The Power of No

Women are natural lovers. They give without being asked, soothe when things aren't right and often afraid to displease. They need to touch and be touched. They want to matter. 

This need to please that women have often leaves many women incapable of refusing themselves and others. 

It is almost as if saying "no" makes us feel a little less capable. Just when I thought that the peer pressure stage was over, I was proven wrong. I often watch older women around me getting into more debt not because they are spending money on stuff they want but because of pressure from their children, husbands or boyfriends or neighbours. 

We've been led to believe for centuries that we have to be dominated by men and never to ask questions. Women often think that doing stuff that they necessarily don't want to do just because the next person expects it will make them more acceptable. 

Girls learn from their watching their mothers bend to pressure. I've seen instances where women I work with say that they will not buy X and then a bunch of people around them buy that exact thing that they don't want to buy and for some reason they end up buying it and justifying why they bought it. A week later these very same women then regret this decision. 

If you don't want to do something say no, no one is going to kill you. Sure, they'll call you difficult but who the hell cares? You don't want to be tossing and turning for weeks because you did something that you know is wrong for you.

The incapability of saying no is you telling everyone around you that you believe yourself powerless, worthless and most of all that you don't matter. 

It's okay to do stuff because you want to, or to give because you want to, or to buy because you want to. But don't do stuff because you are pushed into a corner by a bully. Ask if you want clarity, hell ask a million questions if you have to and if the answers you get after all that still don't satisfy you...

Stick to your "no" it is your right.

When Will It End...

This is prickly subject in South Africa and I suspect, everywhere in the world where there are women that work.

South Africans have found a way of dealing with it and it’s called women’s month. It is not something you can discuss before or after the month of August. It’s uncomfortable and both men and women shy away from it. And yet any female who has a job outside her home will either encounter sexual harassment in the future, is encountering it or has encountered it.

I’m not talking about consensual adult relationships where both parties are comfortable with their relationship. This is about that dark area where one party is bombarded with sexual commentary and propositions and doesn’t particularly like it. This is a subject that bothers me, and it pains me that so many young women are still forced to enter the workplace where they are protected by laws of this country which are almost impossible to enforce. 

One girlfriend of mine is constantly bombarded with proposals from her married overweight boss. He occasionally has the nerve to walk into her office and tell her that she looks like she hasn’t gotten laid in a while. The sad thing is, in a male dominated industry that my friend works in the only person she can report this vile man to is most probably another man. Worse still, I suspect if there was a woman around who she could tell the woman would tell her that she needs to suck it up.

Another friend of mine sent me a text message. She’s recently started a new job, which is great. But she had barely gotten comfortable when some man came up to her and said: “your lips are nice and juicy so I assume that you won’t be a disappointment down there.” Of course I do not need to expand on where down there is.

And of course, I need to draw from my own experience as well. I had been working for a year, and this guy I worked with was using the copy machine behind me and as I was busy with stuff on my desk he grabbed by booty.

It was a shocking moment and I decided to tell someone about it and they asked, “and you did nothing?” I found this a little strange, and I kept on thinking: could I have stopped it?  prevented it from happening? I think this is where men are slightly dim and what they don’t get about sexual harassment.  If a man makes an inappropriate comment or touches you inappropriately, unless you have a recording to prove this and also prove that you were not a willing recipient, you are basically powerless. More women have left their dream jobs to escape the embarrassment of being scorned by all and sundry while the men who harassed them have been patted on the back in sympathy and masculine solidarity   have kept their cushy jobs and have most probably gone on to repeat these transgressions on each new piece of “meat” in the company.

Men make sexual innuendos woman are so eager to fit in as one of the boys, to prove your mettle lest you be deemed to be too sensitive for the job, ignore the comments or laugh them off.

This is a battle women will never win for the following reasons:

There are still women in the workplace who place a higher value to their sex appeal than they do to being competent. As long as if it’s okay with you that all the men in the office call women “sexy Thandi” and those women basking in it. While in the same work place you have a Grace, who has a nice booty and is uncomfortable with men calling her, “Bootilicious Grace”. The principle is while a guy might preen at having the size of their packages attached to their names not all women want this sort of notoriety.

As long as we women still say to the next woman, “I survived it so can you” it will still go on. If your bonus is attached to you having to grin and bear it while your boss feels you up and your senior female colleague telling you, “he also did it to me”, as if it’s a tiny price to pay, who are you going to call?

Women need to start telling guys they work with, no matter how stuck up it’ll make you look, that the joke is totally inappropriate. They’ll scorn you and call you a cold bitch, but that is better than them thinking you are fair game.

It is still a mans world. Guys will stick together. Your closest male colleague will say: “I know he was out of line, but he is still the best negotiator on the team.” Or you’ll be reminded that you once said that the guy who is harassing you is attractive or that “he meant it as a joke.”

