I recently became interested in the idea of feminism. I began to wonder what it is all about, and why so many people have a problem with it. So I turned to the words of one of my favourite authors, Chimamanda N. Adichie. I have only just started this research, and hopefully when I’m done I’ll be able to fully understand the concept of feminism.
This is an excerpt from a talk Chimamanda N. Adichie delivered in December 2012 at TEDxEuston, a yearly conference focused on Africa. Speakers from diverse fields deliver concise talks aimed at challenging and inspiring Africans and friends of Africa.
In her words,
“I decided to speak about feminism because it is something I feel strongly about. I suspected that it might not be a very popular subject, but I hoped to start a necessary conversation.”
Below is the version of the speech which was featured in Beyoncé’s ‘Flawless‘
We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, “You can have ambition but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful otherwise you will threaten the man.” Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support. But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same? We raise girls to see each other as competitors, not for jobs or for accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are. Feminist: the person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.
And this is the modified version of the speech which she featured in her book, ‘We Should All Be Feminists’
We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls: You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten the man. If you are the breadwinner in your relationship with a man, pretend that you are not, especially in public, otherwise you will emasculate him. But what if we question the premise itself: Why should a woman’s success be a threat to a man? What if we decide to simply dispose of that word—and I don’t know if there is an English word I dislike more than this—emasculation. A Nigerian acquaintance once asked me if I was worried that men would be intimidated by me. I was not worried at all—it had not even occurred to me to be worried, because a man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the kind of man I would have no interest in. Still, I was struck by this. Because I am female, I’m expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Marriage can be a good thing, a source of joy, love, and mutual support. But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage, but we don’t teach boys to do the same? I know a Nigerian woman who decided to sell her house because she didn’t want to intimidate a man who might want to marry her. I know an unmarried woman in Nigeria who, when she goes to conferences, wears a wedding ring because she wants her colleagues to—according to her—“give her respect.” The sadness in this is that a wedding ring will indeed automatically make her seem worthy of respect, while not wearing a wedding ring would make her easily dismissible —and this is in a modern workplace. I know young women who are under so much pressure—from family, from friends, even from work—to get married that they are pushed to make terrible choices. Our society teaches a woman at a certain age who is unmarried to see it as a deep personal failure. While a man at a certain age who is unmarried has not quite come around to making his pick. It is easy to say—but women can just say no to all this. But the reality is more difficult, more complex. We are all social beings. We internalize ideas from our socialization. Even the language we use illustrates this. The language of marriage is often a language of ownership, not a language of partnership. We use the word respect for something a woman shows a man but often not for something a man shows a woman. Both men and women will say: “I did it for peace in my marriage.” When men say it, it is usually about something they should not be doing anyway. Something they say to their friends in a fondly exasperated way, something that ultimately proves to them their masculinity—“Oh, my wife said I can’t go to clubs every night, so now, for peace in my marriage, I go only on weekends.” When women say “I did it for peace in my marriage,” it is usually because they have given up a job, a career goal, a dream. We teach females that in relationships, compromise is what a woman is more likely to do.
We raise girls to see each other as competitors—not for jobs or accomplishments, which in my opinion can be a good thing—but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way boys are. If we have sons, we don’t mind knowing about their girlfriends. But our daughters’ boyfriends? God forbid. (But we of course expect them to bring home the perfect man for marriage when the time is right.)
We police girls. We praise girls for virginity but we don’t praise boys for virginity (and it makes me wonder how exactly this is supposed to work out, since the loss of virginity is a process that usually involves two people of opposite genders).
You can download a PDF of the book, ‘We Should all be Feminists‘ here.
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