Full Review on: Flipping Through the Pages

We Should All Be Feminists is a very short transcription of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk from 2013. I haven’t personally listened to this TED Talk but now I definitely should. This is quite well-written and is an interesting read.

In this transcription, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks about her own experiences as a native Nigerian and now an American. She talks about discrimination against women and more importantly she talks about feminism. She has used her real life anecdotes to present her view points and those anecdotes really made this essay interesting. She talked about how she was considered a feminist since her childhood. The dissection of the various comments she received is really interesting to read and draws our attention towards the male-centric attitude that our society has.

She talks precisely about why we all should be feminists and how it is different from humanism. When Adichie was talking about her experience as a Nigerian, I was perfectly able to relate to her because I am an Indian and I can see so many similarities. Our society has set so many standards and expectations for us women while the same is not applicable for the men.

"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, yet we don’t teach boys to do the same?"

She quoted the American research where it was stated that the men were being paid more than their female counterparts for the same job. I really liked the point where she stated that all the talk about feminism and being equally paid wouldn’t have made sense if it was talked about 100 years ago because back then, the activities were all about physicality where as today, it is all about creativeness and intelligence.

“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.”

This book is really a must read if you want to read about gender equality. You would definitely want to applaud Adichie for her thoughts. It will definitely broaden your mind. Not just women, but all men should read it too.

"My own definition of 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.”

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