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S3, E48 Marianne: A Magnificent Millennial

Ethiopian by birth, but raised in Rwanda, Marianne Mesfin Asfaw has committed her professional life and her personal projects to gender equality on the continent she calls home. On this episode, she talks about how her job with an international women’s rights organization and her involvement with a collective of largely African feminists have informed how she navigates the world as a young feminist with global experiences. Marianne shares that her background as a global citizen began as early as her teens – where she studied in the West and lived with her sisters. She explains that such an early taste of independence makes it difficult now to deal with older people who don’t take her seriously just because she’s in her twenties. Having returned to Rwanda in the past year, she also is finding it difficult to deal with the suggestion that she devote more time to preparing for marriage or otherwise tailoring her behavior to fit the cultural standards of a young woman who is on the marriage market. Marianne shares stories of professional conversations with mentor figures turning into guidance on how to seek a life partner, older women dismissing her indifference to starting a family with edicts that “you’ll get over that,” and the occasional free spirited auntie showing her how to push back against such restrictive cultural norms. Marianne also shares how her studies in gender politics and her maturity as a young adult have caused her to critique pop culture and the media she consumed as a high school student. She even reflects more seriously on what her work in women’s rights has shown her about how much danger and fear large segments of women around the world must navigate on a daily basis. “As a young woman who does feminist work,” Marianne explains, “I am aware of how much we have to think about our own safety.” Marianne then goes on to cite what it would take for her to be able to claim the title of free. “I always wonder what it would be like to feel safe and not have to calculate my every move to avoid potential harm. I think once we have that for more women, I would feel free.”

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S3, E43 Adanna: A Magnificent Millennial

23-year-old Adanna Perry is fresh out of college and works as an elementary school teacher. She proudly identifies as a Black feminist and worked as an activist for the rights of Black women while in college. On this episode, she shares how difficult she found adjusting to adulthood once she left the community of sisterhood that formed while in her all-girls’ high school and continued as the friends she made there remained in close proximity to each other. A key difficulty Adanna encountered in post-college life was not having as easy access to this sisterhood once adulthood hit and everyone went their separate ways to start their lives. Adanna struggled to figure out how to assert herself at work without reinforcing the “angry black woman” trope she instinctively knew would be impossible to overcome. Adanna also shares how romantic relationships presented challenges as well because she was committed to being her authentic feminist self in every aspect of life. She discovered that the men who were attracted to her assertiveness and commitment to self didn’t support this self-preservation if it disrupted the narrative of how a black woman should conduct herself in a heterosexual relationship. She reminisces about what she learned from watching her mother put her own needs on the back burner as she supported her husband and cared for her children. Adanna commits herself to centering herself always – even when/if she decides to take on a traditional nuclear family. Out of all the lessons Adanna has learned in this year and a half of “grown up life,” the most important is to acknowledge her own self-worth, absent of her ability to please others. “I’ve learned that my value is not based on what I can do for other people or what I can give them,” Adanna says. “I, myself, am valuable just because I am me.”

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S3, E42 Amal: A Magnificent Millennial

30-year-old Amal White is a social worker by trade, but considers herself to be an activist who centers the struggles of Black women in her work. In this episode she talks about why she tells younger millennials that “adulthood is the ghetto.” According to Amal, the womanhood she’s experienced over the last decade has looked nothing like the womanhood she envisioned when she was a teenager. She thought she’d be married by twenty-one and mothering her first child by twenty-three. Amal talks about how messaging from the single women in her family and society in general caused her to think of marriage and motherhood as expectations of adulthood instead of choices one makes when becoming an adult. Amal also shares how easy it is to succumb to the pressure many women feel to shrink themselves for acceptance. “We’re not encouraged to be who we really are,” she says. “And when we are who we are, we’re seen as problematic.” Amal cites examples of ending relationships with good men and needing the freedom of mobility as ways in which she has been made to feel like she wants too much. When asked what she wished she could gift other women in her peer group, she doesn’t hesitate and says, “The courage to be their authentic selves. No one is going to let you be you. You really do have to take it.”

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S2, E37: Sistahs in the Story Book Club (Part 1)

Keturah Kendrick chats with The Sistahs in the Story Book Club about No Thanks: Black, Female, and Living in the Martyr-Free Zone. Based in Illinois, the group of friends wanted to talk about why they identified with certain themes, had questions about others and general thoughts on the book’s importance and relevance. Moderated by performance artist, speaker and reader, Dr. Kimberly Chandler, the women discuss the depth of the book’s content with laughter and lightness. One sistah shares her story of her 21-year-old self marrying the father of her child even though her gut was telling her it was a huge mistake. “He was a liar and a cheater and I knew it and still married him anyway. That’s really sad.” Another sistah entertains the group with her story of being cornered at a family cookout and told by the women in her family it was time for her to start using her womb for the reason God had given it to her. “They called my grandma over too and all of a sudden it turned into this whole thing where everyone was dissecting what was wrong with me because I didn’t want kids.” Sprinkled in with anecdotes from Keturah’s own experiences while on book tour and Kimberly’s personal choices that have also caused pushback in her church community and others, The Sistahs in the Story Book Club probe deep into the messages of No Thanks and courageously share their connections to it.

