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A review by lilyofthevalley_reads
Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
5.0
My favourite Quotes:
3rd suggestion- “The knowledge of cooking does not come pre-installed in a vagina. Cooking is learned. Cooking-domestic work in general- is a life skill that both men and women should ideally have. It is also a skill that can elude both men and women.”
4th suggestion- “Beware the danger of what I call Feminism Lite. It is the idea of conditional female equality. Please reject this entirely. It is a hollow, appeasing, and bankrupt idea. Being a feminist is like being pregnant. You either are or you are not. You either believe in the full equality of men and women or you do not.”
“But here a sad truth: Our world is full of men and women who do not like powerful women. We have been so conditioned to think of power as male that a powerful woman is an aberration. And so she is policed. We ask of powerful women: Is she humble? Does she smile? Is she grateful enough? Does she have a domestic side? Questions we do not ask powerful men, which shows that our discomfort is not with power itself, but with women. We judge powerful more harshly than we judge powerful men.”
5th suggestion- “If she were not to go to school, and merely just read books, she would arguably become more knowledgeable than a conventionally educated child. Books will help her understand and question the world, help her express herself, and help her in whatever she wants to become- a chef, a scientist, a singer, all benefit from the skills that reading brings.”
8th suggestion- “Show her that she does not need to be liked by everyone. Tell her that if someone does not like her, there will be someone else who will. Teach her that she is not merely an object to be liked or disliked, she is also a subject who can like or dislike.”
14th suggestion- “Female misogyny exists, and to evade acknowledging it is to create unnecessary opportunities for anti-feminists to try to discredit feminism. I mean the sort of anti-feminists who will gleefully raise examples of women saying “I am not a feminist” as though a person born with a vagina making this statement somehow automatically discredits feminism.”
“That a woman claims not to be feminist does not diminish the necessity of feminism. It anything it makes us see the extent of the problem, the successful reach of patriarchy. It shows us, too, that not all women are feminists and not all men are misogynists.”
3rd suggestion- “The knowledge of cooking does not come pre-installed in a vagina. Cooking is learned. Cooking-domestic work in general- is a life skill that both men and women should ideally have. It is also a skill that can elude both men and women.”
4th suggestion- “Beware the danger of what I call Feminism Lite. It is the idea of conditional female equality. Please reject this entirely. It is a hollow, appeasing, and bankrupt idea. Being a feminist is like being pregnant. You either are or you are not. You either believe in the full equality of men and women or you do not.”
“But here a sad truth: Our world is full of men and women who do not like powerful women. We have been so conditioned to think of power as male that a powerful woman is an aberration. And so she is policed. We ask of powerful women: Is she humble? Does she smile? Is she grateful enough? Does she have a domestic side? Questions we do not ask powerful men, which shows that our discomfort is not with power itself, but with women. We judge powerful more harshly than we judge powerful men.”
5th suggestion- “If she were not to go to school, and merely just read books, she would arguably become more knowledgeable than a conventionally educated child. Books will help her understand and question the world, help her express herself, and help her in whatever she wants to become- a chef, a scientist, a singer, all benefit from the skills that reading brings.”
8th suggestion- “Show her that she does not need to be liked by everyone. Tell her that if someone does not like her, there will be someone else who will. Teach her that she is not merely an object to be liked or disliked, she is also a subject who can like or dislike.”
14th suggestion- “Female misogyny exists, and to evade acknowledging it is to create unnecessary opportunities for anti-feminists to try to discredit feminism. I mean the sort of anti-feminists who will gleefully raise examples of women saying “I am not a feminist” as though a person born with a vagina making this statement somehow automatically discredits feminism.”
“That a woman claims not to be feminist does not diminish the necessity of feminism. It anything it makes us see the extent of the problem, the successful reach of patriarchy. It shows us, too, that not all women are feminists and not all men are misogynists.”