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

Reviews tagging 'Sexism'

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

58 reviews

pravallika_manju's review against another edition

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hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.5

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koreanlinda's review against another edition

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hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

3.25

It is a short essay, full of passionate push for gender equality (mostly in Nigeria, and maybe also in the US). I ended up leaving a lower rating because of the author's binary view on gender and repeated insistence that men are physically stronger than women. The book was published in 2012 when nonbinary gender identities were not as well known as now; however, the author's extreme divide between men and women effectively erased people outside that binary and made it hard for me to stay focused on her narrative. I would recommend other feminist books that have more "updated" views on gender.

Review by Linda (Any Pronouns) in Feb 2024
Personal essays on DefinitelyNotOkay.com
Artwork on Instagram @KoreanLinda

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poirot's review against another edition

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informative reflective fast-paced

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kaimynameis's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective fast-paced

4.0

this is a good jumping off point in my opinion if you want your feminism to be more intersectional. other cultures have other traditions and ways they inadvertently oppress girls and women. this book can open your eyes to the world beyond white feminism.

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dexlud's review against another edition

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hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.0

A beautiful work by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, depicting her and her friend’s experiences with sexism and why we should all fight against it and be feminists. As someone interested in these topics, I found it an essential short read.

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paulinskaja's review against another edition

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informative

1.0

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the_last_bookshelf's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective sad

2.5

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parasolcrafter's review against another edition

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informative fast-paced

5.0

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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vera_nikolajevna's review against another edition

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informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.0

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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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