Men gaslighting women about their role as protectors does not keep them safe — One day many years ago, I’d taken a staycation from work and gone to the beach on a weekday. I appreciated not having to deal with crowds and had a restful day. However, upon leaving the beach, a random man accosted me and started harassing me, with phrases such as…

How one random woman on social media caused conservative men to go into a frenzy — In a recent TikTok video, the creator spoke about how she planned to spend her Saturday as a 29-year-old single woman without a child. She stated she’d gone to a Beyonce concert the night before, slept until 10:15 am, binged some reality TV, and planned to make shakshuka. As a…

Men forgetting your birthday or anniversary isn’t funny or cute. It points to something deeper. So, I recently completed a trip around the sun where I aged another year. It’s a privilege I cherish greatly as it’s not granted to everyone. I also make it a point to always celebrate…

The things I wish I knew about life when I was younger. As a child, teenager, and young adult, I lived my life in fear. Half the time, my stomach would be clenched, or my entire body would feel as though it were pricked with needles. I worried about being…

Striving for perfection robs me of my humanity As a middle-aged, queer, neurodivergent Black woman, everyone projects their assumptions about me, many of them negative. For most of my life, to be deemed worthy, I tried to either disprove those assumptions or align myself with them, depending on the person…

Or why it’s hard for me to enjoy such a theatrical phenomenon — When the Barbie movie initially came out and I was asked if I wanted to see it, I emphatically said no. “It’s probably insipid,” I told friends. I never would have predicted that a movie based on a popular doll would be such a sensation that it is likely to…

Holding certain ace people as the face of the asexual community serves to dismiss and invalidate many people’s experiences Even though I only discovered that I was on the asexual spectrum eight years ago, it didn’t take long for me to understand that I would never be considered a “gold…

Because I can’t scrub my tan off. — Ah, summer. The season for long days, sweltering heat, and cookouts. And white people blather that if they are out long enough in the sun, they can be as tan as any Black person. Or who fret that they resemble lobsters because their pasty complexions cannot handle the sun. No…

The manosphere would rather pit women against each other than work on themselves. I will be 54 years old in a month. According to the manosphere where incels, red pillers, and other misogynists dwell, I hit the wall many years ago. Women Are Taught to Fear Aging As a Means of Control For those not hip to current slang, what the…