I think - and I’m about to sound like your favourite African intellectual - that feminism has become intellectually complacent and someone needs to hold its feet to the fire. I have obviously nominated myself but that in no way means that I am the only one. At least I hope not.

Most feminists I know work for feminist organisations. Feminism is a job they do, a role they play, not an organising principle for how they live their lives, so I can understand why they are not too keen to engage with what sounds like anti-feminist rhetoric. Look, I’m not judging. Much.

We all make compromises to keep bills paid. Be that as it may, we can’t keep silent while organisations we know to be extractive and anti-African use our peers, grants, and funded programmes to steal our futures. I’m not saying that feminism has accomplished nothing nor that everyone should abandon it without a second thought. In fact, second thoughts are precisely what I’m advocating for.

Why is it so terrible to rethink a movement whose roots were blatantly, unapologetically, anti-Black and by extension, anti-African?

Why is it so terrible to suggest a redrawing of the lines established by whoever funded the gospel of feminism reaching these shores (Rockefeller, I’ve heard tell, but who cares)?

Why is it so offensive to suggest that a movement shaped largely in Europe and North America might require fundamental revision before it can speak meaningfully to African women's realities? Why do feminists resist this so violently?

If a movement claims to explain and confront women’s oppression, and to be charting a path towards women’s liberation from said oppression, then it should welcome scrutiny from the very women in whose name it speaks. I don’t have to call myself a feminist to critique feminism because feminism doesn’t claim to be for feminists, but for all women. Ain’t I a woman too?

Forget that African feminists often tell us we’ve not read enough to address them - that elitism is a big problem but I’m not talking about that right now - if feminism is still a worthwhile idea then it should survive criticism and come out stronger. If it is not, then it will not, nor should it. Everything isn’t forever, and that just might include feminism.

We Need a Revolution

My concern is not whether African feminism is right or wrong. My concern is whether it serves African women or whether it serves its master, Capitalism. I suspect the latter.

Feminism is long overdue for an overhaul. The movement can’t still be having, in 2026, the same conversations that were had at the Beijing Conference of 1995, the first time I heard of this thing called feminism. I was 14 in 1995, and the conversation has barely moved forward. Sure, the world has a bigger vocabulary for oppression and ever-growing categories of the oppressed, but women’s material conditions have not been improved by feminism, barring a bicycle project or two here, and a chicken-rearing cooperative or three there.

A girl who was 14 in 1995 will struggle to point to the positive changes that are specifically attributable to feminism. I’m that girl, and it makes me sad when young, angry feminists who weren’t even born in 1995 claim that we wouldn’t have the vote, bank accounts, or the ability to live independently if it weren’t for feminism.

Just as the men in power in America decided women could vote, own property, open bank accounts, and participate fully in the economy, the systems under which I live made room for me because they needed my labour, my consumption, my taxes. I’m sorry to burst the bubble but no, feminism is not why you’re free (to the extent that you are, in fact, free).

That isn’t the same thing as saying feminism has had no impact. It’s saying that political and economic systems change for many reasons, and movements often succeed because those in power benefit from the changes being demanded. History is not as simple as “feminism gave women rights” - African women’s history is definitely a lot more complicated than that.

In 1995, one of my isiNdebele setbooks dealt with the notion that girls should be allowed to go to school instead of being forced to marry. I remember Miss Mpala telling me to tell my mother to ‘talk to me properly’ when I said the fact that the girl ended up married anyway made the whole book pointless.

In 2026 and amidst all this feminism, why are girls in Africa still agitating for the right to go to school, the right not to be raped, the right not be forced to bear children? It begs the question - what then has feminism been doing? Shall we play Spot the Freedom?

Remember that time y’all claimed Beyonce as your favourite feminist and then got mad when she didn’t leave her husband for cheating? Instead she made Lemonade, took all your coins, and you forgot to hold her to the feminist standard of not taking shit from men just to stay married. Remember that?

How about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, feminists’ favourite icon? She spent years telling y’all you didn’t have to deal with men to be fulfilled, that women’s lives were so much bigger than marriage and babies, only to turn around, get married, and very promptly get pregnant. Y’all reconciled that by calling it choice feminism, didn’t you? Uh huh.

A principled worldview should not need costume changes. If it is true, it should be able to accompany you everywhere. If it only works in certain spaces and around certain audiences, then perhaps it isn’t a worldview at all. Perhaps it’s a performance. It’s just a job you do that pays your bills and funds your life and your travel, isn’t it?

Christianity and feminism both have room for this type of hypocrisy. If you can’t be a feminist without being a hypocrite about your sex life, and you can’t be a Christian without being a hypocrite about those same things, then maybe feminism and Christianity aren’t for you. Maybe you need to find principles that aren’t contrary to your nature and to the way you actually want to live.

Why is that such a problematic and controversial thing to say?

There was a time in my life when I was deep into femininity schools. I was so committed to it that I didn’t wear pants for over a decade because I wanted to appear more feminine in alignment with the ideas I held about womanhood. I went from the white coaches to the Black ones to the witchy ones. I saw it all and eventually noped out because I couldn’t find a paradigm that didn’t centre men, being chosen by men, or making yourself more palatable to men. Not my scene but, by god, I tried.

More recently, I have found myself increasingly sceptical of the newer crop of feminist coaches who promise to teach Black women how to run businesses and build communities. They weaponise current events and tell you that the only way to survive what’s coming is to make more money. If it’s not “heart-centred” and “soul-led,” it’s “real” and “evidence-based” and focused on making you richer, more powerful, and putting you beyond the reach of oppression. The savvy coaches wrap their offerings in the language of freedom, liberation, and capitalism. Right. Because more capitalism will liberate you and your community. Insert eye-roll right here.

It’s Lean In with melanin and Black girl problems because Sheryl Sandberg for damn sure never had to worry about her retirement. The Black version simply has to include a money-making component because we’re poor out here, the system has been dreadful to us, and your favourite coach knows that. I only ask what can be built on the back of hypocrisy except more hypocrisy, more lies, and deeper oppression?

This is why I say that Christianity - Abrahamic faiths - and feminism will not liberate African women. Both require compromises that will not serve us. Both ask African women to contort themselves in ways that are fundamentally at odds with who many of us are. Without major overhaul, neither can offer African women a home.

Feminism defines itself as the pursuit of equality and, in bell hooks’ memorable formulation, as a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. That was, and remains, a necessary intervention. But I find myself asking a different question. Is patriarchy the most urgent problem facing African women?

For me, the answer is no.

That is not because patriarchy has disappeared. It most certainly has not. Internalised misogyny is even more prevalent, it seems to me. But there are larger systems operating around patriarchy and through it, and sometimes quite independently of it. Capitalism. Classism. Racism. Those are just some of the forces that determine whether my children eat, whether they have somewhere safe to sleep, whether they can cross borders, receive healthcare, or imagine free futures beyond survival.

If feminism continues teaching African women that patriarchy is the principal contradiction while leaving those larger systems intact, then I think it deserves to be challenged. Someone benefits when Black women continue to be blind to their true enemy.

That is why I keep coming back to engage with feminism and the Abrahamic faiths. The stakes are far too high to stop.

My Substack feed has a lot of proud feminists. Unsurprising. Not something that’s bothered me (much) one way or the other. Not until I started paying attention to what they were saying. I’ve always been a little hard on African feminists (do better!) but it was more about the collective of feminists, you know, whereas now thanks to anybody with two thoughts to rub together and an internet connection having a ‘platform,’ we get to see what individual feminists think and how they live, how they interpret and incorporate feminism into their every day living. I’m sorry to say, it’s a sad state of affairs.

I’m talking about the kind of feminists who have feminist in their bios all over the interwebs, but are yet to have a come-to-jesus moment about their relationship with sex and men. What kind of feminist are you if a large part of your life is still about being palatable to and chosen by men - for sex nogal? You’re not empowered just because men have free and easy access to you.

…The kind of feminists who are loud about dismantling the patriarchy - insert eyeroll - but are still auditioning for marriage, brushing up on makoti skills, subjecting other women to the patriarchy-enhancing rituals of makoti-hood, romanticising the trad-wife life but calling it soft life so it looks like a softer version of #girlboss except...it’s not.
You’re not empowered just because you’re a rich man’s plaything. You’re not free when your freedom is dependent on a man’s continued affection.
Look. There’s nothing wrong with being a plaything or a dependent. In capitalist patriarchy those are valid choices. The problem comes when you try to rebrand that as feminism. Just because you call yourself a feminist, that doesn’t make your choices feminist choices.

…The kind of feminists who are seemingly unequivocal about gender rights and women’s rights online and at work, but couldn’t care less about women in real life especially if they’re foreign, poor, mis- or under-informed, desperate (for money, for protection from patriarchy and racism and capitalism) - then it’s “they should have gone to school and done better,” and in-between those lines they’re silently screaming “just like I did.”
Remember Janet Jackson’s role as Jo in For Coloured Girls...?
“‘Our?’ We are all afforded the same opportunities in ‘our’ community. What they do with theirs, it is not my issue.”

It is this pervasive idea that because you have worked hard, any other woman could have done the same if only she wanted to, making poverty a personal failing rather than a systemic issue.

That said, my issue is this: individual women must take personal responsibility for their own lives, their choices and so forth, and we must also acknowledge and remember that there are systemic issues, and some of us are more privileged than others. As someone who in many ways straddles the privilege line, who is trans-wealthy (rich person in a poor person’s life) I see a lot of both sides and what I see makes me sad. There is so much room for collective development, so much we can all learn from and teach each other. The possibility exists for all of us to rise together.

But. Classism. One of the greatest barriers to that collective flourishing. Patriarchy undoubtedly shapes women’s lives, but we cannot confront patriarchy while ignoring the class divisions that undermine our ability to act together. Classism is rampant among women, more of a threat to collective survival than patriarchy, second only to capitalism in how big a threat it is to women’s wellness.

Don’t get me wrong, there are feminists I love, too. In fact, some of my best friends and favourite people are feminists, and we get along fine because not being a feminist or rather not identifying as one, does not mean I am not pro-women and all for womanhood; it doesn’t mean I’m not ready to dismantle the patriarcyhy (every time I use this phrase I roll my eyes), it just means that I don’t see the patriarchy as the most urgent issue facing African women. Otherwise, viva the sisters and all that.

Listen. I’d love to say it’s not all bad over there by feminism but you know what? It is. We should talk about it. Feminist organisations and their mouthpieces play too large a role on the continent’s female-feminine psyche for us to pretend that what they teach and advocate for and who/what they fund doesn’t matter.

That’s the first group of women that’s been living rent-free in my head.

The other?

Christians.

Ugh.

Where do I even begin?

For me, it’s not even Christians in general, although as a group they do leave a lot to be desired. It’s African Christians. Because like African feminists, they are my family and my friends and the people with whom I must build community, and so on and so forth. It’s not a question of ‘live and let live’ because of the numbers and the impact. We cannot continue to have people in positions of influence whose thinking is compromised by a blood-spell. It has not worked out well for us.

I know how much avoidance (read: faith aka delulu) it takes to preach about and pray to the same God who allowed colonisation and slavery and apartheid to happen in his name. I also know how much thinking it takes to confront generations of “we are believers” and be the one to ask the hard questions like - if god is omniscient why didn’t he know Noah would eff up too? Why does he keep getting things wrong, anyway? If he’s omnipresent, why did he need to send angels to Lot to see what agwan? If he truly can’t stand evil, how was he able to bear Satan long enough to make a friendly bet over Job’s life, just to flex?

The hypocrisy and dissonance required to ignore these things is why I’m side eyeing Christians. And those aren’t even the hard questions. Not even.

The hard questions are when we ask things like: show me God’s love in the DRC, or Sudan, anywhere in African history, for that matter. The hard questions come when we ask that you not use free will as a cop-out, because there’s no such thing. Why does God give babies cancer and allow little boys and girls to be violated? Why do these things not render him unworthy of your worship?

I am not particularly impressed, therefore, by Christian Feminist Africans (cafs), nor by African feminists or African Christians (since they aren’t always the same set). By cafs I mean African women who identify as Christian or Feminist or both. Y’all need to hear me because these are some of the things that explain why women still aren’t free.

Christianity and feminism will never liberate African women because they are both imported doctrines, along with capitalism and the rest of it. The more cafs and other Africans align with those foreign doctrines, the more they strengthen the chains holding the continent from its true potential.

We owe it to each other to be accountable to the continent, not to sell it to the highest bidder only to live as slaves in our own home. What level of sheer foolery is that?!

