The Ambiguous Space

Have you ever found yourself quietly choosing not to respond in a heated family debate? Or excusing yourself from a group conversation when you feel overlooked? Or choosing to sit in silence during a meeting when voices are not being heard? Sometimes these are just subtle withdrawals from expected roles, choosing not to organise something as usual, pausing before offering help…simple acts that do not announce themselves as well described, structured, or planned. You simply responded in the moment.

If any of these feel familiar, I get you!!!

My sisters, female cousins and I staged what I now call a ‘whatever’ act during one of our lobola traditional ceremonies in Zimbabwe more precisely, the morning after the event. You may be wondering what “whatever’  act is. I don’t know either! I hesitate to name it anything else, aware that naming carries the risk of being misunderstood, judged, or who knows…. marginalized.

The Lobola ceremony

For those unfamiliar, a lobola ceremony is one in which a bride price is paid by the groom and his family as part of the traditional marriage process. It is highly ceremonial and, in contemporary Zimbabwe, often contentious. I will not enter that debate here.

The bride price is not a single, symbolic payment but a carefully structured exchange, broken down into specific allocations: money for the mother(s), for sisters, and most significantly for the father or whoever represents that role etc. In many cases, this breakdown is formalized through an itemized list, detailing both monetary and material contributions. This accounting is not incidental. It reflects how value, authority, and relational obligation are distributed. Each allocation carries meaning, signalling recognition, compensation, and, in some interpretations, transfer of responsibility.

Exhibit 1: Part of the lobola money being counted 

My father, who has six daughters, was by then well-experienced, having already married off four, this was his fifth. His stated mantra was that everyone, male or female, would be involved in decision-making i.e. from what was charged (money required from the groom), to how it was distributed, and to whom.

For those from my context, this is quite rare. Shona culture is deeply patriarchal, and decision-making, especially where money, status, ego, and power are involved, is typically reserved for men. Whether my father’s inclusive approach was genuinely practised, partially practised, or merely symbolic remains unclear to me. Maybe it happened. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was tokenistic. Maybe it made him feel good. Maybe it made the women feel good and included. That ambiguity remains unresolved.

Where did the girls go this morning?

What I do know is that after the ceremony, a decision was made without our knowledge, despite the promise of inclusivity. The girls, my sisters and female cousins, were upset and livid. Interestingly, what unsettled us most was not that we had been excluded. That, in itself, felt almost expected. What truly disturbed us was what the decision was.

That evening, we sat together sharing anger, frustration, and disappointment. The next morning, without much strategy or planning, we walked out of the house, chose a nearby tree, and sat underneath it together.

Exhibit 2: Under the tree….whatevering!

We knew our absence would be felt. Normally, daughters (with of course mothers managing and instructing in the background) are responsible for breakfast and for feeding visitors. My sisters and cousins are also loud, present, impossible to miss. The silence was noticeable. Questions likely emerged: Where did the girls go this morning? We can only imagine what was happening in the space we exited…

We did not know what effect our absence would have. How would my father and uncles interpret it? Would it be seen as disrespect? Were we unfairly leaving our mothers to do the heavy lifting? Or even being blamed by these patriarchies for raising unmannered young women? At that point, the answer to all of it was simply: whatever.

This was not a strategy. If it was, it has not yet revealed itself to us. We reacted without certainty. We did not care to define what we were doing. In fact, the not knowing what this act meant, how it would be read felt strangely comfortable. Liberating, even.

We did not name it a protest. It was only months, even years later, that we felt the need to name that act, usually while laughing and reflecting. Whatever it was. In fact, years later, we still talk about it as a legendary act.

As you read, you may feel the urge to call it a protest, or to name it something else entirely. The truth is, we did not consciously set out to resist tradition. It was a spontaneous response born out of frustration, uncertainty, and a desire to be seen. Whatever happened, whatever was perceived, whatever followed was all held loosely. We simply reacted.

And something unexpected happened: we enjoyed that time under the tree. It became a bonding experience. It became joyful. It became liberatory. And we got more… an audience, an apology, and a decision shifted in our favor. Look at that….. Breakfast was not made and yet something gave…

The ‘Whatever’ Act

I call this a ‘whatever’ act because its power lay precisely in its ambiguity. It sat between intention and accident, resistance and compliance, fear and bravery, care and indifference. The ambiguity, the inability to clearly explain what we were doing or why, became a source of comfort and strength. The ambivalence matters too, the part of me that refuses to name what may seem obvious to others, to call it a protest. The moment I try to name it; it starts to slip. In fact, naming it properly would probably ruin it!

In that grey space we found empowerment!

When I later looked up the word whatever, its multiplicity intrigued me. Its meaning shifts depending on tone, context, timing, and relationship. Among friends, whatever can even be affectionate, ‘… whatever, dude’. It can also signal refusal, playfulness, exhaustion, openness, or defiance…all at once.

The whatever act is the courage to act without full clarity. To move even when the outcome is uncertain and the meaning is unresolved. It is productive precisely because it does not demand immediate explanation.

Our absence spoke loudly, even though we were not sure it would. It prompted questions. It unsettled expectations. It stirred emotions. It even opened a space, however small, for future conversations about inclusion and respect with the elderly males in the family.  I want to believe that it was the unplanned manner of the act, the uncertainty, the instinctive reaction that did not need naming or framing, that made this opening possible.

If you have ever found yourself unable to explain what you feel or why you act, know this: ambiguity can be powerful. Not every act needs to be clearly defined, planned, structured, or named. Acting with a ‘whatever’ attitude is not always indifference. It is not resignation. It is not apathy. Most of the time, it is action that sits in the space of the unspecified and the unknown.

Sometimes, whatever is exactly what is needed to disrupt the expected, to remain unfinished—to speak, to choose silence, or simply to act in what feels natural, without explanation.

Do whatever.