women, lost women. I am thinking about women like me, who are desperate for better because somehow we know there is more. The knowing is in our bones, in our feet, in our song. We know there is more. 

I am thinking about my daughter and the boldness of her spirit, the way her heart breaks for me when she sees my sadness, the way she loves herself so completely that my own sadness can not take away her joy, the generosity with which she heals me with kisses, the streak of defiance that makes her stand up to me - the streak I know I have somewhere but can't always find. I am thinking of her way in this world and the ways in which her identities will shape her and bend her, and I am worrying about the ways it may break her.

I am thinking about the work that we have ahead. There is so much building to be done; it is exhausting that we have to spend all this time tearing down what is already there, what is trying to kill us. When will it be time for rejoicing? When will the load be lighter? When will the leaves of the trees planted by our mothers and our mothers' mothers be lush and abundant enough for us all to sit under their shade?

I am burdened with a grief I don't understand, and a fury too. There is so much building to be done, and yet the people who shore up the systems that must be destroyed before we can build are too numerous to count, too powerful to ignore, too content with the status quo.

A lot of the time I want to scream.

There is not enough of me to go around. And yet, I must find a way to become enough. I must find a way to become this woman who will water the tree and plant fresh seeds and clear a path for our daughters and sisters and mothers to do the rejoicing we have been denied so long.

There is a calling on my spirit tonight. 'Hasten the time, sister. Hasten the time.'

I am not enough, but I will become so.

Depression Is Not A Bandwagon, and I Am Not Jumping On

Recently a friend said to me, "you have to show yourself the same grace you would show someone you love." It was a profound statement in many ways, not the least of which is how it highlighted the hardness with which I treat myself.

I've talked a little bit on here about not being able to deal with my grief over losing my mother and unexpectedly becoming a mother myself in almost the same breath, and my unhappiness, fascination with (my own) death as well as my inability to cope with my life are things that have come up as well, but I've never really considered that my emotional state might be deeply unhealthy. It certainly never occurred to me that I might be depressive. It just wasn't...me.

In my head, depression was (is?) this major thing that happens to people with legitimate reasons for having it. I've never felt like I had a right to my own unhappiness, and I've certainly never figured out what to do with it. I'm a happy person. I make people laugh. People love me. I meet strangers and they say things like, "oh, you're the Timehin!" I'm the one dancing until five a.m. in the highest heels with no alcohol keeping me going. I'm the usually quite successful people-pleaser. I smile at strangers and make small talk with bus conductors. I'm a happy person.

And yet, more and more often, for longer and longer periods, I really just want to escape my life. Maybe even die. Getting out of bed is so hard that I don't do it. I've lost so much weight over time that I'm actually smaller now than I was before I became a mother, because eating is not something I think about or generally want to do. There was a period when I felt crushing guilt every time I ate a meal, so that I would go for days without eating just to avoid that feeling. There are days when the weight of the 'I can't deal with today' is so great that I sleep till I make myself sick. There was a three-week period late last year when I almost never left my bedroom.

I had a nanny and so I would see my daughter first thing in the morning and last thing at night, with brief interactions whenever she bounced into my room, because I simply couldn't be around her. I felt like a horrible mother because not only could I not conjure up the energy to play with my child, I couldn't even be a decent human being to her. I couldn't smile at her, couldn't hug her, couldn't be patient with her. I had to stop smacking her because I realised I wasn't necessarily doing it because she was badly behaved, but because I was unable to process anything rationally. It took more energy than I had to be angry, and yet I was. I was furious when I wasn't despondent, I didn't know why, and I hated myself for it.

I felt like life was out to get me. I swung between black wells of despair and hopelessness and desperate attempts to 'fix' my life by changing my attitude. Yet, months later, no matter how the individual events that make up my days go, my overwhelming feeling is one of deep unhappiness and dissatisfaction. The prospect of social interaction fills me with dread, which is bizarre, considering how extroverted I am. It takes massive acts of will for me to choose to do things with people, even people I love very much. I've berated myself over my laziness, my apathy, my inability to simply pick myself up and make the most of my quite charmed life.