Share

It’s been, at times, a painful journey.
After I was retrenched in 2018 - almost a decade ago! - I found my place as a consultant project manager and freelance writer-editor. I even did my masters in creative writing then. I wrote a whole novel and a 20k word thesis. It almost killed me but my gods I did it, all while keeping myself and my children alive. Nothing special, many people are doing that. I had the energy to hustle and bid for projects and do all the freelancer things to get gigs. I also had the luxury of being selective about what work I would take on - writers and project managers were winning.

And then, the Fire Nation attacked. My world changed.

Clients who sent me AI documents with the instruction to make them sound human. I did so many of these (I needed the work) that my own writing began to suffer because I was literally immersing myself in AI slop for hours at a time.
Clients who gave me briefs with crazy turnaround times with the proviso - just use AI, it shouldn’t take long.
I’d take the work on because capitalism, and then cringe inside because using AI - even with client approval - felt like selling out.

I stopped doing all of that. The dissonance was unbearable.

So here I am, a client-free writer-editor, frustrated with everybody for embracing aforementioned AI slop, working on my personal projects (which has its own challenges). Creative writing projects where there is no room for AI because I’m writing my life, my experiences, thoughts, dreams, musings and stories. ChatGPT and Claude can’t do that.
I am the secret sauce.

Look, I know these platforms hack our consciousnesses (the plural should be consciousnii), I know for sure that TikTok not only reads every single thing on our phones including keystrokes it reads our minds too, but that’s all current tech can do (for now): steal and regurgitate whatever some other person has thought up.
It still needs humans to do the thinking up.

That’s when it clicked for me. That’s what my work is - thinking up things and finding ways to share those things with the world while holding homelessness at bay - that’s how the system sustains itself, by making opting out impossible. Imagine what you could do if you didn’t have to grapple with capitalism. What beautiful art would we get from you, be it drawings, writing, or music? Cooking, fashion design, healing, or restorative dance? What nourishment could we give each other if we weren’t worried every other minute about the rent, the groceries, the lights, the school fees; if we weren’t always trying to make a dollar out of 50c?

Creativity is an iron-sharpening-iron kind of exercise. You put your work out there, it inspires someone else to do their work and put that out there and soon enough, we’re all highly-evolved souls in these meat-suits still hurtling towards The Great Attractor exactly as we are now, except minus the hate-based consumption-driven shenanigans we find ourselves caught up in today. All this for gold, cobalt, coltan, and oil? Are we even serious?!

The more I thought about it -and I thought about it a lot - the more I realised that there’s only ever been one problem. Capitalism (and its now-grown-and-independently-oppressive babies - white supremacy, organised religion, classism, and patriarchy).
There’s a reason so many nepo babies turn to the creative arts for self-expression. When you don’t have to worry about food, shelter, and the other basics, you make things. You build. You create. Everything becomes art and self-expression, even while it remains functional.

I know what you’re thinking, and I agree: being rich is all well and good, but there’s a kind of brokenness that drives billionaires to keep seeking more money while contributing nothing to the beauty quotient of the world. Some might argue they make up for that by giving us the art and performances of their children.

It makes you hanker for the days of old, when Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan didn’t just amass wealth just to use it to run despicable rituals in pursuit of still more wealth. To be fair, those 19th-century titans may well have done just that, who knows, but they didn’t only do that. They built some pretty impressive things: scholarship funds, ongoing endowments, massive and excellently stocked libraries, museums, and so forth. Things that did what? Tangibly improved lives and changed the trajectories of entire communities.
Your fav billionaires inspire people to burn down warehouses and set communities ablaze. Your favs cheat indigenous people out of their homes and off lands they been on for generations just to build personal luxury retreats. Your favs are posting their Hermès hauls, showing off their private islands, and letting you in on how they are treated like royalty at Van Cleef - that’s the full extent of their contribution to the world except when a tax-break becomes necessary.

I’m getting to my point, stay with me.

Eventually, all this thinking and hustling and thinking and trying - eventually it overwhelms the mind and the body.
In 2026, I’m tired.
I’ve been fighting for so long and the needle has not moved an inch. Women are still vulnerable and guess what, so am I, as I found out when a client insisted on exclusivity and then reneged on the contract and left me high-and-dry (my fault for listening to a man). Women are still proudly selling their autonomy to men in the name of marriage, motherhood and ‘soft life,’ and women like me are still being punished for not following suit.
In 2026 I’m making peace with the idea of leaving the battle to others. I’m perimenopausal and tired. If women still want to behave like birds, let them.

Here’s the thing.
Survival requires more than ideology.
The future is still unfolding and it belongs not to those of us who have been loudly opposed to the system as it is and have been peaching the gospel of dismantling it, nor to the self-righteous ones who obey and comply because that’s the ‘right’ thing to do (is it?), nor even to the ones who have fully embraced this white-supremacist-capitalist-religious-classist-patriarchal system and aren’t even pretending to care about oppression or collective dysfunction.
The future belongs to none of those people but instead, to those who with their values strong and goals intact, bend like the willow while gathering strength like the bamboo.
The future belongs to those who want to improve lives - others’ and their own - and who are willing to combine creativity, technology, and functionality towards that end.

I wonder if one of their husbands did something stupid, or maybe they’re sharing a memory of the high-jinks they got up to as young girls. Of course, I don’t know if they’re married, widowed, divorced, or whether they are sapphic lovers at the heart of a poly-cube - I know nothing about them except that their laughter is rich and filling and I want it.

This is joyful, wholesome laughter straight from the heart. The kind of wheezes and convulsions that 90s conspiracy theorists suspected to be motivation for alien abductions. Humour is inexplicable, you see, and the aliens want to understand it. I mean, why are some things funny to everyone - like Leon Schuster’s The Gods Must Be Crazy II - and some things funny only to the tragically impaired, like everything else Schuster ever made? What makes some people good comics (when did we stop calling them comedians?) and others incredibly boring storytellers? Why do we laugh - hard - at inappropriate times? Why do we laugh at all? But I digress.

Had Gertrude and Beatrice (yes, I named them) been Black women, their laughter would have included some kind of slapping/clapping. We’re just expressive like that (all of us?). That reminds me of the time a man made me laugh so hard I shocked both of us when, caught up in the moment, I put my hand on his arm and guffawed. Yes, guffawed. In public.

Did I mention that the man in question was a client, an upstanding gentleman who probably would not know how to guffaw if his life dependent on it; a staid and respectable peer of the realm, so to speak, whereas I am known for outbursts of horrendously loud (and hopefully infectious) laughter?
He may have smiled but I don’t think he appreciated the stares our table received.

A good laugh is almost as a good as an orgasm if you ask me, so I rarely hold back because I don’t deny myself nice things - it’s how I move the universe to continue to give me nice things. He probably thinks I was flirting but I really wasn’t, he was just that funny. And before you say ‘women fall in love with men who make them laugh’ - that may be true but I’m not ‘women’ and I no longer fall in love. Well, not with mere men. Gods, women, and goddesses, hit me up. Let’s see what those hearts do (chancers need not apply).

The laughter across the room fades to chuckles. Glasses are properly perched on noses and decorum is restored. I watch as Gertrude and Beatrice pay their bill, chit-chat with the waitress and leave, still chuckling and gently elbowing each other in continued amusement. These are not frail old women, they are chunky South African tannies, the kind of white South Africans whose grandchildren speak or at least understand an indigenous language or two and argue about whether White African is a valid identity. That’s how wholesome these two biddies are. It’s clear that they are regulars and that they are liked. I too am a regular here, just not for breakfast. I might have to change that.

Gertrude has her hair coloured cherry-red and Beatrice, sporting a shock of pure white hair, is wearing pedal-pushers. Bermudas. Whatever they’re called. Between them, they must have a combined age of at least 120, I’d even venture 140-150. They are clearly not what one might call young women but they are lively and glowing with what I can only call zest for life, and I am envious. I almost believe - just because of that laughter - that with the the right team, they could end racism (and help explain to White Africans that that’s not how it works).

I want to make friends. Actually, I want them to adopt me. I am a needy, motherless daughter in need of some maternal affection. I wish I’d gone over and said ‘Thank you for making my day, your laughter is such a pleasure to witness, and I wish you the best of today and every day.’

Because women who can laugh like that?

I don’t care who says what, those are the best women. I’d say men who can laugh freely are also the best men, but you know what? Men laugh at rape jokes and dead baby jokes and poo jokes. I’ve never once heard men’s laughter and thought how wholesome. Have you?

I’ll probably never see Gertrude and Beatrice again but truly, day made. I know that you now expect a picture of them.
Why would I take pictures of random strangers having their breakfast and sharing a good laugh?
Do you take pictures of strangers to share with other strangers for no reason other than the views? Stop. That. And tell other people to stop that.

In other news...it’s the Autumn Equinox in a couple days.

If you’re into seasonal living, autumn is about ‘going within’ and recalibrating after the abundance and indulgence of Summer, and preparing for the calm (and sometimes stark) introspective quiet of winter. Us who lived through summer love and summer heartbreak (we move fast, lol) - we’re outchea planning a feast, nay, a festival in honour of the equinox and in the name of shedding stagnant energy leftover from heart-break recovery.*

*I’m taking the kids out for burgers and treating myself to a beer (beer is a summer drink for me, thank you) and then I’ll come home and write the new season into being. One thing about me, I will journal.

What about you? What plans for the new season? Reflections on the one ending?

Your 4C hair is not ‘difficult’ you are just ignorant, but that’s not where I was going with this. Parting ways with Beulah (yes, my hair had a name - the Promised Land - get it?) had nothing to do with cost (I stopped spending money on hair during Covid) and it had nothing to do with a breakup, unless the breakup was with the woman I used to be. Which it was. Because evolution and all that.

Nobody is just one thing. Certainly, nobody is just one thing forever and if they are t’is a shame because life is big and wide, and anything that requires you to shrink is anti Life and therefore anti you. Sometimes you are the enemy of progress in your own life, but that’s another story for another day.

The multi-faceted nature of being woman is impossible to collapse into one or two labels, or even sentences; what more the multi-faceted, multi-layered individual existence?
I can barely explain myself succinctly, let alone womanhood.
What does it mean to be a woman?
To be a Black, African woman?
To be umNdebele woman?
To be a political lesbian?
To be a lesbian, no qualifier?
To be a queer woman?
To be a womanist?
To be Noluthando Leonorah?

Excluding the last of those questions, there are as many answers to each as there are women. None of those questions has a universally applicable/true answer.
The way I woman is not the way the next woman womans, and while there may be shared and collective experiences, every woman is having her own experience of being her and of being a woman. Same same, but different.

Cutting my hair wasn’t just an ending but, as endings so often are, also a beginning. There was (and is) so much happening in the living of my life that although I was growing and changing in profound and fundamental ways, I wasn’t paying attention.

Also at the end of 2024 I deleted Whatsapp, Facebook, and Instagram, and created a TikTok account (I ‘had to’ scroll somewhere and LinkedIn wasn’t giving).

So I entered the year that just ended (2025) with no hair and a TikTok account that none of my people knew.
I isolated hard; all of 2025 became me coming face to face with me.

Something unclenched during that extreme isolation event. Not unclenched like exhaled, not a soft unclenching, nor a gentle one.

It has been violent.
Painful.
Lonely.
Volcanic.
A cathartic release that shocked me into realising I’ve been holding my breath in order to perform womanhood and mother while African, in a patriarchal-capitalist-white-supremacist-religious-classist world.

My biggest problem was that I was trying to please everyone except myself.
Everyone.
Family. Friends. Men. ‘Society.’ My children. Capitalism + classism.
The unclenching was me finding and choosing to honour the god/dess in me above all else, and that required pulling my attention back to myself.

That is not what the system wants any of us to do. The last thing the powers that be want is for any of us to listen to ourSelves, let alone to honour what we hear when we do.

It is at this point that you’re probably beginning to wonder - what even is the point of this piece?

It is this:

Where your attention goes, matters. It matters because attention is energy; energy is power; and Power is how you build a life.

This matters because the African woman who is exhausted to her bones, the one who is held together by fumes because no one pours into her - she cannot afford to squander power any longer.

Do you believe this?

If not, then who or what is shaping your life, and are you happy with the outcome?

A woman on TikTok says she took a man to dinner, paid for the room they spent the night in, and gave him cash in the morning ‘for transport.’ Fast-forward 24hours and ‘Princess’ was no longer taking her calls. What has this country come to? -she wanted to know. The dycke game was of course worth it (nobody pharques better than a man who pays his dues with dycke) which is why she was still trying to reach him. And therein lies the problem.

Before you go climbing up the soapbox of righteous indignation and judgment let me remind you - over here we tell the truth. As I like to say, sitsheba ngeqiniso. We don’t sugar-coat shit 'cause ain’t nobody got time. If you don’t have Broke Dycke experience then you’re one of the lucky ones cos most of us do; the point is not to beat yourself up over the past but to learn from it and design a better future. Let’s get back to it.