And as long as male managers still risk having female subordinates throwing themselves at them and crying sexual harassment when the affair gets sour, and organisations are forced to spend millions investigating how the affair started in the first place only for it to emerge that the women had told half her colleagues how “happy she is in the relationship”  it is never going to end.

Women don’t set boundaries when it starts. Men always test the water. When we are new and desperate to fit in we laugh along to the bawdy jokes, and later when it turns against us we want to stop it.

You are not obligated to meet your boss in a lobby of a hotel for a drink after work if you are not comfortable. Tell your boss “I’m not comfortable, we can work late in the office, but not out of it.” Your contract says your report to this person, but it doesn’t say that you’ll be working at midnight in his home or that you need to climb into his car after work and go to a hotel.

If it gets bad, call your mother or your girlfriend and talk it out. Tell a female colleague. Document the incidents word for word (include your responses). Action by action. Don’t take the “hey, you sexy thing” comments lightly in the beginning. Keep the text messages. Get your call register and highlight each time this man has phoned you after work hours to ask you out or hit on you.

Keep the evidence until you feel it has become unbearable or you leave the company. Even if it looks like it has stopped, hold on to it. Remember, the higher you go in a company the bigger your responsibility is to the young women who will work with you. You need to listen to them and be a shoulder for them to cry on. Advice them, but don’t enforce your opinion and lifestyle choices on them. After all, some girls go into these relationships willingly. 

Wanted: Change!

Change is the only constant. Tomorrow is not promised and blah blah blah. We’ve heard it all before and yet we are never prepared. My mother made me read: who moved my cheese. Basically the moral of the story is that we must plan for change and never be content with the status quo.

Obviously whoever who wrote the book doesn’t work where I do. Sometimes, I realised this week, we must simply accept what we do not like and move along. Life is what it is and people are so content with going on the way they have for the past ten decades and it is not my place to change it.

Often where we are at is just a pit stop in our journey and not our destination. When I feel beaten down at work, I go back to my office and I think about how my life sucks. I go home and I absorb it and I think, “how can I make it better.”

This is not my illness to heal. Period. I found it maimed and hell, I’ll most probably leave it gasping for breath. All I have to do is to think what is it that I am meant to learn from this and hope whatever it is it'll be useful later on in my life. And yes, sometimes there is no lesson in hardship. You just get stronger, learn to fight harder and hopefully make it out in one piece.

Sometimes you see the seeds of the illness infiltrate your life. For example: you know you can write the report in half an hour but you procrastinate and it eventually takes you an entire month to produce it.

So this week, I’ve resolved to cut out these little headaches from my life. If something serves no purpose, I will ruthlessly cut it out. Go back to being the me I know before I catch the virus called mediocrity. Trust me, it’s contagious.

I have to realise that my life, while inconsequent, is bigger than this place. I’m here to learn what I need to in order to fulfil my destiny. A former colleague once told me before he resigned that some wars are just not worth fighting. He found this place here, and he’ll leave it here. The truth is, my organisation with thrive without me. I can die and I will be replaced with a click of a finger. Hell, they won’t even miss me.

There are things I want to achieve in my life and I’m taking it step by step. Sure, while this place depresses me at times I do love certain aspects of my job. I hate that the people I work with are at times unhelpful and critical about things that they themselves cannot do. But I love my boss and doing what I can to contribute in my small way to making this place a better place than I found it.

I have a plan for my future and failure is not an option. This dig is not all bad but it is not perfect either but it is my dig for now. And while I hate things not bending to my will all the time I’ll live and yes, I am grateful that I get paid enough to afford a decent pair of shoes once in a while…

For My Love of Reading

I have this great love of reading. Books have been a part of my life ever since I can remember. Being born in the “old South Africa” as a black person makes me somewhat of an oddity.  Reading isn’t something that black people did for enjoyment, it was something that was done to get an education to better yourself.

Our grandparents didn’t have bookshelves lining their walls, and countless of books that they would read on a lazy Sunday afternoon while listening to the radio. I remember my mother telling me that if you were found reading on a Saturday afternoon it would be assumed that you were studying for a test.

As much as it pains me, sixteen years into the “rainbow nation” this hasn’t changed. A couple of my friends and I have had this conversation a lot of times. We’ve most probably discussed it to death and it still irks me that such a small number of black South Africans give themselves time just to read for the sheer pleasure of it.

My love of books has taken me on a journey. I can’t count how many books my mother bought me when I was a child, and the countless trips to the library on weekends. This was my childhood. I’ve never known a time in my house where there wasn’t a new book.

I suppose I need to thank my parents for their love of reading that they’ve passed on to my siblings and I. It’s something I’ve taken for granted so often and yet it such a huge part of who I am. I can’t imagine how I would feel if I was told that I wasn’t allowed to read, for whatever reason.

