How to Make a Woman Disappear - By Munei Zoe Mbedzi

Written By: Munei Zoe Mbedzi

Category: Argumentative essay

Competition: Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026

In the realm of insightful discourse, Munei Zoe Mbedzi presents "How to Make a Woman Disappear," an argumentative essay that boldly addresses societal expectations surrounding femininity and gender norms. As a participant in the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026, Mbedzi explores the intricate dynamics of gender roles and the systemic silencing of women's voices. This compelling narrative challenges longstanding ideologies and encourages a reevaluation of cultural norms that dictate women's lives and identities.

About the Work

Munei Zoe Mbedzi's essay delves into the pervasive cultural and societal ideologies that have historically defined and confined women's roles. Through a critical lens, the work examines the dangerous expectations placed upon women to conform to patriarchal standards of beauty and submission. The piece is rich with analytical insights, questioning the systemic structures that oppress women while highlighting the need for societal change. It is a thought-provoking narrative that combines sharp observations with a call for empowerment and self-definition.

How to make a woman dissaper

Original Submission by Munei Zoe Mbedzi

How to make a woman disappear. Argumentative Essay: Munei Zoe Mbedzi

Silence as a woman has become the picture-perfect definition of beauty, attractiveness, and femininity. When a girl is quiet about the oppression that she’s subjected to, she is seen as cute, feminine, dainty, and more appealing. It’s as if her pain and trauma is some colourful painting hung in a museum for everyone to gawk at. It is dangerous to teach girls how to be likable and acceptable in society, it is dangerous to teach them to keep up with society and its unrealistic expectations, and it is dangerous to teach girls that their level of likeability and value is tied to societal expectations and cultural ideologies of what femininity, and beauty actually are.

Girls are born into a society that craves submission and desires control, and this suppresses women and girls. As girls, being angry about having to be quiet makes us “crazy, raging feminists simply seeking attention”. One of the biggest misconceptions in society is that women find every reason to be angry, but the truth is there is no reason to not be angry because some things about the existence of a woman are tied to a patriarchy that does not favour her.

From a young age, girls are taught to submit to culture and obey patriarchy. We are taught that to be beautiful and likable, we must remain silent, silent about a patriarchy that is constantly shoved down our throats, making it difficult for us to swallow our own definition of beauty and identity. The moment the breath of life is breathed into girls, their main objective becomes to conform to societal standards of beauty instead of having the space to create their own. Girls are taught how to cook, clean, be wives and mothers before they are taught how to live.

To be likable, her womb becomes everyone’s business but her own; she must be willing to birth children not for herself but for the man she was taught to submit to before her first gospel of air. It’s important to note that knowing how to cook, clean, and birth children is not a form of oppression and, in many elements, is one of the most beautiful things about being a woman. The ability for our bodies to bring life into this world, highlights an immense aspect of strength that isn’t spoken enough about. For one’s body to change and have the ability to

carry a human being for 9 months, is remarkable and doesn’t receive the attention it deserves. However, when there’s an expectation that this should become the very essence of our existence, and it takes priority over education and free will, it very much is a form of oppression.

In Afghanistan today, women are forced to live under the rule and authority of the Taliban. A government that has been put in a position of power to liberate its people but instead it oppresses it. According to UNICEF as of 2021 2.6 million girls were denied access to their secondary education. Girls are not allowed to go to school after they reach grade 6, education for girls up until that age is given to them out of obligation and not desire, and even this isn’t enough. A girl in Afghanistan is taught how to put make up on her face at the age of 10, not for any other reason apart from the fact that she needs to look attractive for the 40-year-old man waiting for her downstairs, ready to take her hand in marriage. For girls and women in Afghanistan the choice to be a wife or mother is stripped from them, instead it’s an obligation. Girls and women in Afghanistan don’t know what it feels like to walk into a library and get lost in a book, she doesn’t know what it feels like to have the sun melt on her skin and be kissed by the wind. Women and girls in Afghanistan are evidence that to society and patriarchy women were created not to live but instead just to exist. If this is submission and what society deems as likeable, we must all vehemently reject this.