What else can a woman do with money, time, and energy instead of spending it on a (broke) man who doesn’t want her? Whether he’s broke or not isn’t even the biggest problem. He could have Mayweather money but if he doesn’t want you, so the phuk what? And even if he does want you, what does he want you for…and if he wants you to have his babies, and then you have them, then what? How is that getting you closer to the life you want? Do you even know what your dream life looks like???

Does it really look one-night stands with men who don’t even like you?

I’ll ask you again:

Do you believe that you not only have the right but the power, too, to make your life up any way you choose?

On self-mastery
I have, over many years, come to the conclusion that any woman who claims the right to design her life as she chooses - the right to live a liberated life - must also be concerned with the struggle with Self.

To be free is not merely to resist oppression, but to possess the inner control and the drive necessary to act with intention towards one’s desired goals. Any struggle for liberation that does not prioritise self-mastery is doomed to be cyclical, mistaking rebellion for freedom while remaining bound to the same forces it seeks to escape. Feminists, I’m looking at you.

In other news…

Summer’s coming up, and despite not being happy with the weather, we know that the sun is doing its thing and the solstice is happening regardless - unless the turtle stopped moving and nobody told me? That’s a Terry Pratchett reference. Never mind.

Summer is about drinking in the sun and using that energy to create and build and reclaim and restore...

…it’s about abundance and joy and all those things that make long, hot days so special…

…but it is also about calling forth and setting new things in motion.

This time of year is also a time of not just shedding but intentional planting...what you do this summer ripples outward and you’ll either celebrate it or wish you could next summer.

They say the best way to predict the future is to create it and well, you do that by being intentional with these bright (please, gods) summer days. If nothing else, at least spend them being as happy as you can be, and hope that the joy you send forward now will take you through the winter.

If you’re doing the work of self-mastery the question is simple: What must you take responsibility for in yourself to create the life you want?

I’m inviting you to sit with that question. If you know someone who’s ready to confront their own truth, do pass this along.

I write for African women who are actively reshaping themselves and their lives in service of personal (and collective) liberation.

These are the things I think about because these are the things that impact the lives of women.

@lilith_sheba_babalonYou’re reaping what you sow. #divineladymagic #lilith #selfmastery #lapetitemort #selfactualization #power

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

‘In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become a part of a society that is meaningful, the system under which we now exist has to be radically changed. This means that we are going to have to learn to think in radical terms.’ Ella Baker

Every year around March, August and late November I want to hop onto the nearest soapbox (read: social media platform) and use a loudspeaker to denounce performance activism. International Women’s Day (March), Women’s Day (South Africa, August) and 16 Days of Activism (Nov-Dec) are triggering for me because feminism will not liberate the African woman. It cannot, because it is not trying to dismantle all the systems that oppress African women. Of all those systems - patriarchy, religion, white supremacy, capitalism, classism - they’re really all parts of one system - patriarchy is not the most urgent. If the African woman wants to liberate herself she is going to have to do much better than to rely on feminism. Or any kind of movement, for that matter.

There is no freedom without revolution because freedom, like power, can never be given; it must be taken.

If we are ever going to be free - truly free, not the kind of ‘freedom’ that requires us to be the playthings of NGO CEOs, performing our pain for their titillation - if we are to be free we must recognise that there are challenges that we face personally that must be addressed before we can even begin to tackle those which face us collectively.

Revolution: Radical change: A sudden, fundamental, and often violent transformation in established power structures or social order.

Every liberation-minded woman must develop a high level of political consciousness (which is not the same as watching the news) in order to understand that we are all oppressed, and it is the duty of every woman to free herself. Those who title themselves ‘revolutionaries’ and ‘activists’ must be living the life, talking the talk, and walking the walk otherwise their activism is performative and the revolution is co-opted. We must rewrite the rules and reorganise our relationship with the struggle as one that goes from the internal outward, and not the other way ‘round.

Sign a petition? In 2025? And then what?

‘Raising awareness’ is not efficient use of energy. That energy would be better spent putting some thought into how to mitigate women’s vulnerabilities. Instead, we keep hearing how women shouldn’t have to do anything and in fact can’t do anything except, apparently, beg men not to kill us. I know someone reading this is having an a-ha moment thinking they’ve identified internalised misogyny, but no.

Misogyny is treating women like children with no concept of danger and who must never be held accountable for the decisions and the choices they make. The fuck you mean you went to the GBV protest, and then went home to cook for your lying, cheating husband that you want government to make a better man? What do you mean you changed your profile picture to purple in solidarity but you’re outchea talm’bout crushing on “Cat” Matlala, tenderpreneur-turned-canary imprisoned for the attempted murder of his ex-girlfriend? What do you mean???

The African woman must rise and save herself.

African/Black women come into a world shaped by white greed and colonial violence, patriarchal abuse, religious conditioning, family obligation, and societal scripts all invented to police us and keep us silenced, emotionally burdened, and structurally dependent on systems designed for our milking. To expect protection and recognition from those very systems is beyond futile. We should know by now that no one is coming to save us.

Shall we lie down and die?

Listen. Agency is defined as:

a person’s capacity to make choices and act in accordance with their values and desires.

Identifying your values and desires is one thing. Living those values, pursuing those desires and doing so effectively is another thing altogether. Self-mastery is the reordering of the self, the training of the body, mind, and the spirit to act, and to act from clarity rather than chaos. To use a familiar example that I heard the other day, most women want a good and easy life, yet most women choose mates who put that far out of reach. You say you want a good life but you’ve chosen a mate who is the literal opposite of good and peaceful, and whom you have no intention of leaving because what if you don’t get picked again? Lacking self-awareness and lacking self-discipline, you make the same mistakes over and over, mistakes that compound the chaos and result in disease, multiple unplanned children, and limited wealth-creation opportunities; mistakes that get you further and further away from what you claim is your desired reality.

Nobody is coming.

Every major system and institution is designed to extract from women. Be it political, economic, religious, familial - all of history records the ways and means through which women have been primed for extraction - the why is for another day. You are not going to change the material conditions of women’s lives with a march and a national declaration, not even if you attach government spending in the BILLIONS - one point six billion rand being how much Cyril Ramaphosa’s government put into the GBV Emergency Response Action Plan in 2019.

And?

No one is coming. The situation then is no different than the situation now, R1.6bn and six years later.

When you realise how long it’s been since you felt safe???

Since you were safe???

When you realise that nobody cares???

That’s when you realise that only you can save you. I’m here to tell you that collective movements ain’t it, not for what’s coming.

But how do you save yourself?

You have to master your weaknesses and bring your strengths to bear so that you can get yourself out of conditions of vulnerability. The world benefits when African women stay overworked, emotionally burdened, financially drained, spiritually deaf, dumb and blind, physically and mentally exhausted, and silent. Waiting and waiting for a saviour.

Nobody is coming. Save yourself.

Well as of Saturday the 31^st of May, I wear HUGE glasses. As a woman living in Southern Africa in 2025, where responding to a man's advances in the wrong way (i.e. in a way that doesn’t get him exactly what he wants the way he wants it) can get you killed, if what Dorothy Parker said is true (and I respectfully submit that it is) then my glasses are also somewhat of a small safety measure. Infinitesimal, but there nonetheless.

I think I understand why they say life begins at 40. By 40, you’ll likely reach Point Pharhquitall. That’s not to say everyone gets there — clearly not. Some people remain deluded about the nature of this world, this planet, their entire lives. These are the ones who have never dreamed, do not dream now, and will never dream liberation dreams.

I don’t know if I should warn anyone, but I think I’m about to enter my villain era. Everything that has happened until now was just the origin story.

Women be Lying in These Streets!

In South Africa, forty-four percent of all children (9.2 million children) live with their mothers but not with their fathers. Only 4% of children live in households where their fathers are present and their mothers absent (South Africa Child Gauge, 2024). If fatherhood presence (physically, emotionally, and financially) is a measure of quality of manhood/masculinity, and 65% of fathers in South Africa fail to meet this standard (State of South Africa's Fathers, 2024), then the majority of men who have had access to women’s reproductive capacity should not have had it. This is not a matter of personal failure alone but a systemic problem: men who were unfit for fatherhood still secured reproductive access.

What this tells us: most mothers are women who selected partners unworthy of fatherhood (for whatever reason), and most fathers are men who gained access to undeserved reproductive capacity (by whatever means). The outcome remains the same: an unchecked system where subpar men father children they will not raise. Addressing this reality means confronting individual choices as well as the structures that allow unfit men to reproduce without accountability. Women are LOUD about their ‘standards’ (every other woman claims to be ‘decentering men’) and about what they will and will not tolerate from men, yet these figures make it clear that women are not being truthful about their dating and intimacy practices.

There can be no liberation, no freedom from poverty, instability, or other oppressors, if women continue to lie to themselves and each other about the dire, life-threatening consequences of seeking and maintaining intimacy with unvetted, subpar men. The consequences of generational poor reproductive decision-making are evident. We only have to look at ‘ama2k’ and the war-zone levels of violence against women and children to see how cycles of economic struggle, absent fathers, and fractured families reproduce themselves. We only have to watch men have meltdowns in our comments sections when we share our observations about the males of the species (e.g. that they seem to rather dislike women), while being the very kind of men being discussed, to know that it is still a long walk to freedom. That said, men fighting with women on the internet about negative perceptions of men, while also being absent fathers and the very men who create those negative perceptions, is ironic in the sharpest way. Women have options about how to respond to the current state of the sexual marketplace, as Reddit calls it. Are we ready for this conversation?

Self-mastery is The Key to Real ‘Women’s Lib’

Self-mastery is an essential, non-negotiable element in the struggle for both individual and collective liberation. Without the discipline to govern oneself there can be no true autonomy, only reactionary living dictated by external forces. Those who lack self-mastery are easily manipulated, swayed by impulse, emotion, circumstance, and the expectations of others. The ‘sheeple,’ if you know what I mean.

To be free is not merely to reject oppression but to possess the inner control necessary to act with intention towards one’s desired goals. The ability to control and direct one's actions, to make decisions rooted in one’s desires for one’s future as opposed to doing whatever is immediately gratifying, is what separates those who shape their futures from those who are shaped by circumstance. It took me a long time and sitting with the phrase ‘future-buying’ to understand this. I hate that it took me this long. This has been the missing link in all my endeavours: pursuing a desired future, rather than perpetually reacting to an undesired present. And to think, I once had a meme that said “the only way to predict the future is to build it” as my profile picture on some platform or other. Slow learner, me.

For African women, self-mastery means rejecting the justifications and rationalizations that sustain destructive cycles tied to relationships, sex, and reproduction. It means owning where we have failed and repairing our self-concept so that when we know better we actually can do better. It means developing the ability to discern between what is desirable and what is empowering and between choices and conditioned responses. If women want to be free, then women must master themselves. Specifically, they (we) need to confront and deal with their addiction to men and to men’s bodies.

To what end is all this self-mastery, you might be wondering?

Liberation. Freedom. What else matters?

No seriously, if your ultimate goal, if the end of all your endeavours is not freedom, is not liberation from all forms of oppression, then what the hell is it all for?

The Question of Integrity

It’s so common (and jarring) to see activists fighting for women’s rights while engaging in violent behaviour in their personal relationships not as victims, but as perpetrators; to see women criticise men and the patriarchy and then turn-around and embody the very oppression they decry publicly, in their private lives. Activists who talk the talk but fail to walk the walk are a dime-a-dozen, to be honest, and this always takes me aback because what do you mean the head of that feminist organisation is also a predator who apparently gets off on ‘turning’ young African women??? Predator ‘activists’ (male and female) lead ‘feminist’ organizations, exploiting women without consequences because the financial rewards of their positions outweigh accountability. Many, many women are forced - by capitalism - to remain in jobs that force them to betray themselves every single day. If these organisations cannot liberate the women that work in them, how do you think they impact the communities in which they operate? You don’t have to think too hard.

I was a child when the Beijing Conference happened. That was the first time I ever heard the word feminism. Some 30-odd years later, how has feminism served African women? I’m not talking about the African women who, privileged by social capital and proximity to whiteness and wealth, are protected (to an extent) from the realities of living in a brutally classist and racist capitalist patriarchy. I don’t want to hear about voting and bank accounts when the women feminism supposedly freed have nothing to bank and are too wearied by the business of keeping themselves and their children alive to give a pharck about voting. I’ve seen how upset feminists get when confronted with the failures of feminism: how they start to split hairs about third- and fourth-wave feminism, about underground feminism and mainstream feminism, how they tell us to go read (further proving the exclusionary, elitist vibe of feminism) because confronting the scam on African women that is feminism is too painful. In 2020, UN Women released a report confirming what all women know: ‘no country is even close to delivering on its commitments.’ Three decades should be long enough for us to ask whether there isn’t a better way than the feminism handed down by the oppressor. By now, we ought to see clearly that the master’s tools have failed to tear down the master’s house. Then again, were they ever meant to?

