Amber Kalejaiye - not a woman
Amber don’t identify as a woman. They don’t use the pronouns she/her … and this is why it’s important to include them in IN HER GENIUS.
Through the eye of society, Amber are viewed as a woman and addressed as a woman. I find this story compelling on so many levels and, personally, it made me understand something I had a hard time grasping: queerness. I am releasing this interview with the hope of bringing some clarity and openness to others who may not know how to address people who don’t enter the binary categories of man/woman.
T: Amber, part of your genius is expressed through the exquisite curation of a shop. The refill boutique you work at… which I never in my life felt attracted to shop in until I met you, is an example of your genius at play. When I met you I was convinced it was your shop!!!
A: Many people think I’m the owner of that shop. And I agree, it’s bloody difficult… it’s not just arranging things, it’s about what makes sense. Where do things fit perfectly? It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago that I took it upon myself to move things around in the shop. I think I was just scared to fail, you know “perfectionism”. It’s a bit part of my personality: if I can’t do something perfectly, then I don’t want to do it. So, I am giving myself credit for having done it well, not much has changed but what did change makes more sense now. The shop now looks even more inviting, it was starting to look a bit boring from the window.
So once the people come in, I can explain to them what’s that. I understand what you mean when you said ‘I never really bothered to go into a refill shop’, because depending on who’s there will massively impact the experience you have… for it is not just about refilling your bottle and reducing plastic - OK yes that’s important - but it’s so much more than that.
I’ve been doing this job for 4 years now, after the first 6 months I realised that although going plastic-free is important, it’s so much deeper - it’s about treating people fairly, paying people a fair wage, making sure people aren’t being taken advantage of, and also about slowing down generally… again it’s not just about soaking beans, but realising you don’t always need things straightaway.
You know I love talking to customers when I’m in the shop. There was a new customer who came in the other day, and within about five minutes I could tell she was neuro-divergent. I got ADHD and the more you learn about your symptoms - and how you operate which is slightly different than the rest - the easier it is to pick it up in other people because the way you talk is different. I realised recently that neurotypical people will talk in questions, like Hey how are you? - What did you do at the weekend? And it’s a sort of reciprocation of questions. Sometimes these people get annoyed if I don’t ask about what they did on the weekend, they need that queue and it’s deemed rude that I don’t ask. Whereas the way that I talk, and what I’m used to, especially with my group of friends because all of us have ADHD or autism or both, we talk in statements. What this means is we talk basically at each other in turns. The way we talk is we know we want to talk about something, and when something in their conversation or their statement triggers something that I want to talk about I will talk about it.
We wait for the appropriate gap in the conversation. So to go back to that customer, within 5 minutes I knew it: you talk like me, I know you, I see you. She was in there for 45 minutes, and she messaged me about a shampoo sample I gave her that she loved and would be back for it! She’s also black like me and has typical thick hair, she’s been to other refill shops and they don’t always cater to people with hair like mine or skin like mine. This is also one of the reasons why I do it, I want to see more products for people like me and see people like me in the shops I love going to.
T: You know the famous Virginia Woolf’s quote “A woman needs a room of her own”? I wonder if it can be evolved into “Once the woman succeeds in having a room of her own, she needs a small business of her own”... And I say small without intentionally diminishing anyone’s ambitions, what I mean is that I’ve noticed that women who take up a small space to turn it into a business that’s a labour of love and passion - be it a cafe, a bookshop, a refill shop, an art gallery, it matters not what it is - that space quickly gains a life of its own becoming more it is and offering way more than it’s intended to offer. In those places, people don’t just go for a coffee, or to refill their bottles. In this way, the service given to the community is beyond anything that can be written in the business plan.
A: I understand and agree.
T: Amber, please explain to me how the choice of using they/them as your pronoun came to be. Do you still identify as a woman?
