Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - We Should All Be Feminists

ive come across full length books that dont talk about feminism as in-depth and succinctly as this essay does, like...this is so short but is so expertly written.

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daralexandria's review against another edition

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fast-paced

1.0

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james1star's review against another edition

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informative inspiring fast-paced

4.5

‘The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn't have the weight of gender expectations.’

This is a very well presented and argued essay on why we should ALL be feminists and unashamedly so. I do really recommend giving it a read as Adichie makes many important points on what it’s like to be a woman (and man too) in contemporary society, it focuses on Nigeria where she is from but there is a global relatability to her arguments and experiences. I think it’s put forward in a very eloquent and succinct manner that is both easy to understand but also makes you question things too. I personally have proudly called myself a feminist for many years and recognise the ongoing struggles impacting women and the negative idea of ‘femininity’ that plagues society leading to ‘toxic masculinity’ and the plethora of issues men face due to this such as the growing mental health crisis and suicide still being the biggest killer for under 30s. It’s clear the idea of gender is a problem still to be addressed no matter how far we’ve come as there’s still a lot further to go and many changes to overcome.

I thought this essay did lack in its inclusion of intersectionality within the feminist movement where even just touching on it would’ve been beneficial. That being said I understand it’s not the purpose instead a plea for people to take upon the issues of gender and become proud feminists. I liked how Adichie argued for why ‘feminist’ is the better term over ‘humanist’ for example despite both seemingly arguing for the same thing, it’s because the former directly acknowledges the issues at hand that women (/femininity) are being treated unjustly and to solve the problem we have to tackle it straight on too. It’s in a similar vein to ‘black lives matter’ holding more power and meaning over ‘all lives matter’ because we know the latter but the former is directly recognising and challenging the issue at hand, namely the systemic and systematic discrimination of black people in this example.

I would really recommend giving this very short book a read but here are a few quotes that shone out to me.

‘If we do something over and over again, it becomes normal. If we see the same thing over and over again, it becomes normal.’

‘Gender as it functions today is a grave injustice. I am angry. We should all be. angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change. But I am also hopeful, because I believe deeply in the ability of human beings to remake themselves for the better.’

‘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 likeable.’

‘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.’

‘We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way boys are. If we have sons, we don't mind knowing about their girlfriends. But our daughters' boyfriends? God forbid.’

‘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. And so girls grow up to be women who cannot say they have desire. Who silence themselves. Who cannot say what they truly think. Who have turned pretence into an art form.’

‘Culture does not 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 our culture.’

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skysbooknook's review against another edition

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hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

1.0

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emjbarnes's review against another edition

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hopeful informative reflective fast-paced

4.0

Concise and insightful text shedding light on what so many women experience, why it matters, and what our response should be.

CW: this book primarily addresses gender as a binary, and uses sex and gender interchangeably

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melitiamelitia's review against another edition

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challenging funny informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.0

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