If we do not first master ourselves - our thinking, our emotions, our habits - then everything we do remains exposed to manipulation. Without that inner discipline, we will fall for the same traps set by the systems we claim to oppose. We will mistake temporary pleasures, trends, and surface freedoms for true liberation. And without realising it, we will end up repeating the same destructive patterns that these systems rely on to keep us trapped. Until self-mastery comes first, real freedom will remain out of reach.

Subscribe now

To wit: not merely to document, but to describe that which already is, and to write with certainty; not to seek validation, but to transform that which is commendable, beautiful, or true into a form that others can enjoy and through which they may learn. Africa is too often written as a damsel in need of salvation; where this is not the case, individuals are presented as special exceptions to the rule of African backwardness. The responsibility of the creative, then, in particular, the writer, is also the work of detailing the stories of those who have taken on the task of not just thinking and writing about an ideal African future, but of creating it (cf. Chinua Achebe on this subject).

As African writers...

We write from checkered histories of trauma and joy, pleasure and pain, loss, grief, and achievement. We are not only witnesses to history, but we must be shapers and documenters of the future. We live with constant threats of erasure and misrepresentation, and our answer must not only be protest, but creation. To respectfully paraphrase Toni Morrison: The function—the very serious function—of oppressive systems is distraction. Whether it’s racism, patriarchy, or capitalism, they keep you from doing your work. They demand proof of your humanity, your intelligence, your worth. You spend your life answering questions that should never have been asked instead of creating.

What does any of this have to do with Ayn Rand, you might be wondering? Well, I’ve been ‘meditating on’ that preface and I find myself—for lack of a better word—inspired. Everything she said and is reported to have said about her work (that I came across) is the sort of stuff I want to say about my own work. In short, I want to create like Ayn Rand.

Listen, I’m not saying I want to write like Ayn Rand but I want to write, like Ayn Rand. I want to create from a place of sovereignty, from a place where I can be true to the story and not pander to the white gaze or capitalism. I want to write in service of my vision and my muse, not in the interests of fame or money. This is not to say I don’t want that J.K. Rowling money—I doooo—but it is to say that I want to create like a creative and not like a prisoner on a prison planet where the only thing I’m supposed to want is money to serve the alien overlords.

So. After much thinking and pondering on what fraction of Ayn Rand’s creative philosophy I’ve encountered in the last two days or so, I have come up with three principles that I would like to guide my work over the next while.

How to Create Like Ayn Rand

1. Specificity of Vision:

The thing that struck me the most about what Rand says about her work is her clarity of vision. She set out to do something - a specific thing - and twenty-five years after doing it, she was still satisfied with her effort. To create like her, you must first define what you believe and what you desire to achieve with absolute certainty. There should be no ambiguity in what you're trying to say or do. Your vision must be clear, bright, and solid.

2. Excellence in Execution:

I’ve often found myself in heated debates about the relationship between craft and story. Is writing more important than writing properly? My stance is this: writing is craft, and like all craft, some people will be experts, some will be mediocre, some will be genius, and still others will be terrible, and all of them will find an audience. I mean, people think 50 Shades of Grey is excellent writing, and although I never made it past Chapter 5 I can tell you now—it isn’t. Now, Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde? -but I digress…

The reason people think 50 Shades is good writing is because they are sex-starved enjoy the story. They don’t care about the craft. As a writer, you must of course write a good story and in my opinion, you must also write it well. And so I don’t much care what readers think about the question of craft vs. story, but I do care what writers think. If you are a writer and you don’t care about writing as craft and as art, are you even a writer? I mean, it’s ok to call yourself a storyteller.

Rand valued the pursuit of perfection in every detail, in every sentence. Whatever excellence in execution means to you be it structure (I saw a writing coach who says he evaluates stories against 81 criteria—wtf?), or the consistency of your ideas, or some other element, strive for high standards in execution.

It’s time to think about who we really want to be as creatives.

3. Mindfulness and Intentionality in All Things:

For Rand, as a result of her philosophy of Objectivism, this seems to mean living intentionally according to rational self-interest. My interpretation of this is that in creative work, you must be present with the process. Every choice must be intentional and aligned with your core values, and you must maintain allegiance to the task at hand (that specific task with its specific goals) even when it seems overwhelming, even when the temptation to go for broad strokes over fine detail is strong.

I find myself working on two types of writing: fiction and creative non-fiction. The three principles above are applicable in both arenas. I’m excited to see where this goes, how I grow as a writer, and even more excited to continue to explore these ideas on the responsibility of an African writer, particularly the Afrocentric womanist writer in these wild and uncertain times.

Cringe Memories & Capitalism: Confessions of a Thug(ette)

First of all, can you feel the seasons change? I haven’t seen the sun in - I don’t know how long, it feels like a really long time and as a result, I’m not ok. Isn’t anybody out there willing to embrace a thug(ette)? The important thing is to always be self-aware enough to maintain the presence of mind to give yourself what you need. I am notoriously bad at doing this for myself which is why I have so many cringe memories after every social interaction. I don’t know how to be around people anymore, and because I’m out of practise, I find it difficult to engage in small talk and those surface-level conversations that people use to fill the air with words. I get so anxious about saying the wrong thing that I very often end up doing exactly that. I over-correct and blurt the first thing that comes into my mind. Why did I quip ‘Seven years of bad sex for you, you didn’t drink’ after toasting that evening? What was the reason? Nobody needed to hear me say that. And for the love of gawd why do I keep getting into conversations about divesting from capitalism with men when I know very well that the perspective from which they view the world is very unlike mine, guaranteeing that the conversation is going to be exceedingly frustrating? Combine these things - social awkwardness, social anxiety, and a worldview that is ‘weird’, you would think that with strangers I am reserved and retiring. Turns out, I’m not. In my defence, I had left a warm Manzini to land in a gloomy and rainy Jo’burg; I was not quite myself. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Capitalism’s Double Bind: Fund Your Freedom or Fuel Your Burnout

Look, let’s be honest. If you’re a Black African woman of any age at all, chances are you’ve ticked some boxes already. School. Career. Relationships and marriage. Maybe even motherhood. And maybe none of that worked out quite the way it was sold to you and now the disillusionment is real. You’ve played the game, kept your head down, stayed out of trouble (you’re not in jail), you really tried to do everything ‘right’ because you really wanted the ‘right’ things. Maybe you still do. But now you're asking yourself: What is the point?

I’m not here to cheerlead you into blind optimism but I’m also not where you go for dystopian melodrama and woe-is-us narratives (sometimes I am). I am convinced that Earth is the prison planet but I am equally convinced that we are not powerless. We can escape the matrix - whatever that means to you. In my world, the goal is transcending the limitations imposed by the white supremacist-patriarchal-capitalist-religious thingamabob we call life on earth. If this is a prison planet (and I am convinced it is, pleeeease prove me wrong) then we're here to think clearly about power, about freedom - what it actually takes to live on your own terms.

If we’re serious about self-actualisation then we need to understand the system. Anti-capitalism is well and good and I am here for it all day, but the truth of the matter (sadly) is that capitalism is not going anywhere. It’s not going anywhere so we must learn how to engage with it even as we struggle for freedom. At its best, capitalism funds your freedom but at its worst, and this is where most of us are, it convinces you to trade your life for someone else’s dream. The goal, then, isn’t to reject work altogether (at least not yet), but to choose with intention: either fund your own dream or align yourself with one that truly matters to you.

Me? I want to help everyone I can write the story that’s in their mind and on their heart. That’s purposeful for me. That’s where I choose to spend my time because let’s face it, most of us can’t just abandon our jobs and go off to frolic in meadows. We have bills, responsibilities, people depending on us. My argument though is that even within this system, you can choose a dream that doesn’t drain you. You can do work that pays the bills and feeds your spirit. That’s the shift. That’s the quiet rebellion.

If you don’t choose with intention someone else will choose for you and they’ll call it empowerment while you burn out chasing a purpose that gives you nothing in return but stress and the associated health challenges. Escaping the system looks different than many of us have been trained - by the system - to think it does. It looks like reclaiming your power inside it and building a life that feels like yours. Freedom, then, isn’t just about money. We know this because we all know someone who made the money (or was born into it) but with whom we wouldn’t trade our financially precarious positions. We know that money isn’t everything and it’s about time we make choices that align with that knowing. It’s about knowing what you’re building, who it serves, and why it’s worth the cost. So ask yourself honestly: is this dream you’re working so hard for - the degree, the title, the bank balance, the ring even or the critical acclaim - is it feeding you, or feeding off you?

Start Playing the Game: Lessons from Men Who Win (and Women Who Don’t)

I say we learn from men. Men win because the white supremacist-patriarchal-capitalist-religious system was built by and for them and the demons that run the prison - they should be winning. We will talk about men who aren’t winning at capitalism, but that’s for another day.

Men who are winning often get to live the lives they want not because they work harder or are more capable, but because they’ve been conditioned to see work as a place where they can lead, create, dominate and even self-actualize. They’re not torn between what they do and who they are. They’re not losing sleep trying to reconcile ambition with identity. They’re playing to win, and they don’t apologise for it.

Now look at the average woman at the top. She’s not just working, she’s over-functioning. Burnt-out, about to burn out, or recovering from burnout. And that recovery? It’s usually temporary. You don’t heal from a place that broke you by doubling down and working harder, yet strangely women in corporate jobs do that - or try to - all the time.

The thing is, it’s not about money, it’s about meaning. Men are often able to make their work meaningful because they’re not burdened by the same internal conflicts. They feel entitled to purpose. Entitled to satisfaction. Entitled to design a life that serves them. They order their lives accordingly.

It’s time women stopped performing strength and started playing with strategy. It’s time we stopped surviving the system and started rewriting the rules. You don’t have to quit to find peace but you do have to stop confusing burnout with bravery.

So where does that leave you?

Hopefully, rethinking the cost of performing success. Hopefully, tired enough of being tired that you want a different kind of power. Not the kind of power granted by a title, something that can be taken away as easily as it was given, and not the kind that comes from money, which can disappear with one bad investment. I’m talking about a deeper kind of power: the kind rooted in control and alignment. Control over your choices, decisions, energy focus, and your time. Alignment with your truest desires, your real goals, and the ambitions that are actually yours.

That’s the kind of power that doesn’t crumble when circumstances shift. It doesn’t depend on approval, applause, or external validation. It’s yours, because you chose it.

And no, you’re not too old to start again. How can you ever be too old to live your life? That idea was planted by the same systems that benefit from keeping you small, grateful, and exhausted. The women I write to have lived. They’ve led. They’ve outgrown the performance. They know they’re not for everyone and they’re done trying to be.

Subscribe now

If you're into slow or seasonal living like I'm trying to be, you pay attention to what the sun is doing. So, what is the sun doing? Well, the days are getting shorter, the sun is rising later, and that chill in the air is unmistakable (it is to me; my family tells me it’s all in my head). I feel like the weather has been unpredictable for a few years now so I won't say much about the rain - lots and lots of rain - but where’s the summer sun? Did we even get any? Look, I know the world is going crazy right now but we all agree that astronomical events are still happening, right? The earth is still tilted, we’re still orbiting the sun, and we’re still spiritual beings having physical experiences? Right? In a world that feels shaky and unstable, knowing that something - in this case, the sun) can still be counted on is important. Flat earthers, please, take a step back. I don’t wanna hear it.

In the spirit of Autumn i.e. in the spirit of going within and being all contemplative and stuff, here’s what I’m thinking about:
If revolution begins with the self and within the self, then it is immediately apparent that the one job of those who want to be free is self-mastery. If I am my only (or first, at the very least) tool for liberating myself, I had better be sure that I myself have not been captured or hijacked. Deconstructing and decolonizing is important, but theory that hasn’t brought substantial change is dead. It’s time to do something new.

Speaking of doing new things, I sort of upgraded the Autumn Workbook to support women who want to use this season to introspect and recalibrate and get ready for summer 2025. You know what they say - if you aim at nothing, you’ll hit nothing. This workbook is designed to support you as direct your energires and efforts towards figuring out what the life you really want looks like, and how to live it. I mean, is there anything else you’d rather do than design your life? Well, isn’t it convenient then that the ‘universal energies’ ( I know, I know) are - right now - slower, calmer, and more introspective, perfect for life design? Is my timing perfect or is my timing perfect? *wink
Come on, give it a try. What’s the worst that could happen? Also, can you believe it’s been a year since the first Autumn guide? The new edition is available to download (and print) here.

Revolution begins with the Self, does it?

When we say revolution starts with the self we acknowledge that true freedom requires individuals to identify and reject imposed limitations, and challenge the larger social structures that inhibit self-expression and self-actualization.