A: It hasn’t always been like that, when I was younger I thought of myself as a woman because I had tits and I am one biologically speaking. It wasn’t purposeful ignorance, but you know how at the young age kids are little shits so people don’t come out as much as whatever they are. So I generally go by queer, I am queer - a very much an umbrella term. I am bisexual, pansexual - whichever one you want to choose, as I don’t care about the difference, to be honest. This means I’m not just attracted to men, rather anyone is fair game. I knew this from a quite young age. Essentially, the point is that I didn’t have much exposure to anything other than cis-gender people as far as I was aware back then. Funny enough, the only reason I have this job, and the only reason I am in Walthamstow is because three years ago I used to date someone who lived in Walthamstow. We’re best friends now, and our first date was in Walthamstow and discovered this shop, followed it and applied a few months later - Yes it’s far from where I live but I loved the shop, and my previous one was stressing me out.
So the person I went on a date with is trans-mas, at the time he was they/them just non-binary but was transitioning. I would say that was my first exposure to thinking outside the gender binary, essentially. We had many conversations, they being non-binary I get it, but also I couldn’t figure out why am I a woman. If I think about it, gender is not inherently tied to what you’ve got going on physically, it’s more about how you feel, and how you socialise. Think about it, a lot of it is just very much social and based on how you’re brought up. When I was thinking about it, I don’t necessarily equate genitals to gender identity, what makes me feel like a woman? I had a gender crisis about it for three months. I needed a more solid answer.
It’s not necessarily the concept of being a woman that makes me uncomfortable, it’s more what being a woman is to society and where I don’t fit into that bracket.
Again all of these are social things. But see, I got PCOS and mine is a specific type that’s insulin resistant which means I also produce more testosterone, I get dark patches, more hair growth… I was 18 when I got diagnosed and the symptoms that come with it are not that they make me feel less of a woman, but just like I got things that make me slightly different if other people don’t have them. Moreover, when I look at other women in my life or that I’ve met, I haven’t always necessarily meshed although I do get along with many people … there are a lot of ideals and ways of thinking that don’t mesh well with me. I’ve never been maternal, I think kids are wonderful however I don’t have any sort of maternal instinct: if there was a fire, I’m not grabbing the child, I’m running for my life. Hilarious fact that I used to be a childminder and am an amazing childminder, but at the same time I don’t want this permanently. It isn’t a thing that I am intrigued by. The thought of pregnancy is terrifying, horrific!
T: I’m a bit unsure about kids at the moment. I don’t know if I want a child or if I’ve been induced to want one - and what am I if I don’t create another human being? … What scares me more is the responsibility, the fact that I’d have to take care of that little human and too often I’m not even great at taking care of myself.
A: It doesn’t stop, I’m 25 and I live with my mom and I told her she won’t see the back of me until I’m at least 30. If even then. We are lucky because we get on well, we used to argue all the time until we realised we were both undiagnosed with ADHD - which creates a lot of conflict if you don’t know how to manage that because both of you try to live up to an expectation that neither of you can fulfil because you aren’t wired to.
T: Is it your mom Nigerian?
A: No my mom is white, English from Bedford. My dad is Nigerian, I think he’s ADHD too but he’s Nigerian - mental health does not exist, and depression is not a thing. So once we figured out that my mom and I are similar, living together is great and I’m very grateful and very pleased because it means I never need to pay rent, though I do help with the expenses. All this to say: my mom didn’t stop being a mom because I’m an adult. She’s still a mom, I’m still there. It’s the same with her mom, she speaks every day with my nan and when my mom runs into money problems, my nan helps out sometimes. It doesn’t stop. You need to be prepared to know that that is a possibility. You need to be prepared to know that you signed up to look after someone - I don’t mean to spoon-feed them, but you are the person they need to rely on when something goes bad because that is your job. That is what you are meant to do. You don’t stop being you but you are completely reframed by bringing another person into existence.
I love to look after myself. I love choosing to look after other people. As soon as you choose to bring someone into this world, it is no longer a choice. It is an obligation.
