With love, from a skinny girl

Dear Chubby Girl

This is not an apology for being a natural size zero nor is it a way for me to gloat. I hope by the end of this letter we can both agree that it is a message in solidarity, a cheer for sorority, if you will.

I don’t know why I am a ‘skinny girl’ but the last time anyone could call me chubby without being accused of telling a lie was when I was two years old and rolling around on my parents’ carpet, I really did roll – I was obese. The drastic weight loss may have had something to do with the fact that when I was two months old my mother fell pregnant with my forward as hell sister and there was no more breast milk for me or it may be attributed to the fact that there are a lot of skinny elders swimming around in my gene pool.

Contrary to vicious belief I did not stop popping carrot sticks into my mouth to spew these ramblings because, quite frankly, I hate salad. Except for chakalaka because viva black people or something.

I have a small waist so when my (mostly) imaginary boyfriend chooses to hold me he can encircle his arms around me and I can wear shift dresses and not have them look like a badly made freakum dress.

Before I get too far I should declare that most of my friends are curvy girls, big girls, girls who cuss me out every few days for daring to speak about my cellulite and stretch marks, which granted can only be seen in harsh lighting. Earlier this week we were preparing to go out for lunch and I suggested we have braaied meat, pap and chakalaka, because viva black people. In my mind they exchanged a look that said “LISTEN TO THIS COAT HANGER” and then they started speaking at once telling me to shut up because I am skinny and apparently have no rights over what I consume. Anyway the meat and pap won, because viva black people.

Sugar we both exist in a society that pits us against each other, a society that revels in pointing out our differences so we can feed into its ‘either or’ standard. You’ve seen the magazines talking about “big is beautiful” or “men prefer curvy girls”, I am sure you have also seen the skinny models who grace the covers and have bought the myth that by virtue of being skinny you are beautiful but let me break it down for you.

-          Big is indeed beautiful, that’s why I love Navara’s, it’s a big powerful looking car but it does not need me to validate it constantly as though it suffers from small male genitalia inadequacies. It is beautiful just because it is, because the one looking at it believes it to be so.

-          Maybe some men do prefer curvy girls, by curvy I mean big, by big I mean fat. But where then does that leave my exes? I don’t think I have ever dated anyone who is superficial enough to date me just because I can wear skinny jeans and actually look skinny. The guys who have fallen for you probably love that your smile looks like a promise, a forever after. Me? They love me because I rap really well along to Tupac and Notorious BIG playa.

-          Well the ‘skinny girls are beautiful or not insecure’ thing is a pack of lies, complete with the joker. Have you seen me at dawn? Ask my sisters. 

Granted we get away with wearing more daring outfits and occasionally can wear leggings as pants but this does not mean we are less worried about whether out butt has been dissected into four or if wearing a crop top will reveal the belly we aren’t too sure is criticised by mean fat girls. Because we know you exist and how this letter will have most of you petitioning for the annihilation of petite girls.

When I say “I am naturally thin” it is not a sneer or a challenge to you but I just mean that I do not consciously do anything to lose weight. And I hope that we can co-exist and you will let me borrow your old t-shirts so I can have a makeshift night dress. I’ll be fair and borrow you an old crop top because, you know, I’m well aware of that sports bra struggle.

Bad jokes aside I seriously do believe in the power of sorority and the potence of getting over most things through dialogue and humour, so let’s discuss this at greater length over a ‘viva black people’ meal, no?

Yours in solidarity and sarcasm, 

A skinny girl

(Mini) Skirting around the issue

I am a mini-skirt wearer, a lover of hot pants and an appreciator of crop tops. Due to recent reasoning in our country lately about what exactly a woman’s choice should be translated to mean, allow me to decode my sometime choice of attire.

 

Mini skirt – This definitely means that I am tired of walking on crowded streets without having men turn around to stare at my blemish free thighs because how else will my existence have meaning but to drive men to distraction with the suppleness of my legs. 