And somehow, freedom translates into so many things to so many people. To me freedom is having the right to read what I want. That is my human right.

Books are my companions, and the best, I must say. They don’t judge you and they give so much without asking for anything from me.

Earlier in the year, I was in Franschoek browsing through their second-hand bookshops. And right over there was this book that was part of a series of books I loved as child. “The Secret Book of Gnomes”.

In that moment, I had to acknowledge that my love of reading was helped along by my parents and their persistent book buying. I maybe wouldn’t love books the way I do if my mother didn’t insist on buying us books for Christmas instead of toys.

I can remember significant moments in my life by what book I read during that period. When my maternal grandmother  passed I was reading a book about three children living in Warsaw who lost their home and had to travel through the second world war and ended up starting over in Switzerland. I remember the December my grandmother passed my mother making my cousin and I read I am David.

I also remember when my paternal grandmother passed, a couple of weeks after that I remember feeling depressed (I was fifteen) and going through the bookshelves in our sitting room and pulling out this red book titled the power of one. The feeling of reading that book about Peekay and his journey moved me to tears.

What I also remember about my parents was that if they wanted to reach you and they didn’t know how to they would buy a book that would have that message.

I ask you, after all these years and all my parents have been to me and are to me, how can I not love reading. How can I not want to inspire the same feelings in others when they read a book I’ve written?

Bottoms Up To Being Au Natural!

I decided to take off my weave this week. Which means going to the salon, getting my hair pulled, the knots in my afro combed out and voila! Au natural me! For a couple of months at least.

While sitting at the Salon doing the girly-girl thing, I realised that there is something about women and doing their hair and nails that is almost magical. Finding a hairdresser is a nightmare. It’s almost like relationships, sometimes you have to go through a million bad relationships to find a good one. And well...my hairstylists might not be ideal but they sort of work with what I’ve got, and that’s all I need. Maybe next time I decide to start dating I should look for a guy who works with what I’ve got. Don’t ask what I mean, I don’t know!

Anyhow, the fake hair is gone and I look a couple of years younger than normal. Which means that if I normally look like I’m twenty-two I now look like I’m twenty. My eyes look huge and my cheeks chubbier! Cute? Really? And then I realised, people actually think I am as plastic on the inside as I look on the outside. I wonder if the weaveless me will inspire people to see a deeper more intense Simamile. Hell, I could conduct a study!

Talking about au natural...shaving your armpits is strongly advised. Seriously! I know it’s winter and it’s cold, but ladies...imagine if you have to take off your tops for whatever reason and you are hairy all over. Hmmm...okay, I promise that I’ll shave today. Promise!

Someone thought to get me a make-up bag as thank you gift. A shiny, gold make-up bag. They see me everyday and I don’t wear make-up (I’m not as plastic as I look). I now have a shiny (I don’t like shiny things either) make-up bag. I of course said thank you, my mamma raised me right. But seriously, all I kept thinking when I saw this bag was, “is this chick for real?” Advice to anyone who cares: the gift should match the personality, and the personality the gift. In other words, if you don’t know what I’ll like, a gift voucher is a great idea. In fact, gift vouchers were invented for people like me! 

From the au-natural Hippie in Stilettos, there are a few things that are unforgivable. You can have bad hair days, buy rubbish gifts, don’t shave your armpits... but please whatever you do take a shower/bath daily and please, oh please, use deodorant, no one should be allowed in public without applying deodorant before leaving their home!

A Review: Daughters of Fortune by Tara Hyland

I’ve just finished reading Tara Hyland’s debut novel Daughters of Fortune. I love first time writers. Unlike most readers I am attracted to debut writers. I want to give them a chance and even though I am sometimes disappointed, these chancers inspire me.

Especially those of Tara Hyland’s calibre. The book doesn’t try to sell itself as anything other than what it is. It is chick-lit. The bonkbuster. A new genre in literature that takes advantage of our society’s obsession with wealth, conspicuous spending and celebrity. It is what young women want to read on weekends at home and lazy days on the beach.  She doesn’t try to over-intellectualise the book with a sad ending. She doesn’t try to tell the reader what to think at any point. It’s a book and it was absolutely fun to read.

Her book is well written, it flows and before you know it its two in the morning and you are still gripped! I loved her characters and their relationship dynamics. I loved that she had a happy ending. I loved how she included date rape in her story, it is a reality of our society. I loved the fact that Amber was a chronic attention seeker. I loved that Elizabeth was a strong minded career woman who suffered through the balance of family and ambition like many young women today. I loved that Caitlin had a truckload of trust and commitment issues.

My one major criticism of the book is that she could have done away with some of the back story. William’s yearning to be a bigger part of Caitlin’s life could have been motivated by guilt over rejecting her mother rather than his love for her. It was a bit Cinderella-esque but hell, isn’t that the whole reason why we keep buying bonkbusters? 

