The “Weird” Brown Girl Podcast

Black women’s hair is always subject to scrutiny…even from black people as well. We tell each other our hair sucks so we should relax it, if it’s in it’s natural state it’s undone and unkempt. Our primary schools and high schools and Zimbabwean society tells us to cut it or relax it (colonisation, cough cough). Then naturalistas shame other black women or girls who opt for wigs or women who relax their hair. The issue of black women or black people’s hair is messy and here is my messy experience!

You’ll never be tall enough or thick enough or anything enough for that matter… and that’s okay!

Sure, I can blame it on the patriarchy but there’s more to it than that.

If there’s toxic masculinity then there’s definitely toxic femininity!

Sure, opening a dendairy icecream container and finding soup or beans inside sucks but do you know what else sucks? Trying to dress up as a girl in Zimbabwe…. There’s always going to be an “auntie” or “uncle” to harass you and call you a Jezebel and a clueless person who will sexualise just about anything and everything you wear simply because you’re a … drumroll please; a girl. Sigh. Here’s an account of my experiences and how I navigate myself through all the sexualisation and harassment.

“ I wish we would have left the gender war in pre-school.” I didn’t know how incredibly short-sighted I was being when I claimed I hated men. I was very vocal about it too. I went the whole nine yards with my words screaming that men are trash. I thought I was being feminist but I realised I was just being sexist. My performative feminism was just disguised as sexism. I realised that instead of high-lighting women’s struggles or issues… I just screamed about men. So I decided on becoming apathetic towards men rather than hating them. This is a short account of how I went from “men are trash” to “well, I don’t know why people think feminism is akin to hating men when patriarchy affects both women and men.”

Feminism is more complicated and more nuanced than we could even begin to understand or comprehend. Let me take you on a journey of what my informed opinion of feminism is.

Let’s talk about skin bleaching in Africa…. A child of colourism.

Zimbabwean societies tend to be colourist whether intentionally or unintentionally….light skin is placed at the pinnacle of society…whilst dark skinned women are mocked and ridiculed. This is a brief commentary on why colourism occurs and how it affects people.

When you’re too white for the black kids and too black for the white kids..sigh.