In theory, if you’ve made the choice actively, for the rest of your life it is no longer a choice. It was a choice once, and now it is an obligation. It is one choice that has turned into an obligation forever.
T: Considering how many people abandon their children, I’m not sure many think to consider this.
A: Yeah they don’t reeeeeeally think about it.
T: You know, I find it difficult to even entertain this thought of maybe not wanting to have children in this life. I sense the presence of yet another thought that’s been plugged into my head, and gets my attention more often now that I’m 35… You’re getting old, you need to produce a baby to be considered valuable. (Later, as I was editing this interview it dawned on me that I am one of those children who’s been rejected by one of my parents… )
A: Oh yes I forgot about that, as in sort of the nagging that people get as they get older: Do you want to freeze your eggs? Do you want to do this? Do you want to do that? Like, make sure you can procreate! We’ve got 8 billion people, I think the world will be fine if some of us choose not to. I think the world will be probably better off. I think we’ll be alright. You know what? Having said that, this isn’t fair. While I acknowledge I don’t have a maternal instinct, whilst I acknowledge pregnancy in and of itself terrifies me, sometimes I think that the amount of consideration, care, and thought I have put into the concept of raising a human being - not just having a child but raising another human being like I need to prepare someone to exist in this world - sometimes I think those people, who make that decision, to not have kids because of that level of responsibility, would make some of the best parents because they put so much thought into not doing that.
So I don’t say no forever. I allow myself the freedom to change my mind in the future.
T: How did you get your independence of thought? And, if you could redefine what it means to be a woman to you would you start identifying as one?
A: Independence of thought is a mixture of things. I’m very grateful for the type of mom I got. One of the biggest gifts that she gave me was letting me be who I am. My mom is one of those people - and I wish she had a better life - who is quite naturally inclined to nurturing. She desperately wanted to be a mom, she had 8 miscarriages before she had me at 26. She was so grateful that I survived, so she never pushed me - she supported me by giving me all the encouragement and praise, she always told me I was beautiful not just aesthetically. She would just always let me be me. She never forced me to do anything or make me a particular way. She would dress me up but I would choose, so it was a collaboration. I was who I was and she nurtured that. She also never had expectations either, that I had from my dad - you need to go to uni! - She was my primary caregiver, he lived with us until I was 12 then I didn’t see him often.
Without having expectations pending on my shoulders, I had so much freedom! If the person who’s caring for you and is with you the most doesn’t expect you to be a particular way then the world is your oyster.
That means that I don’t have a particular way of thinking, and I get to make up my mind. I was allowed to be right; I was allowed to think; I was allowed to learn things, and learn things that were different from what she knew. My dad: different story. But because of my mom, I was able to be a free thinker. Nothing of what I explored was taboo. I do think differently from many others, for example, things such as family obligations I don’t understand. Because we are blood relatives, for some reason I need to love you or like you. I get why people say it, but it never influenced me personally and so I’ve been unaffected by the usual guilt that plagues people who feel certain feelings they think they shouldn’t feel regarding their family members. When my dad left me and my mom to live alone, I was happy. A lot of people who adhere to social constructs of what’s right or wrong will feel like they should or might feel guilty because why are they happy about it…
So I would say I’ve been extremely lucky that the circumstances of my upbringing have given me the lack of chains and being overly influenced. Sometimes they’re there but it’s a lot easier for me to shrug it off.
Your other question is a very complex question, with a not very straightforward answer because in terms of what we classify as womanhood to me - and one of the reasons why I don’t feel overly comfortable with womanhood is because, at least in the Western society and how that’s massively impacted the world realistically speaking, the concept of womanhood is so rooted in patriarchy that I just can’t… OK, for example, a lot of things that I find associated with womanhood I feel like a retaliation to the patriarchy or retaliation to men. it feels that even when women are claiming their womanhood, trying to diverge from that, it still feels like it revolves around men or the concept of men. It kind of does because it’s everywhere, it’s rooted in how our society has been built for thousands of years. So when you see women circles, which I have nothing against inherently, but when they call themselves wombman as in orientating their identity around their womb - I’m like but what if someone’s had a fucking hysterectomy? Or sometimes people with Pcos call themselves cis-ters, and again… we don’t need to do this! I mean you go live your best life, but this feels a bit odd to me. It feels like we are othering ourselves on purpose - because we have been othered and I get that.