And yet, I found it a bit unsettling when I was talking to this dear friend about my general, constant, perplexing unhappiness, and she said, "girl, that sounds like depression." This conversation came on the heels of Chimamanda's much-talked about and unethically published essay on her personal struggle with depression, a link to which I tweeted rather cheekily:

I had read the article detachedly, marvelling at the depth of feeling in her revelations, absently noting similarities, thoroughly enjoying her voice. Someone asked me later if I could relate, and I jokingly dismissed her. But during the conversation with my friend, she pointed out to me how everything I described seemed to indicate that I might indeed have depression.

I didn't know what to make of that. I still don't. I know how serious mental health is, and how we don't appear to know how to handle it; people always seem to either be claiming to have mental illnesses that they really don't because of a ridiculous desire to differentiate themselves, or they assume everyone who is mentally ill is unstable and violent, or they simply don't believe that mental illness is actually illness. I explained to my friend that I am loath to claim depression because I don't want to contribute to the faddish wave of buffet-style mental illness-havers; 'Oh, I'm a depressive creative type. Fifteen days a month, I simply can't function. It's what makes my art so poignant.' No.

But the truth is, there are times when I am 'not myself,' to borrow Chimamanda's turn of phrase. And it has been going on for a long time. I don't want it to continue. I need to figure out what it is that makes it so hard for me to function, and I need to fix it. And if that means that I might indeed be diagnosed by a professional as being depressive, then so be it. I won't continue to sacrifice my emotional and mental health or my relationships because I don't feel like I 'have a right' to depression. If it can happen to anyone, it can happen to me too. It doesn't make me any less me; if anything, facing up to the possibility will make me more me. 

I miss the girl I used to be, the woman I know I could be if I could just get rid of this dark cloud hanging over me. I want her back. If facing up to depression is all that I must do to get her, then I'm doing it. Why wouldn't I?

Gender Justice, Intersectionality and What My Feminism Means to Me

That title is a bit heavy-sounding, I realise (and probably a little misleading, as this post will not be the meaty 5000-word essay a title like that would lead one to expect), but I was having a conversation with my colleagues yesterday, and it helped to solidify a lot of things I've only been aware of peripherally in my own journey as a gender justice advocate.

It was announced that Chimamanda Adichie is in the running for a Grammy this Sunday, thanks to the excerpt of her 'We Should All Be Feminists' speech that Beyonce featured in 'Flawless***', and this news sparked an interesting debate about feminism in the African(?) context.

One of my coworkers insisted that feminism is a 'Western' import and has no real relevance here, implying that African feminists are mindlessly replicating a struggle that has no bearing on our lives. I found that incredibly difficult to stomach, because apart from his ahistorical analysis which 'proved' that African women are not oppressed (on the basis of matrilineal inheritance laws that may or may not apply in some communities and events like the Aba women's riots), he persisted in saying that women in African societies are empowered, despite hearing testimony from the mostly female group about how our lived experiences prove the exact opposite.

It was interesting to see how, despite real people providing real evidence to this intelligent person, he refused to even acknowledge that  he could be wrong. His worldview and intellectual position on a matter which he was not an authority on (based on the absence of either any real research or lived experience) were more important than the actual reality; it was easier, safer, I will even argue, to hold on to the comfortable and familiar delusion of a world where women of African descent are safe and happy, than to engage with the reality as presented by actual women of African descent.

An interaction on twitter yesterday between Rosie O'Donnell and Lauren Chief Elk ran along similar, albeit more violent lines; Lauren asked Rosie to pose critical questions to a guest billed to come on her show, Eve Ensler. Eve is a prominent White feminist whose work has been critiqued over the years by marginalised women; women of color, trans women and female children have been harmed by the erasure and exploitation that characterises Ensler's activism (see a Google search of 'critiques of Eve Ensler' here).

Rosie's response was violent, disproportionate and racist: she dismissed the (legitimate) questions as being a 'cruel attack', used images of herself with Black girls to 'prove' that she was not racist (as if proximity equals respectful engagement), used a racist slur on Lauren, and even said that she and/or Eve Ensler, both of whom are rich, White, cis-gendered women, have 'done more for women of colour than any woman of colour'.