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Ep 20: Keturah, In Her Own Words

In this final episode of season one, Keturah Kendrick explains why she started Unchained. Unbothered. Detailing life-long experiences, she shares how it has always been her goal not to be suffocated. Keturah gives examples of how often black women are suffocated by assumptions, expectations and hidden agendas that are touted to them as in their best interest. In addition to her own experiences, she talks about hearing the stories of other women as she’s traveled the world. Because of patterns she has seen in these stories, she began conceptualizing a show that featured women who fought against their own suffocation. Women who claimed themselves the captains of their own ships as they steered confidently from the helm. “I no longer feel ashamed for believing I am enough for me,” Keturah states. “My life matters more to me than anyone else’s. And it will be my voice I heed when I make decisions regarding that life.”

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Ep 17: Evita’s Non-Monogamous Marriage Has Made Her A Better Partner

Evita Sawyers and her husband did not drag either one into a polyamorous lifestyle. They were both curious about the love structure and experimented in some form of ethical non-monogamy together before deciding that they would pursue committed relationships outside of their marriage. On this episode, Evita shares what she has learned about herself through non-monogamy and how she has unpacked toxic narratives about love unquestioned monogamy can sometimes perpetuate. Because she has multiple partners, she has learned that she can have a huge sense of entitlement about what she is owed because of the position she holds in a relationship. She realized she had anger management issues as well and thought of her children as her property instead of their own selves separate from her. According to Evita, the most toxic notion about partnership that polyamory has helped her unpack is the concept of one person having to be all things for you. One person having to be your everything. She feels polyamory puts control of her needs back in her hands where it belongs. And she has given back the control of her partners’ needs back to them. While not one to place polyamory on any hierarchy of love structures, Evita does credit it with helping her find peace and contentment by herself. Even with a husband, a boyfriend and a girlfriend, there are still times when Evita will only have Evita’s company on any given evening. “That is the greatest gift ethical non-monogamy has given me,” Evita says. “It’s taught me that the number one person who can fulfill my needs is myself.”

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Ep 12: Phyllis Evolves in Her Role as A Wife

When she was 19 years old, Phyllis Brown began dating her husband because she wanted to lose her virginity to this fun and charismatic guy with whom she connected immediately. The man she had chosen to “pop my cherry” became her boyfriend of ten years and has been her husband for another ten. In this episode, she shares how the last twenty years with her husband have seen her grow in her own identity and evolve from the young woman who believed the only way to be a partner was to take care of the king of the house and honor his every word. Given this partner prototype by the women in her family, Phyllis had no idea that a wife could have an identity outside of her husband. Because she was so young when she met her husband, her naiveté allowed his powerful personae to overshadow her. As they have both grown in the relationship, she has had several discussions with him about what makes her happy and how she needs the marriage to progress in order to still be his wife and herself at the same time. Phyllis and her husband identify as polyamorous so they both maintain relationships outside of their marriage. She credits the support of her husband and the guidance of her two other partners in helping her reclaim herself and redefine happiness as she reaches the other side of forty. “It is important to learn how to be selfish,” Phyllis says. “I still have to work through guilt when I choose myself over my husband and home, but I am getting better at it.”

Ep 8: Tracy Chose Herself Over Her Husband

Like many people, Tracy Adams envisioned herself someday partnered with “that one special person for life.” Though there was a period in her 20s when she tried to suppress this desire, she dated with the hope of ultimately meeting a life partner. In this episode, Tracy talks about her decision to end her marriage three years into it. After summarizing the courtship with her ex, she explains how she came to the decision that the marriage was not worth continuing. Early into their new marriage, she discovered her partner had not completely disclosed an issue with her. While the issue was of a sensitive nature and did not make her husband a horrible person, Tracy knew that to support him through this issue she would have to deplete herself emotionally. She suggests that many black women are socialized to see such tedious emotional labor as their full responsibility in a partnership. So, they offer this labor freely without much thought to what they have to sacrifice in order to perform such endless work. Having experienced an extreme emotional low when she was younger, Tracy was committed to never putting herself at risk to reach that point again. In order not to repeat that year when she was so depressed that she never left the couch, divorce had to happen. Post-divorce, she remains grateful that she chose her joy and emotional health over her marriage. “I have freed myself from the belief that black women should put everyone else before themselves,” Tracy says. “I will always center myself in my life because only I am responsible for saving, for sustaining me.”

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Ep 1: Shira Does Not Do Monogamy

Shira Obasuyi chats about growing up in a polyamorous family. She shares stories of the women in her family teaching her to value her relationship with herself over her relationships with any and all of her partners. She also explains why even though she never tried to force herself into the box of monogamy, entering the adult world where this structure was largely practiced did create struggles to relate to people she cared about, but could not understand. “I discovered that in monogamy, a partner will have lots of insecurities that they want you to fix,” she says. “My parents never talked about love the way I was hearing monogamous people define it.”

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