I’m a woman who has been struggling her entire life.
Ever since I was a little girl,
I’ve been struggling.
My father was a national railways inspector.
He passed away.
I got married to a man who came from a modest family.
I thought they’d care about my wellbeing.

Everyone knew that these pictures were fake and fabricated and that she didn’t do anything.

But their reaction was that they wanted to kill her.

For years, I never cried in front of anyone.
“Man up. You’re weak,”
My mother used to tell me.

Studying is something I’ve been used to doing ever since I was young. I feel like something’s missing if I don’t study.
Or I feel unsafe.
Despite this, I actually hate studying!
No matter how much I study, mama always thinks that I’m playing, and that I don’t care about my studies.
She thinks extracurricular student activities, meetings, and conferences are useless!

Everytime I park in the street,
Everyone drops whatever they’re doing to watch me.
It makes me nervous.
“They’re watching me. I have to show them that I can park!”

Since I was a child,
My father wanted me to grow up to be a good person.
He wanted me to be educated and open-minded.
He believed that all women should grow up to be like his mother no matter how they were brought up.
But I didn't take after my grandmother.

My mother-in-law called my mother to tell her to circumcise my daughter.
My mother called me and asked,
“Aren’t you going to circumcise her? We’re nearing the end of the lunar month.”
gender violence, fgm, parents, social pressure

I don't regret anything;
I just had no idea what I was getting myself into:
the lies, the secrecy, the plotting,
the unethicality of the women of the family I was marrying into
and the blind denial of the men.

No one would have told me:
“That’s a really effeminate way of sitting.”
“Why do you cross your legs when you sit?”

I never fantasized about wearing a white gown and veil.
But I’m surrounded by people who interrogate me every year as to why I haven’t got married yet.