We Should All Be Feminists

 

This is the published version of Adichie’s famous TedTalk. A slim read at only 23 pages but a brilliant little book on what feminism means today. In Adichie’s words “Feminist: a person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes”.

This is a big topic; a topic I feel strongly about. I enjoyed Adichie’s direct approach, making no apologies. The word feminist is so heavy with baggage and negativity, reading this I found myself continuously nodding in agreement with everything Adichie was saying.

 

I appreciated her serious tone as well as the few humorous stories she told.  We hear some advice Adichie received at the start of her career from a male journalist encouraging her not to label herself a feminist because “feminists are women who are not happy because they cannot find husbands”.

Women make up 52% of the world’s population, yet we only hold a minority of government and c level positions. Society has taught us that men are more important than women, and therefore are most always. We teach women to shrink down to be below the man, to not demasculate them by earning more or being the breadwinner.

 

Some of my favourite quotes:

• If we keep seeing only men as heads of corporations, it starts to seem ‘natural’ that only men should be heads of corporations

• 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 likeable. 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

• The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn’t have the weight of gender expectations

• Some people ask, ‘Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?’ Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general – but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women.

• Some men feel threatened by the idea of feminism. This comes, I think, from the insecurity triggered by how boys are brought up, how their sense of self-worth is diminished if they are not ‘naturally’ in charge as men

 

This is a must read for everyone. It will start a conversation.