The simple truth is this: there can be no collective revolution without individual transformation. It is the responsibility of every person who values liberation to ensure they live in true freedom. Not the manufactured freedom handed down by capitalism and white supremacy, but true freedom.

Here’s what that looks like, according to me:

1. Integrity: Nothing good can be built on a lie: not a revolution and certainly not any social relationship. On the part of women, we must confront our addiction to sex. We must confront and deal with the justifications, rationalisations, and contortions - mental and physical - that we must go through to entertain and be entertained by men. Many of us have had unplanned pregnancies because of that addiction. Many of us have endured financial precarity because of that addiction. Many have lost homes, ruined relationships with family and friends, and even lost their health and yes, lives, because of that addiction. The fact that many men have access to women who should not is not just because of men’s entitlement to female bodies, but also because of female addiction to male bodies. We call it sexual liberation, being grown, deserving of pleasure, pro-sex and so on, but all it is, really, is a craving for oxytocin-delivered-by-penis that refuses to be satisfied by anything else.
In South Africa, 44% of children (9.2 million) live with their mothers but not their fathers, while only 4% live with their fathers but not their mothers (South Africa Child Gauge, 2024). A significant number of men fail to provide financial support, with over 50% of maintenance orders going unpaid. Women must be prepared to raise a child alone, both financially and emotionally. In other words, women make the choice to sleep with and have children with men who should never have had that level of access to women, let alone to their reproductive abilities.

The implications are stark: either women selected partners unworthy of fatherhood (for whatever reason), or men gained access without proving they were capable of fulfilling the role (by whatever means). In either case, the outcome remains the same: the responsibility lies with women. Why are we having children with men who are unfit to parent? What is the reason? Are we ready for that conversation?

Integrity demands honesty and these figures make it clear that women are not being truthful about their dating and intimacy practices. There can be no liberation, no freedom from poverty, instability, or other oppressors if women continue to lie to themselves and each other about what it truly takes to have and raise children, and if they continue to lie to each other and themselves about the dire, life-threatening consequences of intimacy with men. The consequences of generational poor reproductive decision-making are now garishly evident in Black communities. We only have to look at the war-zone levels of violence against women and children to see how cycles of economic struggle, absent fathers, and fractured families reproduce themselves. Until we confront this reality with unflinching honesty, we will continue to build on the same unstable foundation, expecting different results. How about this conversation?

2. Reciprocity and belonging: You must be involved and invested in a community that is equally invested in you. This is easier said than done because many of us live lives shaped by capitalist individualism, which means we have a lot of unlearning, relearning, and rebuilding to do. True liberation requires us to rebuild the communal bonds capitalism has eroded. There’s no getting around this.

3. Self-Mastery: Self-mastery is an essential, non-negotiable element in the struggle for both individual and collective liberation. Without the discipline to govern oneself there can be no true autonomy, only reactionary living dictated by external forces. Those who lack self-mastery are easily manipulated, swayed by impulse, emotion, circumstance, and the expectations of others. The ‘sheeple,’ if you know what I mean.

To be free is not merely to reject oppression but also to possess the inner control necessary to act with intention towards one’s desired goals. Any struggle for liberation that does not prioritise self-mastery is doomed to be cyclical, mistaking rebellion for freedom while remaining bound to the same forces it seeks to escape.

For women, in particular, self-mastery means rejecting the justifications and rationalizations that sustain destructive cycles, including those tied to relationships, sex, and reproduction. It means cultivating the clarity to discern between what is pleasurable and what is truly empowering, between what is a choice and what is a conditioned response, between what is freedom and what is an illusion of liberation. No revolution can be built on deception, least of all the deception we practice on ourselves.

Until self-mastery becomes the foundation of our actions, we will remain vulnerable to the same systems we seek to dismantle, mistaking indulgence for liberation and repeating the very patterns that keep us bound.`

Exactly a month ago I wrote these words:

“The search for connection should not be a cycle of self-betrayal, nor should the need for connection override the need for reciprocity. Yet it’s looking like if you want to date men, you have to lay Self down and forget about Her. If past patterns show a consistent gap between desire and fulfilment of that desire, perhaps it is time to rethink where, and with whom, that desire is pursued.”

This reflection emerged from a deeper, more urgent question I’ve been grappling with which I also touched on in the issue linked above:

How does one show up for themselves in romantic relationships when the desire for intimacy often feels at odds with the fight for freedom?

For many of us, the longing for connection feels like a tug-of-war between our desire/need for eros and our commitment to self-preservation/actualisation. We find ourselves compromising our values, silencing our voices, or shrinking our dreams to fit into relationships that demand too much of us while giving not-enough in return.

Healing as a Revolutionary Act

‘Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.’ - Audre Lorde

We are all victims of the patriarchy and its associated multi-faceted, insidious evils. Every single one of us, even your favourite scholars and gurus, is infected by patriarchy (to a lesser or greater extent). Unlearning the lies of patriarchy and liberating oneself from its subjugations requires a whole lot more than heels, flouncy dresses, and a full face-beat every day. It’s deeper than cooking and allowing yourself to be convinced you ‘value marriage’ when you can clearly see that it comes at the cost of your agency and autonomy. It’s not that you value marriage, it’s that you value safety and security. Isn’t it crazy that in 2025 so many women still have to sell their bodies and souls just to be safe? Women are the only prey animals that must actively seek out and maintain relationships with their natural predator. That is wild.

Speaking off, did you see that a Chinese company tried to enforce a new policy forcing employees to get married and have children or lose their jobs? Its been withdrawn, but it makes you wonder, doesn’t it, why on earth they thought it would fly? Whose backing did they think they had? Was this a test case to gauge the Chinese public’s response to forced reproduction in order to adjust strategy accordingly? When I say capitalism will un-alive us all?! But I digress.

The point I’m making is that we are all infected by the rot of the system. Reversing the harms of patriarchy requires that we acknowledge how we’ve internalised its values and practices, recognise our complicity in perpetuating its systems, and confront the ways we've been conditioned to accept and replicate oppression.

If we desire freedom we will take responsibility for dismantling oppressive structures and for making choices that serve that liberation.

The sad truth is that the system’s lies are seductive, enticing, and delicious. The propaganda is beautifully curated and aesthetically presented. The stick that comes with those carrots, the biggest tool of the system in upholding patriarchy - capitalism - is merciless and unceasing in its brutality.

Wholeness: The Heart of Liberation

Those who are serious about liberation will have to leave some people behind. Who are they?

• Patriarchy princesses – Women who defend and enforce male dominance because it offers them personal advantages.

• Male-identified women – The ones who center men’s perspectives, interests, and approval above all else, even at the expense of other women.

• Men who have no intention of dismantling the system – The ones who benefit from it and will fight tooth and nail to keep it intact.

• Gatekeepers – Those who police the boundaries of liberation, deciding who gets in and who doesn’t, usually to protect their own standing.

• The willfully oblivious – The ones who refuse to engage with liberatory ideas, whether out of comfort, cowardice, or sheer indifference.

• Neoliberal feminists – The ones who think individual success within the system is the same as liberation, as long as they get their piece of the pie.

It is unfortunate and tragic that some among us are actively working against our freedom. As I always say, everything is not for everyone. Freedom is not for the weak.

bell hooks said:

“We cannot fully create effective movements for social change if individuals struggling for that change are not also self-actualized or working towards that end. When wounded individuals come together in groups to make change, our collective struggle is often undermined by all that has not been dealt with emotionally.” [italics mine]

For those of us who cannot afford therapy or who have found traditional methods of addressing emotional and mental challenges ineffective, books/media (not social media), community, self-directed inner work, and collective healing spaces can all serve as tools of self-actualization. The goal is wholeness because the sytems needs us to be fractured in order for it to exploit us and our gifts. Listen. We don’t talk about liberation because we like the sound of the word but because we know that so many of the ills we see plaguing the world would be eliminated if people were working towards self-actualisation without dedicated, systemic resistance to those efforts. Liberation is wholeness. You are not free unless you are whole. You are not whole unless you are free.

This is a year of transformative execution. Trust me on that. This is the year you will set things in motion for your best future, put an end to associations with people - and participation in things - that are not aligned with your highest good and your authentic self-expression. This is the year you will step into your best timeline yet. However. For this to be true for you, healing work, inner work, personal development - all of that namby-pamby woo-woo stuff (to the unitiated) that you always dismiss as a sign of boredom - is a necessity. Liberation demands that you confront and master yourself. YOU are the the only thing you need to work on. And let’s be clear: if you’re consciously, willingly, eyes-wide-openingly choosing slavery over freedom, this message isn’t for you. Unsubscribe now.

The thing is this:

Revolution begins with the self.

As Toni Cade Bambara famously said, “Revolution begins in the self and with the self.” You cannot run away from it. You must reclaim your visions, your creativity, your hope, and your power.

Yes, life is tough. You’ll date the wrong person and learn tough lessons. You’ll pick the wrong career path and start over. You’ll trust the wrong friend and face betrayal. But that’s life: a mix of learning, hurting, loving, crying, laughing, and pushing on. It’s okay. What’s not okay is staying stuck in cycles of self-betrayal just because you’re too afraid to admit that deep down inside you are a revolutionary.

Liberation is calling.

If you’re not a(n aspiring) revolutionary what are you doing here? Tell me in the comments.

Subscribe now

Some lessons only emerge from the depths. Lessons about the weight of darkness, the nature of desire, the essence of selfhood, the colour of water, the nature of woman, the heart of man , the way of Lover with Beloved and, of course, the tension between seeking love and seeking liberation. Understanding these lessons reshapes the understanding of what it means to be Loved, Loving, and Lovable.

A fundamental question lingers: How does one show up for themselves in relationships when the desire for intimacy often feels at odds with the fight for freedom? The simplicity of the question belies its depth. It is one thing to know what is wanted, but another thing entirely to examine whether it is being sought in the right places. So, what do we want, and where is it found?

What We Search For

1. Safety & Security
   I have abandonment and rejection issues. A sense of belonging should not come at the cost of self-worth. A partner who sees giving affirmation and showing appreciation as burdensome is not a partner worth keeping. But maybe that’s just me.

2. Desire
   Security includes feeling wanted. Not just in the physical sense, but in the way someone lights up at the sight of you, in the way they choose presence over convenience. Does my partner want to be around me? Do they enjoy our time together and express that? Are they excited to see me again? Are they making plans for when that will be? Or am I a forgettable, remembered only when life gets inconvenient?

3. Radical Transparency
   Honest relationships require space for truth without fear. Connection cannot thrive where assumptions replace communication. Look, I overshare. I'm working on it. Oversharing isn't ideal when fragile egos are involved but don't ask how I know that. Instead, ask what I'm doing to stop attracting delicate, fragile flowers cosplaying as men who like, love, desire and can be in relationship with self-actualizing women.
   Radical transparency means the relationship is a space for exploration without judgment. Ask questions. Get to know me. Don’t assume my answers and then sulk over what you think I think when we could have had an honest conversation. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

4. Communication
   A relationship should not feel like a puzzle of unspoken expectations. Talk about everything, nothing, and all that lies in between.

5. Shared Values
   For those who see their existence as part of a greater struggle - whether for justice, freedom, or identity - compatibility demands an alignment that goes beyond personal attraction.

6. Kindness
   No further explanation needed.

If these are the priorities, does it make sense to continue engaging with those who cannot meet them? These are the things I need in a committed relationship, and I date men. What is wrong with that picture?

The Paradox of Desire

The search for connection should not be a cycle of self-betrayal, nor should the need for connection override the need for reciprocity. Yet it’s looking like if you want to date men, you have to lay Self down and forget about Her..

If past patterns show a consistent gap between desire and fulfilment of that desire, perhaps it is time to rethink where, and with whom, that desire is pursued.

Power, Partnership, and Systems

Throughout known history, women have had to navigate power structures to survive. The evolution of patriarchy and capitalism has turned relationships into transactions, reducing intimacy to another form of resource management. Women have long adapted, finding ways to reclaim power through collective action and strategic partnerships. But systems shift, and with them, so must strategy.

The old saying goes, "When sleeping women wake, mountains shake." Women are waking, rejecting roles imposed by outdated hierarchies. They are demanding to be seen as whole, to engage only in relationships that honour their full complexity.

Think about Naomi and Ruth. Not that I recommend Bible stories but you know what, they often provide excellent illustrations. These two women were at the mercy of patriarchy and poverty. Naomi brought experience and wisdom, Ruth brought sex appeal and fertility and together, collaboratively, they changed their reality.

