Thread by @monaeltahawy

Until I write the eyeliner, perimenopause, and the pandemic essay, here's one I wrote about learning to disobey and how that dovetailed with beauty/ugliness.
feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-ki…

Sekhmet told me “Stand in your power” - she is the warrior and the healer; she is Disobedience - and Hatshepsut showed me how - she is the King Herself who walked away from gender; she is Independence.

I shaved all my hair off to shed what I once had needed, thankful that my crown of fire brought me here. I have turned my body - including my hair - into a canvas upon which I paint my own hieroglyphics because if I don’t, patriarchy will. It always has.

To work on my draft for what is to come, I stood in the lightness and liberation of my scalp, running my hand across it, soft and tough at once, like the new skin after a scab peels away.

And then I started to build. I wanted brightness.
📷 @rerutled