Hot pants – Whenever I wear shorts you can assume that the first thought that fluttered into my mind when I woke that morning is “all those kombi drivers and conductors sure have been quiet about a woman’s body let me give them something to talk about”. No really, I absolutely wear cute hot pants to arouse men at the bus rank. Who doesn’t?

Crop tops – You’re probably starting to get the hang of this but in case you’re not this is obviously to allow men to touch my taut belly. What else are stomachs for if not to be stroked by strangers in the street?

Recently some young feminists in the country who are tired of having their attire scrutinised and being treated like their bodies are a piece of meat because of it held a mini skirt march to the Manzini bus rank, supposedly where the worst perpetrators are. This left the men absolutely unaffected but maybe a little aroused because the street interviews held afterwards reflected that their sentiments were that they would carry on harassing girls who dressed inappropriately because it aroused their desires and they were teaching them to respect their bodies.

Teaching someone to respect their bodies by subjecting it to the worst form of disrespect must be a new technique that the world hasn’t quite picked up on yet, but we’re coming we’re coming. Maybe ladies should look for men baring their calves in shorts and proceed to lasciviously stroke them or maybe even smack them with a towel – the same one you will hand over for him to wipe his tears after being objectified.

We cannot avoid the fact that we live in a society that normalises and excuses sexual violence against women or that the objectification of women’s bodies and glamourisation of rape subsequently disregards women’s rights and safety.

I do not want to live in a world which tells me not to wear certain types of clothing lest I arouse sleeping giants, or midgets. I want to live in a world which celebrates my womanhood and does not define it by making it stereotypically prone to victimisation. I should not need to live my life in fear of being potentially raped, I should not have to look forward to bringing sons into a world which trivialises sexual assault by saying “boys will be boys”, or bring daughters into a world which insists that “only promiscuous women get raped”. 

If men understood or experienced the very real fear that women feel when they face the possibility of sexual assault this would come to an end. I always define myself as a part-time feminist and a full-time woman, the why is a long story but I am a woman who does not have a body to be used as a way of teaching me a lesson. 

I own my body and all its parts, everything that happens to it should be consensual. Education is also a dangerous feeder into this psyche that the world operates by; as women we are taught that all men are potential rapists. 

I don’t mean taught by society or the public but this is literally what we are taught in our schools. From as far back as I can remember I sat through classes where teachers told me how to protect myself from being sexually assaulted by suspicious looking men. I was taught to take self-defence classes, to carry a whistle, to cross the road when a suspicious looking man was walking towards me. Because men with unkempt moustaches (I assume that is the trait of suspicious men) are rapists and they cannot cross roads.

Something has got to give, I struggle to accept that we are just walking around engaging with men who cannot control their desires. Ladies if all else fails, I hope you realise that wearing mini skirts will get you raped, and wearing short shorts and crop tops and just basically leaving your house so stop doing that.

KNOW YOUR PLACE

This is in honour of women like me; women who do not know their place.

 

“Feminism and the pursuit of gender equality are destroying our women,” so went one of my conversations last week. I was discussing being a liberal thinker in a conservative society and being a feminist in a patriarchal country with a male friend of mine. He looked at me pitifully before saying “Nono you need to stop this, what you’re saying encroaches on culture, know your place”.

As I do whenever I get frustrated my eyes glazed over and I went into mild cardiac arrest, okay okay I’m exaggerating, but I did tell him that ‘my place’ is wherever I dang well choose. The thing about being born with the likelihood to grow breasts (obese men I’m not talking to you) is that it seems you are only allowed to exist in a space carved out for you by men. This may be why I am violently opposed to the notion that our bodies are purely for the enjoyment and leering looks of men. 

I’ve been reading since I was three years old and have had a natural curiosity and thirst for knowledge since I was born so I have picked up so many things in my 24 years of life that I would like to share with you (at least this week I asked). Women are controlled using stereotypes, cultural practices, generalisations and even subliminally through music. 

Gender roles

I remember growing up and having all sorts of dolls, teddy bears and clapping purple elephants to play with. It was all very girly but my dad had also built us a tree house in the yard and fully encouraged us to play in it, to climb trees to play in the mud and have a supremely well rounded childhood. I thank him for it because if it was okay for me to climb trees in my own back yard no one would ever be able to stop me from doing anything because it was a ‘guy’ thing.

