That is the promise of this dark tale. The patriarchy might be too brutal to resist and it may render you incomplete. But you are not alone in your incompleteness. And you don’t need to seek wholeness in traditional gender roles. You can find it in one another. … Read More The Grim Promise of ‘Promising Young Woman’
There’s a clip from an episode of Aziz Ansari’s Netflix show, Master of None, that I like to use when I’m teaching. It depicts his character at a party with friends and co-workers. A random guy approaches one of the party, a black woman, and tries to buy her drink. She politely declines. Afterwards, while she’s walking… Read More Master of Some
I come from a long line of women who get shit done. My mother’s mother, Emma, was a force unto herself. After her husband became blind, she went to work as nurse, so that she could support him and her four girls. She learnt to drive, becoming the first woman in her small town to… Read More On leaning in to the moment
Motherhood is hard. Make no mistake; this is a truth universally acknowledged amongst mothers of all stripes. Regardless of the philosophies of motherhood to which you subscribe, or the mama-circles in which you move, no other mother will question the enormity of the task to which you have committed. As feminist author Jessica Valenti puts… Read More Crazy Like a Mother
When I was in my first year of university, I went, as instructed, to one of my lecturers’ offices to pick up my graded final essay. It was study week and the campus was quiet. I needed the paper to study for the upcoming exam, and had gone to campus specifically to fetch it. The… Read More The Risky Business of Sexual Violence
A few months ago, I found myself between a philosophical rock and hard place. The cause of my malaise? A stupid Father’s Day-themed diaper ad. The premise of the advert is pretty silly (and you’re welcome to view the offending ad in all its glory above), but the message it carries is that dads are… Read More Of Myths and Men: masculinity and the politics of the personal
Or is that 800,000 problems? That’s more or less the amount of money that infamous Walter Sisulu University student, Sibongile Mani, spent of the millions that were mistakenly deposited into her account by some hapless financial firm entrusted with the management of National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) funds on behalf of her school. Much… Read More 14 Million Problems and Mani is Only One
*Apologies and thanks to Gil Scott-Heron One of my favorite anecdotes from the iconic Tina Fey’s Bossypants concerns the equally iconic Amy Poehler. Poehler is in the Saturday Night Live writers’ room in the middle of a bit. Naturally (this is SNL after all), the bit is gross and graphic: Amy was in the middle of some… Read More The Revolution will not be Likeable*
Know that you are of woman born. You come from a long line of incredible, ferocious, extraordinary women. You carry all of their legacies and stories with you wherever you go. Honour that in every encounter with women throughout your life. The world will tell you it is okay to forget that you are of women;… Read More Things I Want to Tell My Son in this age when #MenAreTrash
About a year ago, a video on womanhood was doing the rounds on social media. It features a series of older women talking about what they feel younger women should and could do differently in today’s fast-paced world. The video was produced by a spa called Sanctuary, as part of their campaign to convince women… Read More All I Want for Mother’s Day
Rumbi Writes 
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