About Kayla Charleston
What is Not The Wifey Type?
Above all else, NTWT is a promise. The best way I know how to explain this is by asking you to think of typical responses men give to the question: What do you love about Black women? Answers tend to range from our strength and resilience to the way we hold up our communities and hold down our men. You know, what we do for others and how tirelessly we’re able to do it.
But who are Black women outside of labor expectations others have set for us?
I believe we would lead far different lives as Black women if we were actually at the center of them. If we weren’t bending, stretching, contorting ourselves doing labor solely to appeal to the tastes of men.
If my ability to always and endlessly be in service to others is what makes me valuable as a partner, then I will never be the wifey type. And that’s a promise.
Why Aren't You The Wifey Type?
On a more personal note, I’m a writer, speaker, storyteller and research who loves connecting with others through various avenues. I’m from Kentucky and I hold degrees in English, African American Studies and Sociology.
Goofing around at 16, I declared myself not the wifey type. My logic? “Wifey” was just a cheap imitation of a wife. Don’t even allude to the title if you’re not real-life putting a ring on it, I thought. Several life lessons, dissertation chapters and [redacted] years later, I still feel like I’m not the wifey type. But as I’ve grown so has my embodiment of the name.
Less about my relationship to a man, it’s now more indicative of my relationship to myself. In the broadest sense, the role of a wife conjures thoughts of tradition and respectability. Being “not the wifey type” symbolizes a break not necessarily from marriage itself (though it can), but from traditional and respectable ways of doing womanhood. Who are you when you’re not concerned with being the object of a man’s desire? What does it look like to belong to yourself? These are the relevant questions.