Needless to say, I was genuinely horrified by her behaviour. But as I thought about it, I realised the parallels between her 'rationale' and my colleague's: We all have biases and prejudices that prop up our worldview which determine whose voice we consider valid/valuable, as well as determining which narratives we dismiss whenever they conflict with our constructed perception of reality. It is my theory that the more privilege one has in an oppressive system, the stronger the effect of these biases on one's ability to reason and to adapt one's ideas upon receiving new information.

I used to get angry with people like my colleague and Rosie, but there are way too many of them in the world. Shit gets exhausting, fam. Now I just use this knowledge to check myself. Oppression is rarely a linear thing; there are intersecting sliding scales of oppression and privilege, depending on the context of any interaction within the system.

Despite being an areligious dark-skinned, unwed African mother uninvested in performing femininity and living on the continent (which therefore places me quite low on the 'value' scale in the neo-colonial capitalist patriarchy that holds sway in most 'Third World' regions and in the White supremacist capitalist patriarchy in the West), I still have privilege based on my status as educated, middle-class, cis-gendered, and urban. There are many, many, many struggles that I can not identify with and in many cases am not even aware of, because they are simply not my story.

Yet, the fact that something is not my story does not invalidate that story, nor does it make it untrue. Gender activism in my region is far from being inclusive (I have many theories as to why this is, but this post is way too long already), and the only truly transformative way we can progress in fighting for 'women's rights' (notice how in activist-speak, 'women' generally means straight and cis-gendered females), the only way we can effectively intervene in the issues affecting marginalised groups that are not like those of us privileged to have the education, resources and platforms that enable us to call ourselves activists, is to share our platform, de-center ourselves when we purport to be allies, and amplify the voices of these groups rather than claiming to speak for them.

In summary, it is vital to listen. Even when it is uncomfortable, we must. Even when it challenges our ideas and shifts what we perceive as 'reality', we must. Progress for some marginalised groups is not progress for all (mainstream White feminists and Real Housewives of the Nigerian NGO, I'm looking at you). We must discard the ridiculous notion that oppression is a binary of powerful and not powerful, and that everyone is always and forever either one or the other. And we must leave no oppressed person behind. This is what my feminism, as an African woman, demands.

What does your activism demand?

Hiatus!

Just in case there's anyone out there wondering why I haven't posted in a while, I've just started a new job (yay!). It's really great because it lets me work from home, but working from home = no set hours. I'm only just trying to figure out my new routine (I'm up at 4am everyday and sometimes don't sleep till 1am, so I have to snatch naps between school runs, domestic duties and the rest of my life), so please bear with me.

And anyway, even if I did have the time to write, I simply don't have the creative energy right now. Who knew regularly climbing into other people's brains via editing could be so draining?! Still, I'm grateful to be able to set my schedule primarily around baby cakes, and the absence of a commute (Lagos traffic, Lord no!) is everything to me. I'm definitely counting my blessings.

In the meantime, I have some thoughts percolating about the future direction of this blog, collaborations on Words for the Stolen (if you haven't yet submitted a piece memorialising the victims of Boko Haram over there, please consider doing so!), and other projects.

Wish me luck! x

An Open Letter to Alibaba Because, No.

I don't follow the Nigerian stand-up scene with any particular ardor, but every time I've stumbled across Alibaba's work I've found it unimaginative at best. Still, because he is a pioneer(?) in the Nigerian comedy environment, he continues to have clout in the entertainment industry that allows him to be described as a celebrity, and like all celebrities, he has a following. I really wish Nigerian celebrities wouldn't generate so much social media nonsense (remember when Toke felt the need to make this joke?) because people take celebrities seriously. Nothing reinforces a shitty worldview like having some famous person reiterate it (just look at this Tyler Perry mess), and that is a major part of why this tweet which made it's way onto Linda Ikeji's Blog (Linda oh Linda!) was particularly grating:

I therefore decided to write a response, not because I have any hopes that he will read it or that he is even interested in educating himself on domestic violence, but because I hope some of those hapless followers who take him seriously might find this somewhat enlightening.

