We Should All Be Feminists
This book is so good, that I read it in one sitting. I mean it is so self explanatory that I don't need to say much to sell it. There isn't anything new in here that we haven't seen or experienced before. Yet African culture is too stubborn to allow change. I hear horror stories of women who are stuck in abusive marriages. Women who are expected to make life changing sacrifices for the men In their lives. Women who have so much potential, but are not given the opportunity to get higher education. Some women who do have the education aren't allowed to put it to use by getting a job or furthering their career. I'm fortunate enough to not have to deal with sexist issues in my life. I will never apologize for being a woman, it is not my fault if someone is attracted to me. We should teach men to have self control instead of shaming women for being women.
It irritates me when certain crimes against women are swept under the culture or tradition rug by many Africans. Don't forget that at some point in history, it was a social norm to own Africans. If something that horrible can be changed, then our attitudes towards women can change too. For that reason, and many more I agree with my girl Chimamanda, we should all be feminists.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes:
"Today we live in a vastly different world. The person more qualified to lead is not the physically stronger person. It is the more intelligent, the more knowledgeable, the more innovative. There are no hormones for those attributes. A man is as likely as a woman to be intelligent, innovative, and creative. We have evolved. But our ideas of gender have not evolved very much". - pg 18
"What struck me - with her and with many other female African friends I have - is how no eagter they are to be liked. How they have been raised to believe that their being likeable is very important". Pg - 24
"A friend told her not to listen to my Feminist talk, otherwise she would absorb ideas that would destroy her marriage. This is a threat - the destruction of a marriage, that the possibility of not having a marriage at all - that in our society is much more likely to be used against a woman than against a man". - pg 25
"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 ego's. The harder a man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is, and we do a much greater disservice to women, because we raise them to cater to the fragile ego's of the males". - pg 27
“Why should a woman’s success be a threat to a man?”
"We teach girls shame. Close your legs. Cover yourself. We make them feel as though by being born Female, they are already guilty of something". - pg 33
“The idea of men as savage beings with no self control is somehow acceptable”
"Culture doesn't make people, people make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it culture". - pg 46
