Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: We should all be feminists

To connect more to the course, I listened to a TED talk on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6ufvYWTqQ0). Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian author who associates herself with feminism and tells the world about her experiences. 

The connection to the course lies of course in the feminism that we discussed earlier, as well as the TED talk that I already wrote about by Elma Akob. Adichie tells the audience about her struggle with feminism and the struggle of being a feminist in Africa, which is something that Akob discussed as well, but Adichie mainly focuses on the impact that feminsim can have if everyone were one. She uses a lot of humor, which not only makes her ineresting but also fun to listen to. She tells stories from her life that prove the inequality between women and men in Africa and that are recognisable for West-African women.

The stories vary from small instances of ignorance or assumption to straight up sexism and discrimination. While she brings it all in a humorous way, these are real issues that are problematic and very relevant today. Systems of oppression are seen as normal these days, and that has to stop. Women deserve not only the same opportunities as men, they deserve the same respect, the same expectations, the same acknowledgement. And that is what Adichie fights for.

She urges that we give children the same opportunities and expectations. She tries to make clear that we have to assess children based on their abilities, not their gender. She talks about the values that African - more specifically Nigerian - children grow up with, and how wrong and problematic they are. She wishes that we raise children with less expectations related to gender, and with less prejudices related to gender. Because we have to stop this history of impending wrong values on children which are then passed on from generation on generation. That is the only way that we can stop these values from spreading and existing.

 Adichie redefines feminism in her own way: 'a feminist is a man or a woman who acknowledges that there is a problem with gender and we must fix it.'

To hear a West African female author talk about a topic that is so connected to our lectures, was very interesting and eye-opening. It is these voices that we need before we judge Africa and before we try to force the Western feminism into the continent, because Western feminism is not of use for them. They need feminism, but they need their own. And listening and learning is the first step that the Western World can do before we can offer our aid. Everyone has to be a feminist, and everyone has to be educated on this topic.

'Culture does not make people, people make culture.'