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Showing posts from June, 2019

Who We Are; Patriarchy Vs Feminism

I wrote this in September last year to try to explain to someone what the difference between Patriarchy and feminism really is with respect to gender constructs. Made it as comprehensive as I could and included the term "toxic femininity" because for some reason, people argue that feminists should be put under that bracket. In the context of Patriarchy ; 1. Masculinity ; identified with, •Assertiveness •Chivalry •Desire to take the lead •Will to sacrifice •Being the "hunter/chaser" Etc 2. Toxic masculinity •Limiting your range of tastes (career, lifestyle, entertainment, sexuality etc) •Refusal to recognize/acknowledge that you're capable of empathy/sympathy/'love' ('Hard guy' phenomenon) •Suppression/hiding of emotional trauma/distress •Conscious efforts to dissociate yourself from support systems when you notice them forming around you (family/friends showing care/protection for you). Refusing help, basically. 3. Femininity ...

Who We Are; Our Sexual Orientations

In my previous post I talked about how our thought processes, our preferences and our whole personalities are dependent on socialisation. That claim forms the basis for the discussion I'm going to do in this follow-up, so please spend some minutes to revise if you have to. I have found that often in discussing this subject, people find it really hard to remove the filter of what has been normalised around them and keep an open mind to at least, understand new arguments. Generally, a lot of the beliefs and values that have come to be perceived as normal actually had normalisation processes that involved more enforcement than persuasion. In other words, we are - in many cases - willingly upholding and conforming to standards that generations long before us were coerced into accepting. Such coercion either took the form of threats of direct punishment from rulership or threats of punishment from deities. Many aspects of heteronormativity had to be enforced at different points throug...

Who We Are; The Power of Socialisation

This was written for an assignment in one of my courses at the University, and was submitted as same.  As someone who is often accused of having weird and misguided beliefs and opinions, I have become accustomed to being confronted every now and then with how significant socialisation is in each of our lives. Right from childbirth, we're taught everything from eating, to walking, to knowing when we feel something and how to express it. Every act of learning that takes place right from childbirth; in fact right from the point we attain cognitive functionality in the womb if there's such a time, is as a result of the process of socialization. Now I define socialization as the ever-evolving outcome of when the effects of our upbringing, our experiences and our exposures in life blend. Merriam-Webster defines it as "the process beginning during childhood by which individuals acquire the values, habits, and attitudes of a society". The bottom line here is, socializat...

The Wisest Choice; If There Is One

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In order of their arrangement; Alex Mould, Alex Segbefia, Dzifa Gomashie, Fritz Baffour, Goosie Tanoh, Hanna tetteh, Prof. Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang, Prof. Joshua Alabi, Karen Tanoh, Prof. Kwesi Botchwey, Kyeretwie Opoku, Mona Quartey, Nii Moi Thompson, Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, Victor Smith, Zanetor Agyemang-Rawlings.  First of all, what on earth is the NDC waiting for????? It's been 4 months since the National Democratic Congress elected - overwhelmingly - former President John Dramani Mahama as their flagbearer, and with barely 17 months to go to the general election, I sincerely cannot help but wonder why his running mate hasn't been announced yet. With no major figure touting and explaining their vision and ideals to the specific demographics they lost favour with, one would've thought the NDC would take a cue from Dr. Bawumia's effective engagements all through 2015. Clearly the former President is a busy man, and I would be shocked if I'm told he's...

Life Is Pointless; It Really Is

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Caution: If you're suicidal, please do not read this post. I beg you. I'm going to be as candid as I can be and it might even depress you further. People who are single and childless....what do you have to live for? What’s keeping you alive? I honestly want to know. - @LadyBeastB on Twitter There's no point to life. This is what I believe. We all go through life just trying to figure out what makes us content; trying to find joy. Now there are so many questions around this. Why did we even have to be born in the first place? Do we all have "a divine purpose"? How do we figure out what makes us happy; where do we start? Lol I say to answer these questions, let us take a critical look at how we are generally socialised. Why did we even have to be born in the first place? Well, because generations before us have glorified childbearing. Our parents either wanted to have children because they thought it would win them "respectability p...

Please Don't Thank God; It's Weird

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"Children understood at a very young age that doing nothing was an expression of power. Doing nothing was a choice swollen with omnipotence. It was, in fact, godly. And this, she now realized, was the reason why the gods did nothing. Proof of their omniscience. After all, to act was to announce awful limitations, for it revealed that chance acted first, the accidents were just that--events beyond the will of the gods--and all they could do in answer was to attempt to remedy the consequences, to alter natural ends. To act, then, was an admission of fallibility" - Steven Erikson . So I like to have debates with my Christian friends about their beliefs and the role of religion in general in today's world. In my most recent one, however short it was, a friend was taking me on on my position on the idea of expressing gratitude to God for anything that happens. His move was occasioned by how I put up a screenshot of a tweet in which a lady was thanking God for escapin...