Tara Hyland seems to understand what her reader expects when they buy a book titled Daughters of Fortune. The book sold itself for what it was, and unlike many debut authors it exceeded my expectations. Will I be looking for Tara Hyland’s next book at my bookstore? Hell yeah! 

What Men Should Never Do When Hitting on Females

As it is a Thursday and a lot of hot sisters will be painting the town red in their tiny little outfits I feel compelled to help them out because I know there will be a man waiting to ruin it for them.

I know men have heard this all before, yet after a couple of drinks or maybe feeling out of their depth it flies out of the window. So for men who are really that ignorant I've compiled a list of five things men should never do when hitting on women whom they have never met.

1. Never lick your lips, LL Cool J Style, at a woman you've never met. Hell, even if you've met it's still a turn-off. Women do not think lip-licking men are sexy, and no matter how crazy they might be about LL Cool J, it does not leave them hot and bothered...in fact it is down right disgusting!
2. Never make a blatantly sexually charged comment to a woman you've just met. Man says, "Hi, you look delicious." Man proceeds to lick lips. This does not make a woman feel flattered or sexy. In fact it makes women feel like their personal space has been invaded without their permission. 
3. A man flagging a woman down in traffic and hoping she will pull over just to meet you is a bit egotistical, no matter how hot your car is. What, do men think that we women fantasize about meeting a total stranger in traffic and telling all our girls about it? Get over your car, no self-respecting woman likes being flagged down.
4. When a group of men approach a table of women and ask the women in they can join them and the women say no. Please men, do not take it upon yourselves to then buy the table drinks. The women, believe it or not, are just not interested. 
5. If a woman has been giving you one-word responses for ten minutes and she's refused to give you her name. If she cringes each time your creepy hand snakes out to touch her shoulder and if she is trying hard to look like you are not talking to her, then why man, oh why ask her for her number?

I don't promise that if you stop doing one or all of the above you will get laid. But I do guarantee you that you'll look less like a psycho and seem less like a pest. She will not have to blacklist you to all her girls, who could be hotter than she is.

And just to sign off, men who cannot stand up straight after a couple of drinks and who cannot keep their hands to themselves should not go where there is booze and women in the same space. Men, retrain your boys and save us the drama!

The Secret: No Man Is An Island

A friend of mine has been going through a rough patch recently. And here I am thinking THE SECRET. You know that tiny book that told us that we control every little thing, good and bad, that happens in our lives. A lot of people bought it. Oprah Winfrey endorsed it. And there we all thought there must be some grain on truth in it.
You went on an exercise of censoring your thoughts. Sometimes you went as far as detaching yourself from reality all in the name of positive actualisation. Yet we all seemed to come with a hard thud back to mother earth when we finally realised when our grandmothers said, ”bad things happen to good people when there are bad people around,” they knew what they were talking about.
Now think about this, your mother falls ill. Right. You have always thought of your mother beyond being sick. Your mother never falls sick. The thought of your mother falling sick is not something that would not even be a subconscious one.
Yet your mother has other children, which means that for your mother never to fall ill, you and all your siblings and your mother would have to believe her the healthiest person ever!
That’s a lot of people. Right? So here’s another one:
You and your girl have been friends forever. There is nothing this girl can do wrong! She is your hero, your backup, mentor, right hand, sidekick, your three-in-the-morning-I-need-to-talk call. You’ve resolved yourself to beings friends with this girl until you draw your last breath... then she stabs you in the back? How did you attract that drama?
You cannot control every person on planet earth with positive actualisation. Hell, you cannot even control your immediate social circle with positive thinking. Everyone has their own motives, their own paths and sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.
The thing is, you have to go in it with the best of intentions and play your cards the best you can and hope that something good will come out of all that situation.
Back to my girl. Her life was perfect. Everything was going well and she was happy and not for a second did she think it would take a solitary phone call to ruin her run of good fortune. She didn’t contemplate it, in fact, she was building and planning on the good fortune. So how did she end up with nothing?
Being positive is a good thing. Hell, it can even change people around you to some degree. But being realistic when things don’t go the way you want them to and realising that you can only do so much in a world filled with other people is even better. It is no secret…

The World Cup 2010

I have seen some pretty good looking men during these past weeks. Being spoken to in languages I do not understand,and by the look in their eyes, I am not sure I want to understand. And yes, Italy-even though they failed dismally- still come with the hottest team!

I watched each of my teams knocked out one by one. I didn't cry. NO I DID NOT!

Today Argentina lost to Germany (again) and that is it for me. The world cup is over and I am ready to go back to work.I'm still weighing what is worse, a European team winning or Uruguay? Who cares...It'll be totally unsatisfactory.

The worst news is that, with all my teams (which have the hottest guys) losing, it means we are back to square one.

How sad...and here I am screaming at my friends TV hoping that Spain will win, just for the senors!