A Woman Before She Is Herself - by Whispers Of A Wandering Mind

A few days ago, my friend and I somehow found ourselves talking about women. It started with a TikTok video she had seen. A woman shared that her boyfriend broke up with her because she shaved her head without telling him first. Simple, right? Wrong. What shocked me wasn't even the breakup. It was the comment section. Instead of asking why anyone should need permission to cut their own hair, so many people were saying the boyfriend was right. "She should have told him first." "Why would she make such a big decision without informing him?" I just sat there thinking... what? Why does a grown woman need permission to cut her own hair? That question annoyed me far more than I expected. Not because of the haircut, but because of what it represented. Somewhere, along the line, we've become so comfortable with the idea that a woman's body should be approved by someone else that many people don't even question it anymore. And the scary part? It wasn't only men saying it. Plenty of women agreed too. That conversation stayed with me. It made me think about all the little things I've heard growing up, things that seemed so normal at the time that nobody ever stopped to question them. "Learn how to cook for your husband." "Ìwà yẹn ló máa bá ẹ lọ sí ilé ọkọ." (That attitude is what you'll take into your husband's home.) It was never just about cooking or attitude. It was always about preparing a woman for a life that revolved around someone else. Then I started noticing another contradiction. We spend years telling girls to stay away from boys. "Face your books." "Don't let any boy distract you." Then, a few years later, the conversation changes completely. "You're almost thirty." "When are you bringing someone home?" "Your mates are getting married." And I can't help but laugh at the irony. Weren't these the same people who told us to stay away from men in the first place? The more I observe the world around me, the more I realize that a woman's life seems to come with an invisible checklist: get married. Have children. Build a home. Somehow along the way, people become more interested in those milestones than in the woman herself. That's what frustrates me the most. Why is a woman's worth still so closely tied to marriage and motherhood? Why do we celebrate a woman for becoming someone's wife before we celebrate her for becoming herself? A few days ago, I found myself thinking about something else. Why is it almost expected that a woman gives up the surname she has carried all her life once she gets married? Then my mind wandered to bride price. I know many people see it as culture, honour, and tradition, and I respect that those meanings exist. But I also couldn't ignore the question in my head: why does it sometimes feel like a woman is being handed over, as though she has become someone else's responsibility, or worse, someone else's property? Maybe that isn't the intention behind these traditions. But I don't think asking questions about them is wrong. The more I reflected, the more I realized these weren't isolated thoughts. Women have spent centuries fighting for opportunities that many men have historically taken for granted: the right to education, to work, to property, and the freedom to make decisions about their own lives. Even now, women continue to face harassment, assault, domestic violence, discrimination, and impossible standards. Then I think about women in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Girls being denied an education. Women losing the freedom to work or move through society as they once could. It reminds me that while I'm questioning expectations, many women are still fighting for rights that should never have been taken away in the first place. I think about girls who are still forced into child marriage in different parts of the world, including communities here in Nigeria. And suddenly, the questions I keep asking don't feel exaggerated anymore. Maybe that's why feminism means something different to me. To me, it isn't about proving that women are stronger than men or trying to replace one form of dominance with another. It's about asking a simple question: Why shouldn't a woman have the same freedom to decide what happens to her own life? These are simply my thoughts, shaped by conversations, observations, and the quiet frustration that comes with watching society decide who a woman should become before she has the chance to decide for herself. Maybe I'll never have all the answers. But I hope we never stop asking the questions. Because before a woman becomes someone's wife, someone's mother, or someone's responsibility, she deserves the chance to become herself

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