Throughout my life, like so many other women around me, my womanhood has constantly been questioned, diminished, or outright rejected. Whether through politics, media, or cultural norms, the message has always been clear: our bodies and the way we understand them aren’t really ours.

Instead, we are treated as subjects of control – shaped by systems built by men to serve their interests. So it’s no surprise that I can still remember being told, at just ten years old, that I wasn’t “feminine enough” to be a girl, or later, being harassed in a nightclub and told I should “go back to the plantation” because I was “dark-skinned, ugly, and looked like a man”.