Aesthetics of Bondage.

Being a woman in Africa is being born with a chain around your neck. Some women learn to love those chains, they gild them, they paint them, all to make it fit their aesthetic. But decoration cannot change the truth: a chain still strangulates, a chain still shrinks. They claim the iron secures you. They frame the cage as protection, teaching women to mistake bondage for safety. To take those chains off, you must work your fingers to the bone, forever proving, forever showing your worth. And still, they ask with desperation: “Why do you want them off?” For they truly believe the heavy links make you whole— make you seen, make you loved. Women are taught that restraint brings acceptance, unaware that in its heavy shadow, true freedom cannot breathe. “Why be free,” they ask, “when you can be loved?” So you break the links through endless toil, only to be seen as empty, ruined, and helpless— and they force the irons right back on. Tell me, do you know who else wears chains? Slaves.