LABELS

[5 min read]

Often times, when I look at the bios of people on social media, I see different adjectives that describe who they are, like: feminist, tech, proud Muslim(ah), Christian, proud black woman just to mention a few. It amazes me how those few words and phrases give me a general idea of who the person I am about to welcome into my space is.

Most times, these words fit into their online persona and other times it doesn’t. It is also of worth to note that many times, even in our daily lives, we have labels that we go by, either in our appearances, profession, affirmations or vibes. It reminds me of my article on stereotypes and I always keep myself in check about stereotyping a person. But now I think, what is it with labels? Why are we as a generation so proud to label ourselves and place ourselves within a box? Honestly, I have struggled with the idea that I am one thing, that everything I am can be summarized in a word or statement.

When I am described with a word or phrase, I actually take offence to it; because I believe that I am part of something way bigger, and those words and adjectives limit me and put me in a box. I feel like I am more than my gender, sexuality, faith or hobbies taken individually to identify me. So when I am asked to describe myself, it is as though you are giving me a blank page to sell myself to you. I am not just a medical student, I am not just a believer, I am not just a girl or a writer or a sexual and reproductive health advocate, I am more. I am a lot of things yet to be discovered. I am no longer what I was yesterday because I have grown, and no matter what I aspire to be tomorrow, I could be someone else. I could be the first person to do something, I could be the first person to find a cure to the current pandemic. I am part of something way bigger, bigger than words can describe, bigger than even I can fully describe. I am the living word. I grow every day and as I do, I leave some labels behind.

However, labels aren’t necessarily a problem. Your labels allow people to be able to identify you, categorize you, and invest with and in you. Everyone has their choices and desires and even at the store, we check the labels of the goods we want to buy before we do. Difference is that those goods do not grow, they can only get bad, of which you might be able to tell on the label (expiry date, NAFDAC number…)

So, while labels help identify us, they might not fit into who we really are or they may portray us negatively (I mean, who likes negative labels). Labels have the ability to not tell the full story or the right story. They leave very little room to expand borders. I have seen very good people lose opportunities and positions because of labels that are beyond their control. Labels of gender, tribe and sexuality that have limited the other party from seeing beyond their beliefs into the skills and other interesting attributes the individuals have to offer. But as life is, labels are important and they are not going away any time soon, we might as well deal with it. My advice is just to give people a chance. They are more interesting and most likely have more to offer you than the labels you have put on them. You could lose out on meeting the love of your life or your business partner, when that happens the labelled individual loses almost as much as you do. 

Always remember to do unto others how you want them to do on to you.

Conclusively, stealing the words of Jamike, when you reduce a person to a label, you see them in one dimension; but nobody is one-dimensional.

This article looks familiar right? Yes, that is because I have written one on stereotypes. If you haven’t read it, then you have missed out. It is evergreen.

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IDOWU MARY

A while back, I wrote an article on women and the power that lies within us; this time, I'm going deep in. I will be writing on what many ‘feminists’ do not always seem to know about 'feminism'.

Chimamanda Adichie wrote a book titled, ’we should all be feminists’, and from it, I agree that indeed we should all be. Everyone, both males and females should be feminists. Every girl who is a teenager and upwards is a feminist to say a few, but often times, it seems they do not understand what it really means. Females always want "gender inclusion", ie that they want to be included in every activity the male gender is included in; given the same opportunities the male gender is given; basically treated the same way a guy should be treated, but often times, we girls get selfish. Yes, selfish.

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MARY IDOWU

Last week, I was at a "girls’ night out", and we were discussing self-confidence, I didn’t get a chance to speak due to time however, and so I have decided to come share what I learnt; my insecurities and how I overcame them.

Growing up as a child, I was always called 'Oh Mary Mary Kampala', usually in a sing song manner. This habit actually started from my nursery two class teacher. It spread fast, and a lot of people picked up the habit. I didn’t really understand what was wrong with me and why people would seek to make fun of me, as I was 'daddy’s girl' and I got all the love in the world from him. As I grew, I started seeing myself in the mirror, I started realizing that I had different skin colours on me; some part of me was yellow (which is my actual colour) and some part of me was dark, like really dark. I had brown discolorations and I had dark, more like black patches on me. I then understood that I was different. It actually didn’t bother me as such because I had my family around me and they always made me feel better.

However, upon getting into secondary school it became a big issue for me, as I was in a boarding school. A roommate relocated from my room to another because she didn’t like the way I looked. I tried every cure that was given to me, nothing worked; rather, I started getting worse. I would have sudden discolorations on my face, arms, legs, thorax that wasn’t there before and they wouldn’t leave. I started to cry a lot and felt kind of depressed. When my parents asked me why I was sad, I found it hard to tell them for reasons beyond me. I was angry. I was angry at my dad; I was angry at myself for being ‘ugly’.  I could see my parents putting effort to make me feel and look better but it wasn’t helping matters, rather it depressed me even more. I have had people call me a tiger, I have issues wearing certain outfits or even rubbing white powder. I had issues with being comfortable around girls because they would always ask questions that I couldn’t answer.

Basically, being different hurt. Asides that, I was short and skinny. I kind of grew to become average height, but I haven’t got fat. Everyone is always bugging me about my size, either jokingly or intentionally. It always hurt. So, how did/do I cope? Sometimes I like to feel like I have the solution locked down. Maybe I do, maybe not.