-          Wash dishes

-          Cook

-          Clean

-          make the bed

-          Be meek and docile

These seem to be the commandments for women just so they can keep the peace. Man I’m not about some dang peace, I’m a hell raiser. If you look closely you may notice that I’m not a washrag or a hoover. I have younger sisters and every day I tell them to let men keep the peeing standing up and we can share everything else.

Workplace vibes

“Michelle is a good woman, not for sticking by Obama when he was a struggling law student but for allowing him to lead her because now she has gotten so far”. Someone tweeted this a few weeks ago and I dang near deactivated my account. If my success can only be validated by having a man to share it with then I would rather not have it…well you know what I mean. Since everyone else thinks women are these supernatural creatures who are to blame for all social ills I will toss another challenge their way; stop giving birth to men who perpetuate the thinking that a woman is only as good as the man who loves her by not breeding with their ignorant fathers. Besides I thought the apocalypse took all these men and women who spend all their lives constructing boxes to devalue us and everything we achieve. Have you ever experienced subliminal workplace harassment? I say subliminal because that’s what catcalls pass for these days. I have found a great way to counter it, now  I throw it right back at some of the men I meet in a professional capacity now so if you ever hear the whispered words “hear comes the madam” turn around or I may squeeze your bum before you get me. See me, I’m always one step ahead.

Women should always be sexually available to their men

Now this just gets my back up. Sex is for pleasure and procreation, to be available at ALL times means both of these get compromised. Unless you are dating a prostitute whose vocational crux is sexual availability then you have got no right to expect that of your woman. “But then he’ll leave me?” I can hear the women thinking, honey how can I put this; if a man is going to leave you because you are too busy filling your life with actual events that will improve you and ultimately your life together to cater to his err stiff demands then let him leave. And before he closes the door tell him your knees prefer being perpendicular to the ground and not parallel to it anyway.

Hit her so she knows who the boss is

Men who beat women are such an anomaly to me, because it is obviously a power thing, like rape. If I had the misfortune of attracting these kinds of men I would live in a cast and a crutch because I am always running my mouth off. Walk with me down memory lane as we reminisce on how Chris Brown beat Rihanna black and blue (probably for running off at the mouth). What intrigued me was what happened after that incident; girls, who have probably been living in boxes all their lives, came out to say they wouldn’t mind if Chris Brown had done the same thing to them as long as he touched them. Afterwards I kept thinking so this is what you meant when you sang Take You Down?! Man listen I believe in second chances for everything except abuse and infidelity. Oh and stupidity.

Video broads

Another way to keep women in their place is to continue depicting them as shallow, beauty-obsessed, booty-popping beings in hip hop videos. Soul videos are a little classier but even they show women laden with shopping bags and self-satisfied smiles strolling out of Cartier, Prada, Burberry and what have you funded by men who, apparently, are our only meal tickets. Strangely enough I listen to a lot of misogynistic rap but if you ever try to call me some derogatory word and expect me to light up like the sky on New Years Eve then honey you have another thing coming. I will light a fire cracker in your face and mumble about your mama.

As a woman who will one day raise warrior boys and girls I have no time to let things like this slide. Imagine if my children were to be okay with booty-popping or woman-slapping, no thanks if that is the society they have to live in then I will deliberately raise them the same way I was raised; to stand out, to know my place and acknowledge it only if it is in my best interests to do so. Some may say that my ideas make me seem unladylike; to them I say that I have always been too passionate to be a lady, too foulmouthed, too “but why?”, just too much to be contained in a box.

When I turned 21 years old and living in Durban my father smsed me something I will never forget and I remember it when people try to doormat me; “Do not go soft for the sake of appeasement”. Those words resonated and I haven’t, you shouldn’t either.

Anyhow I probably sound like a man-basher but I’m really not, I promise. My boyfriend will corroborate this story. As soon as he is out of the doghouse.

