In the past few years, I’ve noticed a growing chorus — online, in conversations, even in women’s spaces — repeating the same question: “But how do we hold women accountable? It appears every time a woman’s personal decision enters public discussion. And the more I hear it, the more I find myself questioning what people truly mean. Because beneath the surface, this isn’t really about accountability.

Here’s something I never thought I would say out loud: Some of the loudest “feminist spaces” online today feel less like community… and more like competition. Competition for who is the “better feminist.” Competition for whose anger is the most justified. Competition for who can shout the loudest, drag the hardest, correct the quickest. Somewhere along the way, the actual mission got blurry.

What Is It About My Anger That You Are Afraid Of? My anger lives in my throat. Not because I don’t have words — trust me, I do — but because I have learned what it costs to use them. There are things I wanted to say, things I should have said, moments where my whole body burned to speak — but I swallowed them.

Why Are We Still Shaving Our Daughters’ Hair? The Colonial Rules That Keep Us Bound Generations after colonial rule ended, many Ghanaian schools still enforce hair-shaving policies rooted in control, not culture. It’s time we ask — why are we still upholding rules designed to make us small? A Viral Video That Struck a Nerve Sometime last week, I watched video circulating online — a young girl, sitting on a stool, in tears, as her hair was being shaved before returning resuming school.

Last week, social media erupted with videos of Regina Daniels, the young actress who once made headlines for marrying Nigerian billionaire Ned Nwoko. She was barely eighteen when the world watched her step into a life that seemed paved with gold. A few short years later, the same world is now watching her unravel — crying out in public, surrounded by phones, her pain turned into digital spectacle.

There’s a video circulating online that’s hard to unsee. A grown man — face twisted in outrage — lamenting that Somalia’s parliament has betrayed men by ratifying a law that protects children. His complaint? That the government has stolen their right to marry girls. Not just children — girl children. Because no one is marrying off boys. And that distinction matters.

This week, three stories broke me open. A headmaster was caught on video touching a student inappropriately — in the same community where I grew up. Another man, also a headmaster, was filmed raping a child. And then on TikTok, a Ghanaian man bragged about sleeping with a woman who woke up not knowing how she got to his hotel room.

When I was twenty, I lost my mother to cancer. Through my teens I had watched her fight with quiet courage, and I still feel the imprint of her kindness and extraordinary work ethic. In many ways, I carry her grace. Yet I’ve also always known that I’m my father’s daughter—especially in one key trait: his unshakable stubbornness. For years that stubbornness was a strength.

When I first moved to the UK, every outing felt like a doorway to something new. I said yes to almost every invitation, eager to learn, to belong. So when I got invited to my first party, I pictured a big meal, laughter around a table—the kind of gathering I’d known all my life. The Early Culture Clash At my very first UK party, I went in expecting a proper sit-down meal and maybe a familiar soft drink.

Coming Home to My Body—how I broke up with diet culture and learned to love my Afrocentric self. I was in college when I overheard two boys talking about me. “She’s alright,” one said, “but she has bad skin.” How rude! I didn’t even have acne in my early teens, but I struggled in my late teens—and that single comment haunted me for years.

By 28, I was “supposed” to be married with 2.5 children, a family home, a dog, and a fulfilling career. But those were never my dreams. I wasn’t the little girl planning a wedding in her head. My parents and guardians had their blueprint, and they repeated it so often that I stopped myself from dreaming differently. Still, I knew my vision of life didn’t look like theirs—though many would say it was “weird.”

I bet you’ve forgotten lockdown by now. For me, it’s a time I’ll never shake off. The first few months were brutal. No office. No routine. No distractions. Just me, my thoughts, and the uncomfortable truth that I couldn’t escape my own company. One afternoon, after a frustrating call with my father, I was ranting to a friend when she mentioned therapy.

Do you have a way to process your thoughts and feelings at the end of each day? I do! For years, journaling has been my outlet. My notebooks were full of rants, dreams, raw emotions, and half-finished thoughts. It was cathartic — but it often left me stuck. I could pour everything onto the page, but I couldn’t bear to read it back.

Have you ever done everything “right” — updated your CV, reached out to people, sent countless emails — and still, nothing changed? How did that feel? This week, while scrolling through social media, I came across a video of a young man sharing his frustrations. He had done it all: rewritten his CV, contacted recruiters, networked on LinkedIn, even attended events.

Why do we act like happiness is something we have to earn? For years, I believed joy was something you celebrated after the work was done. I was wrong. Recently, I was telling a friend about all the things I had planned — the goals, the deadlines, the next big steps. She listened patiently as I rattled off my list, and then she hit me with a question that stopped me in my tracks:

“When the lens is cracked, even the sun looks dangerous.” I said this to a friend earlier this week after she shared a frustrating experience with someone we both know. On the surface, this person’…

I wanted to be a journalist. Not just any journalist—I dreamed of becoming CNN’s African correspondent. Oh, how I dreamed! I pictured myself jetting off to different countries, reporting from the f…