The Life & Trials of a Young Zimbabwean Feminist

"Watching" by Tsabo6

The reality is I am not happy with my life. The most frustrating part about being a unemployed feminist is that you spend so much time trying to convince others about how women are just as intelligent as men, or just as powerful, creative and successful but when the people you are trying to convince look at your life, you are not what you preach feminists to be. Its gets to a point where you feel like who am I to preach this gospel!?

I always imagined at 24 I would have some kind of independence like a job, apartment, car and maybe some cash to spend on my family, friends and perhaps the less fortunate.  Then a little left over to buy a few tiny treasures. Instead I find myself sitting in my parents yard eating mangoes in the sun as others leave for work, feeling miserable about the nothing I've achieved so far and forcing myself to feel begrudging happy for other young women who are making it in life and living out MY feminist fantasy.

Its not that Ive given up on life or anything, I am doing stuff! I have been job hunting, been working on my Masters program part-time. I guess I have always just imagined that by now I would have done a lot more! I would have something to show the world that "This is a successful feminist woman!" But I live in Zimbabwe man! jobs are hard to come by here, even volunteer postitions! Some people comfort me saying "But you have a degree, you are working on your masters!" but honestly... those are just pieces of paper. What have I actually done to change the world? what have I done to change a life? How am I any closer to being The Feminist Fantasy Me!? What do I have to show that will make little girls want to know the secret of how to get like me!?

6 months of sitting at home unemployed and I for one can tell you its easy to get hung up on the aspects of your life that people can see like monetary success and a dream job. You expect to be successful or at least on the road to being a feminist success story but that is not your reality. Its definitely not mine! As a self proclaimed Feminist I cringe every single time I have to ask my mom for money for something as simple as roll-on and hate it when people ask what I am doing with my life because its so embarrassing to say nothing.

But is that all my Feminist Fantasy is made up of? Does professional success make me the ideal feminist? Why am I so hung up on this one aspect of my fantasy self I am aspiring to be, when there are so many other aspects of it that I have not achieved yet? What can I do to make me happier with my life? What can I do to get me closer to being the Feminist Fantasy Me I am dying to be?

Sometimes I have to remind myself that being a feminist is not about proving to the world that I can be just as great or probably even greater than any man out there, It's about proving to myself that I can be as great as I want myself to be. I have to remind myself that I am not in competition with any man, I am in competition with myself. So as frustrating as it is to see both men and women succeed professionally while I seemingly remain stagnant its important to remind myself that they are not my competition, I am my competition.

When I think about it there is so much more I want to prove to myself than just professional success! I want to prove to myself that I can be knowledgeable and well read, I want to prove that I can be spiritually sound, I can be invested in my community, be healthy and fit, well groomed, have the ability to choose good company. There are just so many facets that make up the admirable woman I want to be that are not necessarily tangible to the outside world but are a integral fibre to the woman I want to be.

So granted I am not happy with my life at the moment! But instead of being hung up and depressed on the professional aspect that I have little control over of in this Zimbabwean economy I will focus on that which I can. I will push and work on aspects of my behavior and character that will form me into a better woman. I will break bad habits and form new ones proving to myself that I can be the best well-rounded broke feminist that ever walked the streets of Harare. The world may not realize it but I will know I am so much closer to becoming the woman of my Feminist Fantasy.


I don’t believe there is such a thing as a perfect position or a dead-end job. At every step of life, you learn. Life is a journey of learning.” – Mimi Alemayehou