Evolving Perspectives

Not all influences endure, and that is not a loss, it is evolution and alignment. Growth changes what feels relevant and what feels nourishing. What worked last year may no longer feel impactful. What once felt revolutionary now feels incomplete and unfulfilling. Instead of pushing harder, going bigger, take time to reflect upon your practices and discard what no longer serves you or resonates with you. Read new writers, seek new perspectives. Personally, I am at a point where I’m only learning from Black women - writers, philosophers, scientists - give me Black Women or give me NOTHING, I’ll figure it out myself with my higher self!

Has there been a book, a thinker, or a philosophy that once shaped you but no longer resonates? The ability to recognise that shift is a sign of deepening clarity and growing power.

Navigating Love and Liberation

The idea is not for me to give you all the answers plus a rulebook and tell you - follow this and you’ll be forever happy. The idea is for us to support each other while we figure out what these concepts mean and how they manifest (if they do) in our lives.

I
Ignoring intuition comes at a cost. When attraction overrides discernment, the consequences are inevitable. The thrill of connection can be intoxicating, but clarity always comes, whether in a moment or in hindsight. Do yourself a favour and pay attention to what your intuition and your body are telling you.

II
Nothing reveals a person’s true nature more than how they show up after intimacy. A lack of care, such as neglecting aftercare, or avoiding vulnerability is not just a small oversight; for those who value true connection it’s a sign of fundamental incompatibility. Society often rewards a version of masculinity rooted in detachment and in some ways, it even encourages women to do the same. That kind of manhood, or womanhood, isn’t sustainable for anyone seeking something deeper and more meaningful.

III
Elevation is not for the insincere. True love refines, strips away illusions, demands presence. Many are willing in theory but unready in practice. Some lessons must be learned the hard way, but the most important one remains:

You cannot know the ocean if you are content to paddle in puddles. You can’t be a liar, a cheat, and a scoundrel in your intimate relationships and then act surprised when ascension eludes you.

Redefining Fulfilment

Years of solitude can bring clarity. Trust me on that. The ache for connection may not fade, but the tolerance for relational imbalance does. The idea of traditional relationships that demand more from women than they return becomes less and less appealing.

The desire for intimacy remains, but the willingness to trade autonomy for it does not. The search is not only for love, but for love that does not require self-sacrifice as its price.

And that, perhaps, is where liberation and intimacy finally meet.

I had it all planned. After designing and sharing my planner, I stocked up on plums, nectarines, and mangoes, making sure I had my supply of sorghum and teff. I was ready for the lushest summer ever. My bills were paid, I felt great, and it was my favourite season—festive. I was ready. The best girlie, MotherofS, popped a bottle and we toasted and drank to summer. It was delicious. it was giving luscious. It was all of the things I need my summer solstice to be. I was summer ready, fam.

And then they switched off the sun.

Instead of golden days drenched in juicy abundance it was endless drizzle like Jo’burg was cosplaying Edinburgh. The sun, my valued accomplice in creating a luscious summer, was nowhere to be found. As if that wasn’t enough, my financial position suddenly became precarious because that consultant/freelancer life is really not for the weak. Or the alone. Thank god for MotherofS whose generosity kept me sane when my bank account made it clear that Festive - my favourite season - wasn’t going to be festive for me.

It was not an easy time. Luscious where?

But do you know what?

The Luscious Summer Plan was never about performance but about committing to a vision. The disappearance of the sun (it has since returned, relax) forced me to re-evaluate that vision and really think about what the goal was and what success looked like. The clarity that has come with this process is sublime. I’ve never felt surer of my purpose, never more secure in my path. Self-mastery, I’ve realised, is about consistency without rigidity, commitment without self-betrayal.

How do you transcend external circumstances to hold true to the vision? How do you keep yourself together when everything is collapsing? That has been at the core of this season’s lessons for me.

Living Liberation in Hostile Conditions

Defining Liberation Beyond Circumstance

Liberation is not a theory to be debated in comfortable spaces, it is lived out in the most difficult conditions. Afrocentric Womanism insists that as Black/African women we define ourselves on our own terms in order to answer the questions freedom demands answered. What is freedom, what even is liberation when our material conditions are bleak? How do we embody self-determination when external forces seem to strip us of choice? How do we practice self-care when everything is a stressor? What is it to be a ‘goddess’ or a ‘priestess’ as many actualising women see themselves, when you cannot impact the material circumstances of your lived reality? These are not abstract questions.

We see womanism as the most expedient path to holistic liberation for Black women precisely because it is ‘rooted in the experiences and triumphs of Black women and advocates for liberation from intersecting oppressions, primarily racism, classism, and sexism’ - Clenorah Hudson-Weems. True liberation is neither postponed nor conditional. It is embodied, practiced, and expanded through intentional daily acts of self-definition and community-building.

The Principles of Afrocentric Womanism

When I hold space for your bodacious self-expression - this is my purpose, to serve you in exactly that way - the 5 principles of Afrocentric Womanism direct my interaction with you. I would like it very much if you would think about these as you read and let me know in the comments (or by return email) what you think is missing or extraneous. Pretty please?

1. Identity Formation and Self-Determination

Womanism encourages women to identify, heal (if needed), and embrace their uniqueness, unapologetically. We celebrate the boldness to not only defy but redefine norms in the name of diverse expressions of femininity, existence, and the shared exploration of womanhood.

Living liberation means shifting from survival mode to an intentional mode of actualisation and intentional co-creation. It means rejecting imposed identities and crafting narratives that centre our wholeness rather than our struggle. We’re not just responding to oppression; we are shaping our existence. Self-determination is the refusal to be defined by systems that were never built for us. It is the audacity to craft a reality where freedom from all forms of oppression is non-negotiable.

2. Education and Critical Thinking

Womanism recognises that Black women's oppressions are unique and require tailored solutions. We re-educate ourselves to critically evaluate our practices and beliefs to ensure they align with our goal of holistic liberation.

We nurture our physical, mental, and spiritual well-being as essential components of our journey toward personal and collective freedom. We refuse to be confined by structures that limit our understanding of what is possible. Education is not merely about acquiring knowledge; it is about developing the critical consciousness necessary to dismantle harmful ideologies and construct liberatory practices. We reject ways of knowing that do not reflect our experiences and realities. Some might say we advocate for decolonizing education and knowledge and they would not be wrong. Audre Lorde’s challenge: “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” demands that we ask critical questions about the things we have been taught, the ways in which we have been taught, and who has been doing the teaching. If existing structures were never meant to sustain us, why waste energy fighting for a place within them?

3. Bodacious Self-Expression

I’ve said it before: Liberation is not only about what we resist but also about what we create. Our existence is an assertion of power, and our expression is a refusal to be muted.

There is a difference between leveraging systems strategically and being absorbed by them. Clenorah Hudson-Weems reminds us that true resistance does not seek validation from structures that were never built for us. Integrity means knowing when to engage and when to walk away. It means recognising that participation without transformation is assimilation. It requires constant self-interrogation: “Am I shaping this space, or is it shaping me?”

The goal is not to mimic existing power but to cultivate something entirely different. It is possible to manoeuvre within systems without losing sight of the larger objective but this requires clarity of purpose and the discipline to refuse co-optation.

What do you need to become who you’re meant to be, to express yourself fully, authentically, powerfully, and lovingly?

4. Radical (Collective) Self-Care as Political Warfare

Audre Lorde made it plain: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” But what does self-care look like when resources are scarce and exhaustion is the norm?

True self-care is not just about recuperation; it is about fortification. It is about practices that nourish rather than deplete. It means understanding that rest is not a luxury but a necessity for sustained resistance.

We recognise collective self-care—the intentional healing and support offered in and through communities—as vital to bold, audacious, liberated living. Radical self-care emphasises the importance of community support and personal accountability. This could be as radical as foregoing family funerals and feminist gatherings because they are toxic spaces that add no value to your life, or as simple as creating small rituals of pleasure in the midst of chaos, engaging in creative expression even when it does not pay, and as complicated as refusing to perform productivity for systems that do not serve us. At its most basic, radical self-care is a refusal to let the capitalist patriarchy define our worth whether by output or by status. It is recognizing that joy itself is revolutionary and making it the premier priority.

5. Community and Sisterhood

We are parts of the whole, and the whole is the sum of who we are. In life and in all things, we are meant to be collaborators, not competitors. Womanists challenge the beliefs and dismantle the barriers that restrict efforts to build and belong to communities in which we can enjoy personal freedom, be uncensored in self-expression, and give and receive healing.

Women don’t need to be the same to stand together. We are not the same; Black/African womanhood is not a monolith. My sister in Uganda or Cameroon has her own priorities and her own realities, just like my sister in Angola or South Sudan. What unites us however is shared identity - even with those differences we are African women bent on African liberation - and the will to act in accordance with that desire for liberation. Freedom isn’t possible alone (a faux freedom is, but more on that another day), but it also isn’t possible in shallow unity that requires silence or demands conformity to some external, imposed ideal. The point isn’t sameness, the point is working with others who refuse to let oppression be the final word. Community is strongest when we empower and support each other to meet the world as we are, not as it forces us to be.

Living Liberation Now

Liberation cannot be something we delay until conditions are ideal. It must be something we practice in real time, in the midst of financial precarity, systemic violence, and institutional neglect. It is the small, daily choices that shape what is possible: choosing joy, refusing erasure, building alternative networks, and defining success on our own terms.

The world shifts because of those who refuse to wait. Liberation is lived, even when the world makes it seem impossible.

One of the greatest tragedies of our time is the degree to which the males of the human species are unwilling or unable to control their sexual natures and discipline their inclinations towards indiscriminate sexual activity.

This is tragic because sexual energy is creative energy and men's undirected, uncontrolled creative energies are mostly responsible for the chaos observed around the world: the war-mongering, the poor land management, the dispossession of peoples from their ancestral lands and worse, from their identities; the broken homes, even the famine stalking the Global South. I say men because despite that catchy tune, we all know who really runs the world and it’s certainly not girls. That said, I must in good faith acknowledge that men don’t even really run the world either: the system does. If you know you know. For the purposes of this conversation and from the perspective of an African sun-child and since they (men) appear invested in the status quo, let’s just keep it moving.

Listen, I've met gods on earth. I'm not even joking. I’ve met men who could change the world for the better on a national scale at the very least, if not continental; men who could wield influence the likes of which has not been seen in this generation - *eyes Ibrahim Traore* - the kind of aura that shapes the world to its liking and according to the vision held. Unfortunately, many live lives of desperation and personal anguish because they refuse to control their sexual urges. This mindset is a product of the patriarchal part of the system which enforces and perpetuates the belief that men are entitled to sex whenever they want it. It’s easy to dismiss a lack of control over one’s libido as ‘it’s only sex’ (is it really ever? ) but that perspective is deeply flawed and dismisses the broader harm caused by such entitlement.

When men are directed and controlled they are a force of nature, building and protecting empires of all shapes and sizes. In their undirected state however their power wreaks havoc, destabilising homes, communities, even nations; creating strife instead of harmony. In this patriarchy we all live in, we know who the authors of conflict are, the ones who expect women and even children to pick up the pieces because they cannot - or refuse to - discipline themselves and direct their creative energies toward proper stewardship.

If liberation from oppressive systems is the goal then we cannot handicap each other with bad behaviour the way men cruelly (and intentionally) handicap women by being irresponsible fathers and unreliable mates. Collective aspirations for freedom cannot include the devaluing of women and the continued corruption of the erotic as power but until men recalibrate their entitlement to women’s energy, time, affection, and especially bodies, it’s all jokes. The idea is not celibacy (not necessarily) but mastery and control aka mindfulness over all aspects of one’s identity.

Why is it that the lengths the average man will go to for new p*ssy - the lies, the schemes, the energy expenditure, the financial outlay - far exceed what he will do to, say, establish and sustain a multi-generational family within a healthy community from where he can influence the world and commune in ubuNtu?

Where are the non-psychotic, well-adjusted, revolutionary Black men?!

Instead, this celebrity’s promise is an accurate reflection of all that most men - proudly - claim to desire to bring to the table.

Imagine reducing yourself - willingly - to stud status. Yikes.

What nation-building can we expect from such men? Mastery of his sex drive is the mark of an African man who knows his purpose, who refuses to be a pawn of the anti-African system and all its depravity. Without such discipline a man is a liability, a dependent, a destabilizing force bringing nothing but empty rhetoric and mediocre dycke to a world already overrun by chaos.

What shall we say, then?

Better thinkers than me have been wrestling with this question for a very long time. What shall we - women, witches, queens, goddesses and priestesses - say when men refuse to ascend to mastery of their base natures? What shall we say when we recognise that men are not interested in dismantling the system because although we all suffer under it, they one day hope to benefit from it?

What shall we say, us who live in America Lite (South Africa) when we see America actively recreating the conditions that prevailed in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale? Because let me tell you, if you know human history you know that that story is not far-fetched at all. South Korean women’s answer to this same question has become what we now know as the 4B Movement.

