I don’t know if it is just me or any other person ever heard it said while growing up that any woman who has facial hair,either on the chin,on the sides of their faces,above their lips or anywhere else on their faces had to be a witch,was wicked ,barren or a really stingy person?anyone?
Well I heard it and I think I actually believed it at some point and so when ever I saw any woman with facial hair,I would just avert my eyes or find a way to get away from there fast.This was perhaps when I was about 7 to 8 years old,imagine my shock when at about the time I was 15,at that age when one was just beginning to get conscious of looks,I was staring at my bushy eyebrows,wondering whether to trim it or not and what my mum would say if I shaved off my eyebrow(at that time,I found Eucharia Anunobi’s eyebrow fascinating)when I glanced at my chin and saw one strand of hair,Jesu! I recoiled and dropped the mirror quickly, I peeked again and it was still there,I looked round frantically and ran to my dad’s table where he had a pair of tweezers, I yanked it out quickly and heaved a sigh of relief.
However,weeks later,I found it and a’ sister and brother’ back there ,kai! I began to wonder who ‘gave me witchcraft’ ,after plucking it out yet again,I realized that it was not going to disappear overnight,so I left it alone. But I didn’t feel like a witch neither did I have any desire to be wicked or do evil to anyone. So I began to think that perhaps it was all just a lie, then I met a few remarkable women who had ‘beards’. I got admission into ABU,Zaria and gradually became internet wise. I discovered the joy of typing in everything I wanted to know on google and finding answers, I read and learnt about hirsutism- a condition of unwanted male pattern hair growth in women which can arise for a variety of reasons which include but is not limited to excess production of the male hormone, testosterone. It can also be a sign of polycystic ovarian syndrome which is an imbalance of sex hormones that can result in irregular menstrual period ,obesity,infertility and sometimes multiple cysts on the ovaries. It can also be caused by high levels of the hormone cortisol and then sometimes it is just for unidentifiable reasons. Aha!So I received sense and knew that those tales of witchcraft, wickedness and so on were just that,tales and myths.
Fast forward to now, I have lost count of the number of strands on my chin o,Mike sometimes runs his hands under my chin,chuckles, teases me and calls me mai gemu, hahahaha…I can’t even be bothered about it, for some reason,I have beards, strands scattered around my jaw line ,I don’t need to shave,e never bad reach like that but once it gets pokey, I pick it all out with tweezers. Are you a ‘bearded woman”?own it joor,there are worst things in the world than having ‘illegal gemu’.
From me to you,be happy!

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