We live in a society that doesn’t understand that not every woman wants the same thing. We live in a society that doesn’t teach girls to create their own definitions of what it means to be likable to themselves but rather to conform to what it means to be likable by men. Some women don’t want children, and somehow this lack of desire reduces their value and importance in society. Some women do want children; they want to be mothers and wives and want to work, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Society and patriarchy at large must create space for every type of woman.

As women, we are constantly under a magnifying glass, monitored by the patriarchy. Everything that a woman is seems to be owed to a society that has nothing to do with protecting her peace but instead violating it. Women owe the patriarchy an explanation for everything that has to do with our existence and our identity. The number of children that she wants or does not want to birth is monitored, the way that she dresses, the amount of Makeup she puts on a Monday, the complexion of her skin, if her hair is straightened or curly, if her

Afro is flat or frizzy, if she is pure or impure, and if she can cook and clean. Who created these expectations for girls and furthermore, why have we been forced to live by them?

What does it mean to be a woman and live free from the expectations of a patriarchy that saw us as an object before even learning our name? Why are women encouraged to invest so much energy in becoming desirable to men instead of developing their own ambitions, talents, and identities? Why is it so surprising when a woman succeeds? Why are we shocked at the capabilities women have always had but never been given the platform to prove?

Society's expectations of how to attain likeability are contradictory and perpetuate double standards. When a woman wears too much make-up on her face, she is labelled fake and doing too much, yet when she puts on a little make-up, she is seen as unattractive and not

doing enough. When a woman is too covered up, she is perceived as unattractive and overly conservative and not desirable to the masculine eye, yet when she wears revealing clothes, she is labelled as promiscuous, attention-seeking, and indecent. Women are expected to look attractive, but there is a socially determined limit to how attractive or sexually expressive they are allowed to appear. This once again highlights an unrealistic expectation put on girls.

Attaining likeability today is not complicated but rather impossible. As a woman, you will never be able to please every single person, more so every norm perpetuated by society. It’s important to highlight once more that cooking, cleaning, and motherhood are not inherently

oppressive. The problem arises when these roles are expected of women simply because they are women, particularly when those expectations come at the expense of their education, ambitions, and opportunities. United Nations Women reports that women and girls globally spend about 2.5 times as many hours on unpaid domestic and care work as men. Furthermore, according to the International labour organization in 2023, roughly 708 million women globally did not work because they had to cater to unpaid care responsibilities. As girls and women, we must learn to break free from this unrealistic norm, wanting to stay at home and look after the household must be a choice not an expectation. According to PubMed, a meta analysis of 63 studies highlighted that “dominant behaviour” expressed by women reduced their likability in comparison to men’s. The researchers of this study also found that apparent dominance like making certain demands, dramatically decreases a women’s desirability.

Why do we shame women for doing what they have been condition to do, cater to men and be more desirable for them? You rarely ever hear a man labelled as “women centred”,

because the same exception doesn’t exist for them. Girls are unfairly labelled “male centred”, and this doesn’t make sense when that is exactly what society and the Patriarchy seems to want from them. As girls and women, we must reject this and latch onto our own definitions of attractiveness and likeability. As a girl you aren’t beautiful because a man says you are, but because you simply just are, as a girl your life is more than just learning how to cook, clean and cater to a man whose image was painted to you before you even learnt your own name and as a girl you are allowed to crave knowledge and education without having to think about whether or not it emasculates men.

However, in counter to this argument one must also wonder if men are really to blame for perpetuating these norms and feeding into patriarchy when this is how they are taught “a real man behaves”. This highlights the difference between oppression and harm. According to Cambridge University harm is an event, “condition or action that reduces ones interests and causes physical or psychological pain, inflicts damage, or reduces someone’s well- being”. Oppression is often systemic, ongoing and embedded in society.

