We Should All Be Feminists

We Should All Be Feminists

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

My first exposure to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was through her TED Talk “The Danger of a Single Story.” She made some great points about how we should strive to learn more about other people and cultures.

 

It turns out that she has done more than one TED Talk.

 

She even turned the above talk into a short book entitled, We Should All Be Feminists.

I was immediately intrigued and even though I hadn’t seen the above talk, I started reading and got sucked in.

I think it is great to translate creative work into different forms. Turning a speech into a work of prose gives you all sorts of room to improve your words, make a stronger argument, and reach a new audience.

Here are some words of wisdom from the book:

“I often make the mistake of thinking something that is obvious to me is just as obvious to everyone else.”

I know I am guilty of this myself. It is hard to remember that we all have different experiences and points of view. This is something we need to keep front and centre when having conversations.

“We spend too much time teaching girls to worry about what boys think of them. But the reverse is not the case. We don’t teach boys to care about being likable. We spend too much time telling girls that they cannot be angry or aggressive or tough, which is bad enough, but then we turn around and either praise or excuse men for the same reasons. All over the world, there are so many magazine articles and books telling women what to do, how to be and not to be, in order to attract or please men. There are far fewer guides for men about pleasing women.”

That is so true. It’s time we taught young men differently and stop being so prescriptive towards young women.

She closes off the book with a definition of what feminism means to her. She writes:

“My own definition is a feminist is a man or a woman who says, yes, there’s a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better. All of us. women and men, must do better.”

I wholeheartedly agree. That is why I am a feminist and I encourage you to be as well.

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My List of 2019 reads – updated every time I post a new book review