Dear Alibaba,

This tweet is incredibly ignorant and dare I say, irresponsible. (It is also a bit difficult to understand because of the strange and somewhat contradictory sentence structure, but I'm not your English teacher). Domestic violence is not a simple equation where a man threatens violence or is actually violent one time and you decide it is unacceptable and you leave. There are always, always, nuances and considerations and experiences that determine the way any human relationship will play out, and that includes abusive ones.

It must be said that telling women to leave (or, in your case, judging them for not leaving) has never been and will never be an effective way to discuss domestic/intimate partner violence. It is rarely ever that simple. There are emotions involved in any intimate relationship, and in abusive ones the normal healthy emotions like love and loyalty are often mixed with fear, self-doubt, crippling anxiety and loneliness - all of which are often deliberately planted by the abuser, and all of which make independent decision-making difficult, if not impossible. In any discussion or commentary on intimate partner violence, one must first of all truly empathise with the victims (please note the difference between 'sympathy' and 'empathy'), and consider that women dealing with domestic violence are limited in their choices by any number of extenuating circumstances.

For instance, there is the huge amount of pressure put on women by society to establish intimate relationships and keep them going. The burden for 'relationship maintenance' falls disproportionately on women, such that women are almost always considered culpable in the event of a breakdown of a relationship, no matter what leads to that breakdown. Women are expected to do whatever they must to 'find' a husband, then they are expected to do whatever they must to stay married. That burden is often worsened by the presence of children. Women are taught to take many different kinds of abuse in order to 'keep' their homes, and domestic violence is often described as par for the course and/or a phase that will pass as long as a woman does what she must to keep her man happy. 

Women are often told they are overreacting or oversensitive when they report abuse to friends and family; I'm sure the trope of the weathered older wife who now knows how to 'manage' her husband, having triumphed over all of his failings, is one that is familiar to you. Our society has a tendency to shame women who fail to endure abuse for the sake of preserving their relationships, and one result of this is that women will lie about their abuse in order to protect their men and their relationships. Another factor that abused women must consider is the often significant difference in the earning power of men and women. Economic disenfranchisement, which makes women unable to sustain either themselves or their families without the help of the abuser, is often a major disincentive to women considering escaping abusive relationships. 

Intimate partner violence is the worst kind of manipulation and entrapment that anyone can ever experience in a relationship. Abusers will do everything to gain the trust and love of their partners, then eventually begin to wear down their independence and self-esteem in a bid to establish their power over the victim and ensure that they never leave. Abusers are often charming at first, and because of how relationship maintenance is often marketed solely to women, many women feel obligated to try to 'fix' whatever is wrong when their partners 'change'. Abusers often take advantage of personal weaknesses, erode the victim's confidence in themselves and their ability to find help anywhere, and psychologically manipulate victims into dependence on them. In many cases, they will deliberately limit their victims' social lives by isolating them and/or misinforming their friends and family about the victims' behavior so that the victims are no longer seen as trustworthy or even stable. They may also remove their economic power by preventing them from working, sabotaging their jobs, or controlling their income by other means. 

I will ask you to especially consider the fact that women are at the highest risk of being killed by their intimate partners when they leave, and that most victims are aware of this because abusers often threaten grave consequences, including death, should the women undermine their authority in any way. Consider that resources to rehabilitate, empower and restore abused women to some sort of healthy normalcy are very few and far between. Consider that abused women often have nowhere to go should they leave, and that their worries are often complicated by having children. Consider that most abusers, because of their sense of entitlement, will relentlessly look for and violently punish their victims for leaving, and very often end up killing them. Consider what it must feel like to have the man you love fluctuate between threatening your safety, your life, maybe your children, and being loving and generous and kind. Imagine how confusing and heartwrenching that must be. Consider all of these things, read this hashtag started by Beverly Gooden on twitter, and then look at that little tweet you just sent out, and see whether you don't want to kick yourself.

I know no one knows everything, but I think you owe it to yourself and to the people who take you seriously to arm yourself with knowledge before commenting on something as serious as domestic violence. Here's to hoping this tweet never repeats itself.

