CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE ON SELF-DISCOVERY

Feeling Rebloggy

AUTHOR OF

"AMERICANAH"

AN EXCERPT FROM

WE SHOULD ALL BE FEMINISTS

Some people ask: "Why the word 'feminist?' Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?"

Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general - but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women. That the problem was not about being human, but specifically about being a female human. For centuries, the world divided human beings into two groups and then proceeded to exclude and oppress one group. It is only fair that the solution to the problem acknowledge that.

Some men feel threatened by the idea of feminism. This comes, I think, from the insecurity triggered by how boys are brought up, how their sense of self-worth is diminished if they are not "naturally" in charge as men.

On how gender roles hurt boys

We do a great disservice to boys in how we raise them. We stifle the humanity of boys. We define masculinity in a very narrow way.

Masculinity is a hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage.

We teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves, because they have to be, in Nigerian-speak—a hard man.

In secondary school, a boy and a girl go out, both of them teenagers with meager pocket money.  Yet the boy is expected to pay the bills, always, to prove his masculinity. (And we wonder why boys are more likely to steal money from their parents.)

What if both boys and girls were raised not to link masculinity and money? What if their attitude was not "the boy has to pay," but rather, "whoever has more should pay."

Of course, because of their historical advantage, it is mostly men who will have more today. But if we start raising children differently, then in fifty years, in a hundred years, boys will no longer have the pressure of proving their masculinity by material means.

But by far the worst thing we do to males—by making them feel they have to be hard—is that we leave them with very fragile egos. The harder a man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is.

 

And then we do a much greater disservice to girls, because we raise them to cater to the fragile egos of males.

We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller.

Like bell hooks said a long time ago, "Feminism Is For Everybody"

Do yourself a favor
Listen, learn, and laugh as you take in her speech