But again, it doesn’t necessarily feel like when many people talk about the concept of womanhood that they are finding things in of itself to celebrate - rather we’re celebrating what we have as a result of like ‘yes we built our communities because men push us out’ or ‘because we need to comfort each other over the destruction and the horrors that men can sometimes bring into our lives.’ Again, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have support systems or that you shouldn’t talk about these things - they are very very valid - but it feels that it’s inherently tied to being a woman rather than being things that we collectively experience and should talk about. And there are overlaps, however, it feels more like a circle rather than a Venn diagram: rather than there being different problems and concepts and things to sort through with overlap, it feels like we are just the same - because of these problems with are this. I don’t want my identity, and I don’t feel like my identity revolves around men. I don’t want it to and I don’t feel like it does, and yes a lot of my life is shaped by patriarchal systems etc. But who I am in of myself doesn’t revolve around my womb, doesn’t revolve around my cists, doesn’t revolve around men, doesn’t revolve around my tits, I just exist. I just am who I am and it disturbs me sometimes - if you get wrong my pronouns I’m fine, I get it because the way we’re approaching this is new to a lot of people so adjustment takes time - but it annoys me that people might see more of my feminine face or see my boobs and instinctively assume I’m a woman. My outer appearance does not dictate much about me beyond general concepts. For me, I just don’t vibe with what we’ve got going on now and …
for me to envision a concept of womanhood that I would be comfortable with I’d then have to imagine an entire society that didn’t even revolve around patriarchy or had the concept of patriarchy, which is almost impossible for me to try to envision because so many things are influenced by it.
T: It would be like questioning every single thought you have and analysing it, all the while having a vision.
A: I would have to live it to know and I’m never going to live it, in my lifetime it’s not going to be dismantled. When someone calls me a woman, there’s no alignment. I’m just a person, I’m just trying to exist, just trying to be here and nothing about my gender will necessarily tell you anything about me. Even the way I like to dress has nothing to do with being feminine - I live it more in terms of concepts: some days I feel like being a little pirate, some days I feel like being something else… I’m cosplaying. Every day I wake up I’m kind of cos playing a theme or an image in my head and that would influence what I wear. It’s complicated to explain and I too am still sometimes confused by this thing.
Biologically we all have things going on, but gender in of itself I just don’t quite get it. I don’t get it. That’s why I don’t resonate with anything, I don’t get it and I’m just vibing with concepts and themes - all of that fun! But you’re a man or woman, neither statement would offend me but neither will I be like yes. I’m just OK, whatever you want, I don’t care. Since I’ve had my little gender crisis, it just basically been that way: I’m just here, you know. Just vibing.
P.S. I’m grateful for this conversation, for I believe education happens through dialogue more than through preaching. I believe in Simone de Beauvoir’s quote that one is not born, but becomes a woman thus I can say that over the years I certainly became one. More so, I chose to become one. And it never daunted me, growing up, that one could choose to refuse womanhood while being born in a biologically female body. And so even this is a choice. And things have more power when we choose them, not just passively accept them. Amber saying no to a preordained faith/idea/view empowered herself in the redefinition of her persona and her future.
What became somewhat clear to me, through the many interviews on IN HER GENIUS is that women had been rewriting womanhood privately and silently. Away from the scrutiny and judgment of the public eye, and dare I say often away from the male’s gaze. Perhaps the time is getting ripe for that new idea - born out of women’s silences, and confined to their four walls (be it real or imaginative) - to put down roots. We shall generate new fruits for the daughters to come, may they be one day completely free. Every woman/person here - both interviewee and reader - contributes to that.
