This year, please just let women be

Have you ever left your house feeling comfortable and all of a sudden you start feeling uneasy when you have reached a point of no return? I mean, your shoes feel so nice when leaving the house and you walk like the Queen of Sheeba with your nose held high. But as soon as you get to your destination, your feet start wobbling or your toes feel like they are being squeezed in a vice. You try to maintain your normal posture as you walk but this only makes it worse.

Or, in the mirror before you left the house, you smiled at your reflection because your dress brought out all the possible curves you wished it would. It was slightly below the knee. Just perfect!

Now, when all eyes are on you, your dress decides to gather in one location and ride up those very curves way past your knee to your thighs. It is now competing with the belt you have on. You try to adjust things back to normal and you are welcomed by judgmental eyes ready to throw not-so-friendly words at you. Then, just like that, your day is ruined before it even starts. Can’t people just let us adjust our clothing in peace whenever we feel like it?

Then, as if that is not enough, the generation of ‘slayers’ have made it an uphill task for those of us who were born when ‘thumbs up’ was the only gesture we could make when taking photos. Now we not only have to make the two-finger horizontal salute but also tuck in our protruding tummies and stick out our tongues. I don’t know about men but this world is changing so fast for women that we no longer know what to fight for. The independence we once had in regards to our confidence is slowly slipping out of our grip. We depend more on what other people say about us than what we feel about ourselves. In short, we walked right into the enemy’s camp with no weapon.

When it comes to food, who on earth made you believe that women’s stomachs are smaller than men’s? Can’t people just let us be? Do we always have to explain why our plates are full? Remember our clothes and shoes are suddenly causing us severe pain and our slaying counterparts are not making life any better. Can’t we just eat what we want and how we want it?

One time, I served food after a team building activity and someone asked if I was from drilling a borehole! I mean, whether I am from digging a pit latrine or a borehole, what’s in my plate is my business. Unless of course I have served your duodenum or oesophagus. This thing of acting as a food police to women should stop. You are the reason women are now walking in town swinging transparent water bottles filled with warm, bitter herbs in the name of fitting into the bracket you have placed them.

Dear fellow women, life is too short to begin living someone else’s dream. I hope your dreams include happiness and total bliss. If your dress suddenly goes up, you have the freedom to pull it back down. If your shoe pinches, feel free to walk all over like bacteria. And like someone once said, if anyone tells you that you eat too much, eat them too!

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