Dear haters

I have recently acquired an annoying ability, I say annoying because it is through no concerted effort of mine. For the past month I have been getting all sorts of hate on Facebook, which is so bizarre because I am delightful on Facebook; nothing like my real life persona.
 

Last week my parents and I went to Durban to attend my sister’s second graduation and she surprised even herself when she graduated Cum Laude, like the boss that she is. So in my usual over sharing manner I updated about it and uploaded pictures with witty captions and basically did my own version of “halala Mshengu Tshabalala” via the internet. My bad! Someone was quick to inbox me and tell me that I had absolutely no reason to be posting so incessantly about Anele’s graduation ceremony because she was not the first person in the world to graduate Cum Laude. Okay.

A few days later when I was at my place trying to figure out the most innovative and energy-saving way to feed myself without actually getting off the couch and touching the pots or even looking at my kitchen I updated this “When I chose to study Journalism over Law my Dad said to me ‘I can’t force you Shengu, job satisfaction is more important that monetary gain’. Now however I wish that I had studied law so I could make a ton of money overnight and be able to afford to have someone cook for me everyday. *hums Senzeni na*” Someone’s daughter took offence at that but to my surprise she wasn’t offended with my laziness and consequent hunger strike but she was annoyed that I spoke about having options for my tertiary education. She told me that I wasn’t the only one with a high profile family, She reminded me that I did not own the world and that she wondered how people put up with me because I thought I was Khanyi Mbau.

See now that hurt, how dare she use Khanyi Mbau as a barometer of successful women. I let her have it about owning the world because of course I don’t own the world nor do I want to because if I did I imagine I’d end up having to cook for it which was the entire problem and the reason she had now found herself in a war of words with someone with more sophisticated artillery than her own.

Someone also recently told me that I am ugly and old. People are terrible at listening to reason I explained to her that she obviously caught me on a bad day because if she had seen me with the face that I made in my father’s shed and not the one God gave me she would change her mind. As for the age jab maybe it was me speaking in a baby voice that did it but I told her that of course 24 years old seems ancient to someone who has just passed the legal drinking age. I really don’t know what is happening with people.

But I can’t put all the blame at their feet, I chastised my family for being too high profile right after asking what it was exactly that they all did for a living and why they haven’t made me a tenderpreneur yet. I have also resolved to be less witty because who needs wit when we can all just find people on social networks who manage to make even the most difficult times of their lives sound like poetry and tell them how much I wish someone would just eat sushi off their body already. No wait, wrong story.

I will also stop being friendly to strangers because they may just be planning a Facebook status assassination and if I have learnt anything from JFK it is that if I die at the hands of an assassin I will make sure that I will be survived by a beautiful and stylish wife and the Torso has a long way to go before anyone calls him ‘wife’.

People will hate you for the most inane things, they will be deliberately disrespectful and slanderous and cuss out every single thing in your family tree and believe that it is okay. Perhaps it is because I am a writer that I understand how harmful words can be and I use mine carefully as a way to defend myself and to spread love (‘cause it’s the Brooklyn way) yes I just referenced BIG because he was awesome and I’m sure he had haters too.

But how do you guys do it? (only the haters respond) How do you spend so much time focussing on how much someone else’s existence pisses you off without unfriending them because it’s not even like you people know me in real life?

Anyway I guess now we’re even, you have made me spend all this energy that I had saved by NOT cooking to address you. I hate you back.

PS I have so much more for you to be mad at. Just wait.

PSS Family, you are only high profile in my writing.

HOW MUCH IS YOUR DAUGHTER?

This is what I imagine a letter girls like me would/should send when they get ready to take the trip down the aisle. 

 

Dear Future Husband

I have seen the way you have been looking at me lately and have picked up the badly dropped hints (I like that you’re clumsy). However before you hide a ring in my morning muffin and proceed to administer a panicked version of the Heimlich Manoeuvre, making it the most unforgettable marriage proposal ever, you should know the following; I am

-          24 years old

-          I have no children

-          I am a journalism graduate

-          My cooking is average

-          I hate housework

-          I am a general bringer of awesome

-          I laugh like I mean it

-          I do not know how not to speak my mind, which makes me kind of embarrassing in public

-          I have more wit and passion than sense

-          I will never be the most beautiful woman in the room but I have honest eyes.

