We Should All Be Feminists
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Ok so this is kind of cheating because We Should All Be Feminists is just an essay, but I’m (perhaps delusionally) determined to write a review once a week, and I can’t screw the pooch only one month in. So, here I am, reviewing an essay that’s an extension of a TED talk that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave in 2012.
She’s also the author of Americanah and a 2009 TED talk “The Danger of a Single Story,” which are both quite good. In general, she is a deep thinker and she is particularly skilled at articulating those thoughts.
We Should All Be Feminists is an essay that attempts to reclaim the word “feminism” from a bra-burning, man-hating connotation. It is largely anecdotal; these anecdotes are not “new” and some are Nigeria-specific, but they are still powerful and resonating. She expresses a contemporary version of feminism ideally embraced by all genders where we empower women without framing that process as at the expense of men. She talks about how we internalize our socialization and how we can raise our children to have less rigid expectations of gender roles. For example, why do “we spend [so] much time teaching girls to worry about what boys think of them?” She explores these seemingly innocuous aspects of society that we have taken for granted and ignored its impact.
I recommend this because it’s concise and convincing. That being said, watching the TED talk does the trick just as well. In fact, I prefer it, because I like watching her exude confidence. I give We Should All Be Feminists 4 out of 5 flames, not because it’s ineloquent, but because as a book blog, we stan the written word, and I can’t give a book 5 flames if it can be substituted by a video.