I am an Afrocentric Womanist because I believe (and this might be naivety on my part) that collective liberation is built on shared responsibility and communal effort and that that includes men. Like my foremothers, my concept of freedom excludes no one. I believe in liberation for all. I do however see movements like 4B as an expected consequence of men’s continued refusal to partner with women. So, again, what shall we say?

Lilith over at Divine Lady Magic says that women disavowing all interactions with men (as in 4B) is a half-existence for women in the same way that not interacting with women outside of fulfilling their basest sexual urges is a half-life for men - not exactly in those words; I’m paraphrasing but you should absolutely listen to what she has to say on the subject. Be warned, she’s not for the weak. The current state of affairs cannot be the desired goal, but what are women to do when men are actually dangerous to them (an understatement), and the patriarchy more so?

On Decentering Men

The 4B movement and similar initiatives worldwide are ways women are attempting to answer the question: What shall we say, then, given the prevailing norms? I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: the answers lie primarily in identity formation and self-mastery.

Decentering men is a collective fever-dream especially for cis-hetero women who date and fall in love with men. I say this because it is premised on two fallacies: 1. that women actually want to do this (versus feeling like they have to) and 2. that women know what ‘decentering men’ actually means. Hint: they do not.

I had an emotionally violent encounter with a man that for years afterward shaped how I interacted with men. Had I known the term at the time, I might have described my efforts then as "decentering men": don’t make eye contact, don’t smile, smile if not smiling will attract danger, don’t be approachable unless your safety depends on it, don’t date men and certainly don’t sex them…and so on and so forth. I seriously thought it possible for me to avoid dealing with half the population. Crazy, right?

Avoiding men and rejecting all engagement with them does not equal decentering them. Essentially, it’s running away from the challenges posed by patriarchy (and/or men). Some might argue it actually reinforces the patriarchy since it requires adjusting one's behaviour based on how men behave. Pretending that avoidance is the same as decentering is why many cis-hetero women live in contradiction. You know the ones: the patriarchy enablers and misogynoir apologists who give men affection and attention they cannot reciprocate or maintain; allow men to rule their homes, hearts and bodies in exchange for the perks of patriarchy princess status; loudly declare (online) they don’t engage with men but still end up pregnant and/or married to men. How, sis? Njani?

In the real world, women love men and often desire love and sex from them, which is entirely natural. I mean, men like this exist, fam.

I know many women who publicly speak out about the harms of engaging with men yet their private lives revolve around attracting and pleasing them. A woman near you is part of the reason why another woman had an exhausting December and is still trying to catch her breath: that ‘kotiza makoti’ culture is upheld and maintained by women for the benefit of men/the patriarchy.

Women think avoiding men, hating men, recruiting other women to hate and avoid men or even becoming gay is decentering men. It is not.

What is decentering men, really?

Decentering men is simply you removing men from the pedestal on which you have placed them. We’ve all been socialised to do that but that mindset and related behaviours can be changed or at least adjusted in your favour. Not overnight, not by lying about it, but by taking stock of your life and what you want it to look like and making decisions with you at the centre. Decentering men means making YOU the centre of YOUR life. Not men, not attracting or keeping a man, but YOU.

The unrealistic desire to avoid men completely is how women end up living lives built on lies, lives that lack integrity and substance. You are not free when your words do not match your desires. You are not free when you are claiming to hate men while still wanting to be courted, pursued, sexed and chosen by them. You can decentre men and still date, sex, and marry them, you simply proceed with your needs front and centre and with a clear understanding of the rules of engagement. It’s not about not dealing with men ever (because unrealistic), it’s about dealing with men on your terms only and always.

In Other News…

Let me tell you how my mothers have gifted me: for Spring they gave me a brutally delicious awakening, a shake-up that left me a li'l shook but rejuvenated. Thank you, Goddess.
For Summer, another shock to the system because a girl is a slow learner. Again, I am grateful and appreciative for the lessons because hello elevation and all that.
Speaking of transformation -

I hung out with the girls the other day and I took the mic, the soapbox, and the high horse to speak on Afrocentric Womanism. In case you forgot, that’s why we are here: individual and collective liberation.

A brief recap:
Afrocentric womanists prioritise radical self-care as essential for wellness and vitality. Our focus is on living well and we define that as: a life that has minimal limits to personal freedom and expression.

We believe that the point of life is more life; the point of life is to live. Period. Where there are barriers and challenges to that they must be dismantled. We recognise the Self within the Whole and the Whole within the Self. We belong to people and places, and people and places belong to us. We thrive in a community with others who believe the same.

Hi. My name is Noluthando Leonorah. I did a thing. Because time governs all things and it was time.

P.S.

I got into it in a TikTok comment section because I said feminism is white supremacist and anti-Black in its history and roots, and therefore offers limited solutions for the challenges African women face today. Please don’t tell us about bank accounts and voting rights because all you’re describing is the wholesale destruction of our people and our ways. Manini kancane, please.

Come, let us reason together. The academics and researchers in the ‘feminist scholar space’ are doing OK; we know feminism has worked for them. But what about the collective? What about everyone else who isn't privileged by middle and upper class mores and proximity to whiteness and to the fruits of capitalism and the rewards of assimilation? No guys, let's think about this thing.

We are a people who shift reality in accordance with what we believe. What is it, really, that we believe about who we are and what is possible for us as individuals and as a collective?

P.P.S. - Follow Billionaire Mom

Ladies, your desire to be sexually and financially fulfilled is absolutely valid!

A huge shout out to Billionaire Mom for reminding us of who we are as women. Power-oriented, high-achieving women often find that there’s a painful disconnect between who they are at work and who they want to be in private. They pour their energy into hustling for financial success while neglecting the deep need for sensual and sexual satisfaction. This struggle often comes from past womb traumas, and the limiting belief that powerful women can't have thriving relationships with both money and love at the same time. We can heal ancestral wounds and begin to tell new stories, and Billionaire Mom teaches EXACTLY how.

Billionaire Mom's Linktree

Donate via Paypal

When P., Finance Executive at Organization X, didn’t pay her invoice because he ‘had to prepare for a board meeting’ and was therefore far too busy to pay li’l old her, no one thought she deserved anything more than a ‘sorry.’ She was almost catatonic with fear: if the building management cut off her power, she would have no WiFi and wouldn’t be able to work or look for work. She had to call C., the caretaker, and beg him not to cut off her supply, all the while knowing full well that it was against the law to do so. Law or not, it would have been done unless she begged and pleaded with a man to have mercy and ‘break the rules for her.’ That’s right. Cutting off her power supply for delayed rent payment is illegal, and they both knew that. Just like they knew that if he did it, there would be nothing she could do. Powerless. Her only option was to beg. She begged. Because P., Finance Exec., had better things to do with his time than process consultants’ invoices timeously.

Anyhoo. That’s the life of a mothering consultant who can’t just run to Daddy (however you choose to read that, hehe).

Hope you’re doing amazing. Let’s go.

Africa’s Role in Shaping Global Thought

Africa and her people have always held an intuitive understanding of Life and the universal forces that sustain it. We never needed books to be spiritual. We never needed to be shut away in monasteries or temples. Our existence in and of itself is a manifestation of divinity: we the people are our own spiritual books. The griots and izimbongi found in every people-group carry our scriptures in their blood. Our spirituality is not a dead thing to be learned from a book but a living thing that can only be taught one to another through the living of life.

It is this that has provoked the continuous erasure of African knowledge systems. We are not the same. If we were, human history would not look the way it does from the African perspective. Argue with your ancestors.

It is this that has provoked ire and inspired wickedness against us. It is this above all else, and our ignorance/denial of what it actually means that more than anything else explains the Africa of today and her relationship with all the other continents.

We do not need evangelism. We do not need to be proselytised to: just by waking up and breathing we commune with that which is divine. The sun, the moon, the cycles of the galaxy, the wind and the mountains and the forests; our rivers and lakes and all the phenomena of the universe and the earth itself - that is our ‘church.’ The thing that is to be African cannot be taught, nor can it be stolen or erased, though they may try. Our truths are preserved in blood as an unbroken thread of Africanness. We can never be captured in texts and stored in archives. African knowledge systems are lived, embodied, and transmitted as the essence of what it means to be African, by Africans.

Our ways of knowing are as varied and as diverse as we ourselves are. Our ways of knowing are far beyond the understanding of those who think knowing can only come from deciphering scribblings preserved on dead trees. Some of us do dream dreams and see visions, while others of us converse with the wind and chat with the trees, or commune with the waters and the mountains: all of life is all of us. Our reference is blood; our source is lineage. To grasp the truths of Africa one must engage not as an observer but as a participant within Africanness. Unlike the reductive frameworks imposed by Western epistemology, African ways of knowing and learning operate on a holistic understanding of interconnectedness:

Our knowledge - especially of The Divine - is not external but immanent and expressed through proverbs, rituals, art, and the sanctity of communal living. Africa has always known this and lived it. Her enemies have also always known this and have always sought to break apart the things that hold us together.

UbuNtu. AbaNtu. UmuNtu.

If you’ve read this far perhaps you’re wondering what all this is about. Allow me to enlighten you.

"I am because we are." You’ve probably heard of the philosophy of ubuNtu. While it cannot be adequately captured in words, this worldview affirms that the divine exists in the space between and within individuals and their communities. It dismantles the notion of isolated selfhood and of individualism, replacing it with a vision of shared humanity built on collective purpose and mutual care. The parts and the whole in harmony.

The lives, choices, and struggles of our foremothers are encoded in us, influencing our health, behaviours, and emotional tendencies. Their legacy is alive in our biology, forming a tangible, unbroken connection through the interplay of DNA and epigenetics. That is why this matters. We who live in this time, this horrible, beautiful, unprecedented time, must show up as ourselves because it is only in so doing that we show up for each other and for our land - our beautiful, ravaged land.

The irony of what I’m about to say next is not lost on me. After a page of ‘Africa is beyond words on paper,’ I am advocating for women who write to do just that. To write words. On paper (or screen). If Africa is all I have said it is, then who are these words for? Why are they vital? Why must we, the women of Africa particularly, write?

In recognising Africa’s contribution to the world we also confront and resist the systems that seek to suppress and hijack these contributions. Remember earlier I said to evangelise and proselytise is unAfrican? Right. The writing we must do is neither of those things. It is self-expression. We teach and lead and commune with each other by being. If you don’t get it, forget about it.

My mission is to inspire other women to liberate themselves and each other from arbitrary societal constraints to live in liberated, divine femininity. My purpose is to do that by being me. It is only in being who we truly are, unapologetically, that we give others permission to unshackle themselves. We (myself and those who are like-minded) champion authentic self-expression over conformity. That is the writing I am here for. The writing of Self into Being. We who write, write for that reason. It is who we are. Through our writing we affirm our divinity, our humanity, our Life.

As Afrocentric womanists (that’s who we are, right?) we prioritise radical self-care as essential for wellness and vitality. This is not the consumer self-care of spa dates and champagne headaches. This is the kind of self-care that helps you build a life you don’t need to escape from. Our focus is on living well and by so doing, dismantling barriers and challenging societal norms that limit personal freedom and expression.

We write to reclaim and restore what has been stolen; to honour the divine wisdom that flows from our mothers and their mothers to us and through us. For us, women who write, to write is to bear witness to the call to create. We write because creating is our calling and our nature: to teach, to speak words of life and power, to heal in verse and song, in words set to music or not. Our words are liberated life and therefore we write. My job is to hold space for you until you come to your own understanding of writing as liberatory work. I am here to help you unlock the words you came to give the world because for women who write, writing is life itself. For African women who write, to write is to be, is it to breathe, to move, to experience the fullness of being. And that is liberation.

Afrocentric womanism is not just a corrective; it is a celebration of life’s fullness as understood through Africanness.

Donate via PayPal

Tamping down waves of fury and tempests of ire until I think I’ll go mad from the heat of it all.

In the darkness my anger roiled, boiled, heaved, and breathed.

It was (and is) a living, growing thing.

Choosing Peace in a World at War

When I realised how angry I was, when the flames of rage died low enough for me to regain my sanity, I had a choice to make. I could go to war, or I could choose something different.
I do not forget that I am here because my mothers fought for my freedom. I also remember that I am a child of my time and that the war is not over; it is only the methods of warfare have evolved.
Our war is the fight for the freedom not just to exist, but to exist fully as women — fully African, fully women, with no compromise on either ground. We cannot afford to be duped into fighting wars that have already been won. We must move on to the next frontier: the Self.