I do not write this list to deter you from forging ahead with your intention to make an honest woman out of me, I write it only to equip you with all the information you may need going in. This is also to allow you to prepare a convincing negotiation strategy for when you discuss lobola with my father. This is important because if you have ever wondered why you cannot win an argument against me, clashing heads with my dad will bring this into perspective. If you are unprepared he will make mincemeat out of you and I cannot let anyone (but me) make my betrothed any sort of shredded pasta topping.

Speaking of lobola, apparently it is an age old customary practice where the man thanks the parents of his future wife for raising her from a girl to a woman. You have plenty to thank mine for. We’ll get to my feelings on being traded for money a little bit later.

Typically several factors come into play when a girl’s family sets the lobola price. I have heard that some of these are; education, sexual history, beauty and age.

EDUCATION

I am private school educated but I am not a snob I promise. Remember that one time we went to a shisa nyama joint and I told them I wanted my steak medium rare? See, not a snob. In all seriousness I don’t think it’s important to produce a list of all my academic experiences and achievements, though daddy dearest may beg to differ (disclaimer: my dad doesn’t beg). For the purposes of haggling over a future wife I must mention then that I do have a tertiary qualification. You can thank my father for parting with a lot of money to ensure that I do not embarrass you when your friends have intellectual conversations because I am the type who will offer my unsolicited opinion on most things – much like this column. Thank God then for making me curious enough to make the most of the opportunity to receive an education. My male friends say an educated woman is a prize because it liberates her mentally and financially so that she is not dependant on a man, which kind of trivialises the whole lobola thing, doesn’t it? If you understand that most nights this woman will probably fall asleep with a book in her hands and you will occasionally lose her to the characters in those books, soldier on player.

SEXUAL HISTORY

My father will read this so suffice it to say I would make it to the fourth day of the five-day Umhlanga ceremony.

BEAUTY

I am not coy about physical attributes. I know most people think I am too thin, to those people I say,” yo more than a handful is too much” and then I swish my wannabe hips and keep it moving. My face, my face, my dang face. Like I said in the list above I will never be the most beautiful woman in the room but I am pretty okay to look at, you don’t even have to be under the influence of any eye-altering substance to say “she’s alright”. However if you are the type of man who can only be kept by beauty then knock next door, I heard the girls there don’t sleep till after midnight, I am not the one. I don’t look presentable until at least 10am so if you want to wake up to this face for the rest of your life, fall in love with the quirks and call it a day. Besides, the most beautiful thing about my face is that I have my father’s eyes and my mother’s smile – on my face they are still together.

AGE

As previously stated beloved I am 24 years old, so for breeding purposes I am in my prime (I think). However for the people who have met me and continue to say to you “a young wife is more expensive because she is full of life” hate you my darling. I am only full of life after a cup of coffee and listening to misogynistic gangsta rap, before that I am full to the brim with nerd girl woes.

I certainly hope this will place you in a good position to negotiate successfully for me. I hope you understand as well that if you ever use this custom to “put me in my place” and remind me that I was sold and bought I will malfunction like you can never believe. See that’s the things with bought items; you can’t really trust the guarantee.

If my distaste at being bartered seems misplaced, forgive me lover. My feelings on lobola are that if I am going to gain a light bulb changer, a spider killer and a beer guzzler all rolled into one fart-through-the-night man then I should pay your folks too, no? After a heated and amusing conversation I had last week with some of my male friends they summarised their collective opinion by saying “Nono, lobola doesn’t end because your man will continue taking care of you even in marriage”. So I hit a man and that is the real explanation of why you had to bail me out last week.

Life is expensive enough without making love a commodity. However, should you succumb to this custom that is older than both of us then make sure that you part with a number of cows that will ensure that I keep my malfunctioning in check.  

Forever yours, (insert name)