Men in many ways are also victims to patriarchy and culture. Men aren’t given space to express emotion, and cry because it apparently somehow takes away their masculinity. Culture and patriarchy have taught men that they must always appear as strong, that crying and speaking about their emotions make them weak and incompetent, and it makes them unable to lead the household. When men are taught to be providers and express their masculinity through violence it becomes everyone’s problem, but this a conversation not everyone is ready to have. For many men masculinity looks like toxically asserting dominance through violence, shouting and aggression. Toxic masculinity has become a permeating stench in society that all our noses are subjected to. The issue is so dire that today to get a man to stop the violence and the negative assertion of dominance one must resort to saying things like “but imagine if this was your mother or sister”. Men aren’t taught how to be men without being overly aggressive and culture has contributed to this statistic. Boys grow up seeing their sisters and mothers align femininity to household duties, so it’s no wonder they believe that it’s all a woman was created to do.

When boys express any form of emotion or vulnerability, they are ridiculed and excluded from patriarchy and culture. Because according to the patriarchy a “real man doesn’t cry” yet is expected to lead? How can one adequately lead when they are taught to reject an element that makes them human and that is to cry and be vulnerable. It is unfair to question why men

aren’t vulnerable when we as girls also contribute to the “nonchalance” we receive. The moment he cries or is emotionally vulnerable he is seen as unattractive but then you wonder why he doesn’t respond to your emotional vulnerability with care and compassion.

In some settings, boys are excused for being overly controlling, sexually assertive or emotionally unavailable, while girls are unfortunately held liable for preserving respectability and managing other people's reactions. This continues to highlight that socialisation, and patriarchy may explain how unequal expectations develop, but it does not mean those expectations are completely harmless or that everyone who inherits them is incapable of questioning them. Furthermore, the boy child is also being left behind because he taught that being a sound cloud rapper and a forex trader is worth abandoning education for. Boys are conditioned to make money and be providers before they are taught compassion.

No one should deny that men are oppressed by the patriarchy and culture, however this subjection should not excuse men of negatively expressing these ideologies. The same way that girls must refuse to be subjected to these unrealistic norms in the same manner boys should reject these things too. Being vulnerable does not make you less of a man, Crying and expressing anxiety or depression does not take away a man’s masculinity and make him incapable of leadership or provision.

This essay wasn’t about bashing men or ridiculing them but rather about holding patriarchy accountable for oppression. Men must do better, to make society more female friendly. We need to reconstruct what society should look like, everything the boy child is taught, the girl

child should be taught the same thing. Men must be taught how to gentle and compassionate, how to make room for women instead of expecting her to cater to his every need. Girls must be taught that their worth is not found in a man, or in his words. As a girl you are great and if speaking out about oppression makes you “crazy” then let it, it simply just highlights the lack

of societal development. Men should reject the oppression women are subjected to as well. The burden falls on men to make society better and decentre the patriarchy the same way it falls on women. Women and men can coexist and in a healthy manner, we can put our strengths together and make society less unbearable, instead of putting these two genders together.

Girls must know that they are in control of they future and that education, ambition and opportunity is not the enemy society has paints it to be. A women’s success is not surprising

at least it shouldn’t be because she is just as capable of being a CEO as her male counterpart. To be likeable does not mean to be silent and nod at the very thing that oppresses you. As a woman if you have a voice and the platform don’t just speak but scream, your voice is not optional it is necessary and its time society gets with the program.

About the Competition

The Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026 by Hashtag Kalakar is a prestigious platform for writers and poets worldwide to showcase their creativity and insight. This competition provides an opportunity for participants to express their unique perspectives and contribute to global conversations through the written word. It celebrates the power of storytelling and the impact of thoughtful discourse in shaping societal understanding and progress.

We extend our gratitude to Munei Zoe Mbedzi for her powerful contribution, "How to Make a Woman Disappear," to the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. Her essay is a vital discourse on gender norms and societal expectations, urging a reevaluation of cultural ideologies. We appreciate her courage in addressing such critical issues and look forward to witnessing her continued impact in the literary world.

About Hashtag Kalakar

Hashtag Kalakar is a creative platform dedicated to providing artists, writers, singers and other creative talents with opportunities to showcase their work and reach wider audiences through competitions, features and creative initiatives.