Be About Your Business

Over 40 years ago, bell hooks wrote:
"Widespread efforts to continue the devaluation of Black womanhood make it extremely difficult, and oftentimes impossible, for the Black female to develop a positive self-concept."
We are still subjected to negative images of Black womanhood, and the forces we face are as deeply rooted in sexism and racism as they were when bell hooks penned Ain't I A Woman. But now, the enemy is not just white-controlled media. The enemy is within our own house. I’m looking at you, Tyler Perry, and you, Netflix, and the Black women who continue to support misogynoir.

I’ve put together a document called Ode to Self-preservation, a compilation of Audre Lorde quotes with space to journal and reflect. It’s a tool to inspire self-awareness, resilience, and growth—drawing on Lorde’s wisdom while encouraging personal introspection. Click link below to download, no email required (but your feedback is appreciated).

Ode to Self-preservation

Personal Accountability and Growth

Not to be dramatic but before you is set lie life and death. Choose life. Every day.
Easier said than done, right? Work through your hangups. Think about divesting. Don’t bleed all over people just because you don’t want to take the time to understand yourself as a being whose choices impact other beings. Stop being careless with yourself and making yourself vulnerable to harm.

Know the kind of sex you want to have. If you can’t be honest about that, what even is the point?

Do not use relationships as substitutes for healing. Co-dependency is not cute.

The Loving Thing: A Decision-Making Tool

In all things, ask yourself: What is the loving thing to do? Begin by loving yourself first. You are a fractal of the universe. Begin with loving you and only then extend that love outward, to others and to the world. Can you love what you do not know? The ancients were right: first, know thyself.

Writing as a Lifeline

I used to read and love a blog by a Canadian writer named Maxine Green. She wrote about sex, relationships, and adulting while Black in Toronto, and she wrote beautifully. Around the same time I was deeply enamoured of Luvvie Ajayi and Issa Rae - this wa before Insecure, Yvonne Orji, and Jesus & Jollof entered the chat, so way back when.
Maxine Green and I were about the same age, Luvvie and Issa Rae are a little younger, but we were all Black women writers trying to make it. They were relatable. My “trying to make it” looked a little different, being African and a mother, but I still poured myself into their work while running my own blog/s, parenting, secretly hoping to be discovered.
Fast-forward a couple of years and Maxine disappeared from the blogosphere, Luvvie and Issa Rae became global sensations; my own life stalled. And how!
The number of times I’ve sabotaged myself assures me that truly, I don’t want the things I’ve been saying I want. So, what do I want? That ladies, and gentlemen, is the million-dollar question.

But is it really? I know what I want, actually.

I want a world of happy Black women. And guess what? I know the part I have to play in creating it. I know what I am here to do. I am here to write for women who write; to work with women who write; to write with women who write because…

For women who write, our writing is how we make sense of an increasingly strange world. It is how we dream and also how our dreams are made real. Our writing is (should be) authentic self-expression in a world that thrives on our silence, on our obedience, on our conformity to the status quo that feeds on our lifeblood.

As women who write, we discover and illuminate new worlds and make potentialities real. Our poems and our stories are what we feel, who we are, what we dare make real in accordance with our hopes, our most cherished prayers, our most beloved dreams.

Well.
You cannot have us, we belong wholly and entirely to ourselves. We will not burn to warm you up, drown to save you, nor will we again invalidate our power to affirm yours. You CANNOT have us.

Owning Failure and Allowing Transformation

You may feel that you have failed but the fact is, you didn’t die. You’re still standing. Now what?
You can learn from your mistakes, protect your time and energy more efficiently, and commit deeper to your values. Reclaim ownership of your own life.
With every lesson learned, you level up. You conquer another dragon. That is not a bad thing.

January Happens Every Year. Calm Down.

Here you are again, wrestling with yet another "fresh start."

I get it. I’ve been there. You are me. I am you. I’ve faced this cycle enough times to discover the secret sauce: self-awareness and self-mastery.

Let’s be honest. If you’re anything like me, you don’t have the patience for another trendy trick or "Age of Aquarius" promise. So the Pope opened Lucifer's tomb (what?) and the aliens did show up (allegedly) in America first - how does any of that have anything to do with you? You’ve read the books, watched the videos, paid for the courses, calculated your life-path number and yet... new year, same you, and you want a different you.

The point of life? To live it fully. Sis, something is wrong if you’re always complaining. That is not how it is supposed to be. Life is not ‘just like that.’ It is like that because you haven’t decided that it needs to be different.

On a macro level, Africa is all she is because we lost or forgot who we are. Your job is to reclaim who you are so that through you, Africa can be. What else could possibly matter?

Maybe you’re too cool to make changes in January, but if you feel led to start now, do it anyway. Be uncool. If, like me, you’re on the brink of burning it all down, take the time to figure out what it is you really, truly want. It would suck if you threw everything away for nothing.

Over here, we don’t do regret because everything we do is exactly what we want to do, and if it is not, we endeavour to make it so. We accept the consequences of our choices even when things don’t work the way we want them to.

In other news…

This is Womanism & Us. Welcome (again).

Paypal Me Here

As we reflect on 33 years of the annual 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaigns,1 we acknowledge the contribution the original coordinating organization and other participating entities have made in bringing global attention to the issue of violence against women and girls and related socio-politico-economic implications. The campaign has sparked important conversations and mobilized countless individuals and organizations to participate as activists against GBV. It is essential (I believe) to critically assess the progress that has been made over the last three decades, and the real, long-term impact these efforts have had on the lives of those who continue to suffer from violence.

In the past year, significant legislative actions in multiple countries have negatively impacted women's rights. In the United States, the 2022 case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade,2 and states like Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana rapidly implemented near-total abortion bans.3 Poland enforces some of Europe’s strictest anti-abortion laws.4 In Japan, abortion remains legal but is heavily regulated;5 spousal consent is often required while in India, although termination is permitted up to 24 weeks under certain conditions, significant barriers remain due to societal stigma, inadequate healthcare infrastructure, and limited access in rural areas.6

In Africa, despite decades of dedicated pro-women, anti-GBV & anti-VAWG activism, GBV incidence has continued to rise. In Kenya, the World Bank’s 2023 report highlighted persistent gaps in areas such as parenthood, entrepreneurship, and inheritance rights.7 South Africa, despite a progressive constitution, remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world for women, with a femicide rate that surpasses many conflict zones.89 In Uganda, over 50% of women have experienced physical or sexual violence, with limited access to support services.10 In Nigeria, early marriage remains a widespread issue; over 40% of girls are married before the age of 18.11 The fact is that globally, although progressive laws and constitutional protections exist, the practical reality in many parts of the world remains dire: one in three women worldwide will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime.12 This alarming figure calls into question the effectiveness of current strategies.13 14

Are activist organizations and the campaigns they lead really reducing the prevalence of gender-based violence, or are they simply highlighting the issue year after year? A meta-analysis of 30 years of GBV interventions found that awareness campaigns alone reduce reported violence by only 7-10%.15

The following concerns are raised not to dismiss the significance of 16 Days of Activism campaigning, but to challenge us to think beyond awareness campaigns and ideate around the systemic changes required to create a safer world for women:

1. Raising Awareness

Media appearances by celebrity activists and/or the organizations supporting them have not created a safer world for women. Awareness campaigns may “spark conversations” but awareness alone does not drive substantive change. The focus must shift to measurable, scalable interventions supported by data and implemented with accountability.

2. Addressing Health Impacts:

Women who experience GBV face profound physical and mental health consequences, yet research reveals, alarmingly, that less than 40% of women who experience violence seek professional help.16
How are we improving access to long-term healthcare for survivors?

3. Enforcement, Accessibility, and Economic Empowerment

The fight against gender-based violence requires a comprehensive approach that addresses enforcement, access to services, and economic independence as interconnected challenges. How many women actually have access to the services they need? Are these services reaching the most under-served areas, and what tangible progress has been made to ensure no woman is left without support?

Economic dependence is one of the greatest barriers to women attempting to escape abusive situations. How are anti-GBV campaigns addressing the systemic issues such as childcare and housing challenges that often prevent women from rebuilding their lives?
How are we addressing the complexities of race, class, disability, and other social determinants that influence a woman’s experience of violence? How are we ensuring that our responses are not only inclusive but also sustainable and equitable?17 18 19

There appears to be a seemingly unbridgeable chasm between eloquent, well-funded declarations of activism, and the lived realities of women, especially in high-risk areas. Despite widespread awareness campaigns, violence against women persists. The ‘terrain of pain’ has been mapped meticulously; incidents have been documented, hashtagged, and memorialized, but the bloodstained landscape remains largely unchanged.

The conversation around GBV cannot be about ‘awareness’ forever. The conversation must shift to power: who holds it, how it’s wielded, and how we can redistribute it.

We Need Radical, Granular Accountability:

How do we translate legal language into street-level protection?

What data can we weaponize to dismantle systemic violence?

Our interventions must be as complex and layered as the violence we're confronting: intersectional, evidence-driven, and unapologetically precise.

The 16 Days of Activism campaign must mutate from a ritual of remembrance into a blueprint for radical reconstruction - worldwide. Or, it must be abandoned in favour of strategies that achieve desired goals.

The future of women and womanhood depends not on how loudly we speak, how much organizations give or receive in grants for publicity stunts (and tax breaks), or how frequently awareness is raised, but on how strategically we act to dismantle systemic barriers to empowerment and liberation.

And then…I got this. And I feel so…happy to be seen. Especially because I also wrote (and have been thinking and feeling)…”…I may have to give up my identity as a writer…”

It's almost like the universe heard my wail of self-pity and sent me a reminder that you know, some people do want to hear from me! (Eek!)

Anyway…thank you ❤️

A few years ago, my then-boyfriend, who was working on his first book—a manual for startups, I think it was, or some kind of business book—asked me why I wasn’t published outside of my blogs (I actually tried to make a case for my blogs). To this day, that question haunts me, but I see a glimmer of the answer in how 2024 played out.

I’m not published because I want to write what I want. I want to write as my soul leads, whether that’s writing for my friends’ eyes only, or writing anonymously on account of holding strange views while mothering: I want to write what I like, when I like, as I want.

Yes, I also want JK Rowling money. I wouldn’t mind a MacArthur ‘Genius Grant’ for my first novel which, having earned me an MCW (Masters in Creative Writing), quietly gathers dust like the planners mentioned earlier. Yes, I want critical acclaim and a global book tour (if I don’t have to plan it), but I don’t want to be edited by people who will never care to understand my story because they care more about the accolades and the money at the expense of story.

What’s the point, you might be wondering? The point is this: as a writer, your job is to read, think, and write. I know how tough that can be in a world where unless you actively resist, it really feels like your one job is to pay bills (and then die). Because I know that struggle to stay sane and authentic under capitalism, I use a lot of self-talk to remind myself why I do the things I do, the way I do. Welcome to my world.

Below are a few writerly affirmations for you to remix and use (or use as is).

It’s the summer, baby ☀️ Happy writing (and may your writing bring you every good thing)!

Also, here's my Luscious Summer plan. Use it, don't use it 😘

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YpC0VOgpwgxoMV0SEQnaZgvSluXyzvX9/view?usp=drivesdk

P.S. No, everybody didn’t get a personal planner.

Affirmations for Writers

1. I am a writer, and my words carry the power to shape worlds. I trust my voice, my intuition, and my creativity. My writing flows effortlessly and beautifully, and I allow it to take the form it needs. My stories are valid, my ideas are valuable, and my words are enough.

2. I write when I want, and I write what I want. I am free from the constraints of expectations, deadlines, and arbitrary rules. My writing is an expression of my soul, and I give myself permission to create in my own time and on my own terms.

3. I am deserving of success, recognition, and abundance. My writing brings me every good thing, including financial freedom, critical acclaim, and opportunities to share my work with the world. The world is ready for my words, and I am ready to receive all the good things that come from my writing.

4. I release the need for approval and validation. My writing is a gift to the world, and I trust that it will reach the people it needs to. I write because it is my purpose. The right readers will find my work, and they will appreciate it for what it is.

5. I am a creator, and my creativity is limitless. I give myself permission to explore new ideas, to write boldly, and to experiment with new styles. Every word I write is part of my journey.

6. I trust the process of creation. My writing has meaning. Each piece I create is exactly what I need to write in that moment, and it will find its place in the world when the time is right.

7. My writing flows with ease and joy. I am in harmony with my creative energy, and I allow myself to enjoy the process of writing. My words come effortlessly, and I am grateful for every opportunity to express myself.

8. I celebrate my unique voice. No one else can write like I can, and I honour my individuality in every word I put on the page. My voice matters, and my perspective is invaluable.

9. I trust that everything I need to write is already within me. I have everything I need to succeed as a writer. My ideas will continue to flow. I am always inspired, always capable, and always ready to create.

10. I release all doubts and fears about my writing. I believe in myself, my words, and my journey. My writing is enough, just as it is. My words create my wealth.