If I’ve learned anything in the first part of my 20s, it’s that the opportunity to be feminine is a privilege.
The opportunity to be soft is a luxury, because in this world, femininity alone rarely gets rewarded or gets you very far.
God, I cannot properly express how badly I sometimes want to be the cute, careless, joyful "princessy" girlie;
Light, bright, sweet. But I cannot always afford to be that.
In my career, or even in private life, I constantly have to fight, talk, protect, and prove my accountability over and over again. If I don’t, I am automatically placed on the back shelf and left there to collect dust.
Last year, one of my favorite artists, Lorde, released a song called “Man of the Year.”
The internet, of course, interpreted it as just another song about a some man who broke Lorde's heart, but hell nah. She literally talks about her “recent ego death" there.
“Take my knife and cut the cord,
My babe can't believe I've become someone else,
Someone more like myself.”
That line haunted me because becoming “more like yourself” sounds beautiful until you realize how frightening it is to stop performing identities the world understands.
"Man of the Year" by Lorde is actually a beautiful song about rebirth and the terrifying freedom of becoming “someone more like yourself",
Someone who, by any means, exists far outside the binary definitions society constantly forces us into.
Be either this, or that. Soft, or loud; Good, or bad; Feminine, or masculine; Pretty, or smart; Oppressed, or powerful;
This where Ego Death becomes either transcendental, or deeply terrifying experience: the moment you stop performing for others and accept your own complexity, you are suddenly hit with that haunting question in Lorde's chorus:
“Who’s gonna love me like this?” — the fear is that by becoming your whole self, you might become too much for the world to hold.
And that fear, let me tell you, is very much real.
Man of the Year
It’s my fifth year in corporate: five years in rooms full of deep testosteroned voices and monochromatic ties hanging against perfectly ironed shirts.
I used to think these women-in-corporate narratives were a bit overstatements — a "feminist jargon" we, sadly, had to push to justify the movement’s relevance in 21st century (which i find very ironic because what do you mean that the very thing that justifies my existence as a human being is forced to justify itself and prove that it deserves to exist?!)
Turns out reality required no exaggeration at all.
In professional settings, I’ve been “sweethearted,” “honeyed,” and “cutied” by grown men.
Once, I attended a meeting where I was presenting a project I had personally worked on, only for the men in the room to direct their questions toward my male colleague sitting beside me. He kept turning back toward me because it was actually my area of expertise. Everyone avoided eye contact with me, except another, and only, woman in their team.
Once, before representing a company at an event, I received a word of encouragement from a male peer: “You’ll do amazing, Mariam. A pretty lady like you will charm everyone, for sure!”
Pretty lady. Not smart person, not professional, not experienced, but Pretty, and Lady.
That day, I did manage to impress people while representing our company, but instead of allowing myself even a minute of “I’m proud of myself,” I found myself wondering whether I succeeded because of what I said, or because of the cute outfit I wore while saying it.
Yes, I know my male peer's intentions were genuinely kind, and that he really wanted to encourage me. But this makes everything even sadder! Realizing how deeply internalized it is to reduce years of education, hard work, discipline, and skill into woman's appearance.
Yes, I charmed everyone. But NOT because I was cute.
I charmed everyone because I learned communication skills; Because I read tons of books trying to understand the world; Because I practiced presenting; Because I learned assertiveness; Because I learned how to express ideas in ways that resonate with people.
Now I know that. Before, I doubted it constantly (And let me tell you, even though now I know, I still doubt it more often than I'd like to admit.)
The Crocheted Ties
“It’s that damned tie,” I told my friend. And yes, it was, in fact, that damned tie.
I used to watch men instinctively adjusting their ties during meetings the same way people fix their hair or straighten their posture. I became weirdly jealous of it.
I kept wondering what they were holding onto so instinctively, until I finally realized it was never the actual black corporate ties, but what they represented: power, authority, a confidence culturally assigned to one gender.
The ties felt like permission — something allowing you to take up space.
So one day, I went to buy my own tie.
(Narrator: "Mrs Granny Todu said she would buy the ties herself")
But I didn’t want to abandon myself in order to be heard. I could never feel comfortable wearing those lifeless blue corporate ties anyway. So instead, I crocheted my own.
Then another one. Then another. That is how this tiny collection, MY RECENT EGO DEATH, was born.
I didn’t want to become monochrome in order to survive, I wanted a tie that still echoed my voice.
And when I walked into a room wearing one, it felt a little like laughing at the system. I realized I could inhabit that “masculine” space without sacrificing my femininity.
And my femininity is creative, colorful, distinct, emotional, unusual, raw, pure.
It is “the Other,” as Beauvoir might say, but “other” in a way entirely my own.
Stepping into that meeting room with a very unusual tie around my neck, I did feel a sense of liberation, but not because of, – let me write that damned sentence, – “what I was wearing”, It was because of the ego death.
The actual ego death was realizing that my authority never came from a piece of cloth.
It came from the freedom of knowing that I have the powerful ability to become whoever I want, whenever I want; To inhabit everything beautifully intertwined within mother nature at once: masculine, feminine, soft, sharp, loud, gentle.
Now, when I see those men hanging onto their ties, I no longer feel jealousy, but something closer to pity, because imagine how fragile a sense of identity must be if it depends entirely on a strip of silk...
THE EGO DEATH
Going back to the ego death, the bottom line is (I cannot escape five years of corporate jargon, apparently) this:
When you stop performing “sweetheart” and start becoming this complex masculine-feminine force living outside societal binarity, you begin to wonder if you will still be loved, accepted.
This collection, and Granny Todu itself, are for people brave enough to find out.
Lorde finishes the song with these beautiful lines:
“How I hope that I’m remembered,
My gold chain, my shoulders, my face in the light.”
Yes. Remember me like that. Not with my tie, not with my dress, or my hair.
With my face in the light.
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