#BBOG: I Have Too Many Feelings But That's Okay

It has been 267 days since the Chibok girls were taken. Since then, the only ones who have returned home are the ones who escaped on their own. It has been apparent pretty much from day one that the government doesn't care, and now the parents of the girls are looking for help elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Boko Haram has continued to kidnap, forcefully recruit and terrorise people in Borno state. (See timeline of attacks here). There has been plenty of effort by activists, organisers and the politically-minded to keep the situation in the North-East on our minds, and I have immense respect for Oby Ezekwesili whose unflagging effort has sustained the #BringBackOurGirls campaign all this time. There are also efforts like the Testimonial Archive Project and BBOG Nigeria (their twitter is here) recording stories, providing updates, and keeping the fight alive.

It is easy to feel inadequate in the overall scheme of things, especially in the face of an issue as massive, complex and mind-boggling as the continued, practically unchecked existence of a group like Boko Haram. I have too many feelings about Nigeria and how it continues to fail its citizens, generally and specifically with regard to the BH situation, and so I decided late last year to commit to writing something every month about Borno state, the girls of Chibok, the victims of Boko Haram; that whole situation. It really doesn't feel like much of anything, but I honestly don't know what else I can do besides this. We must keep talking about this. Something has to be done.

This is the tumblr where I will be posting my pieces. I plan to share other relevant work as well, and I will gladly take submissions. I have already put up one poem there (I don't know how to upload audio on Blogger, sorry - I did try to post it here for those who'd rather not have to click over). It's called 'A Mother's Words for the Chibok Girls' and you can probably hear me getting emotional during the reading, but that's because I am emotional about this matter. I have a daughter. I can not imagine what those parents are going through. Reports say that eleven of them have passed on since the kidnapping, and I won't be surprised if they simply couldn't go on hoping. I can't imagine their pain, and I can't imagine them having to feel that way for the rest of their lives. This is why I'm doing this project. I never want to be able to stop my heart from breaking over the horrible things we humans put one another through.

Please spread the word about this project. For those of us unable to wield anything other than the pen, we must hope that it is indeed mightier than the sword in this case.

Peace, love and light to you all.

PS: The words of the poem are below.

#BringBackOurGirls

Is anyone even looking anymore?

What is this thing that we are asking for?

Awa.

Maryam

Rhoda

Rikatu

Esther

Saraya

Magret

Maimuna

You started that trek nine months ago

by now your feet are surely 

too tired

to trace the path

back to safety

and what is that?

How do you catch a word like that

and tuck it into your mouth

when two hundred and sixty-seven repeats 

of a night horrible past comprehending

separate you from it?

Maryamu

Hauwa

Amina

Glory

Moda

Dorcas

Baraya

Comfort

What is it that we are asking for, bring back our girls

as if they were stolen from their beds

to be carried preciously 

by rapers and stealers

religious killers

who want that we but ask politely

please, would you kindly

bring back our girls?

We thought it was a fight we were starting,

We thought everyone knew you were deserving

of your own lives

We thought our voices would sound

a war cry

It was not meant to be a plea

Nor a desperate broken whisper

fading like the memory of 

the sound of your laughter

Fibi

Patient

Rose

Yagana

Naomi

Rahila

Lugina

Filo

Tabitha

Our girls' beds are cold and wet

with the tears of mothers whose arms ache

with the memory of holding them safe

Please, if only for their sake

bring our babies home.

we miss them

we are afraid for them

You mustn’t let murderers keep them

please let us fix them.

Hajara

Lugwa

Kauna

Lydia

Hannatu

Bolomi

Falmata

Mairama

Nine months is a long time -

if you were a bride borne gently into the night

your womb might be empty again

And the child you bore would be

your heart living far enough outside your body

that someone could take her away

just far enough

to keep you and your hope 

faintly alive.

we hope they are alive

we hope they hear us calling out their names,

if only faintly,

We hope their hearts are not as broken 

as their bodies must be

we hope they remember that

there is love waiting for them here

We hope

that someone will #BringBackOurGirls.

Fatima

Nguba

Ruth

Rebecca

Rejoice

Grace

Hadiza

Noami

You were once children whose dreams set your eyes alight

are there any stars left in them?

We are keeping a light on for when you are brought home.