"Gender is not an easy conversation to have. It makes people uncomfortable, sometimes even irritable" says Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her highly acclaimed We Should All Be Feminists (2014).
The book is based on a TEDx talk this Nigerian delivered in 2012, which started a worldwide conversation about feminism. Gender is not an easy conversation indeed, but Adichie goes about equality in a very inspirational and relatable way. Expectations and societal requirements such as being "likeable" (p.24), the language that constitutes our context and all those "little things that sting the most" (p.21) are some of the aspects she delves into.
Adichie is a maverick that speaks in a direct, radically candid way with a unique capacity to move the reader to thought and help us both to discover patterns of cultural misogyny in the surrounding patriarchal microcosm and the traps that we, women, might be (unknowingly) setting for ourselves.
This is a book that does not command but whispers in our ear inviting us to be generous and capacious, to improve our understanding of feminism, and of the way we think, act and speak.
"I suspected that it might not be a very popular subject, but I hoped to start a necessary conversation" (p.4)
"... what it shows is how that word feminist is so heavy with baggage, negative baggage: you hate men, you hate bras, you hate African culture, you think women should always be in charge, you don't wear make-up, you don't shave, you're always angry, you don't have a sense of humor, you don't use deodorant" (p.11)
"And then we do a much greater disservice to girls, because we raise them to cater to the fragile egos of males" (p.27)
To know more:"The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing who we are" (p.34)
- TED talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: We should all be feminists
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