Review by ravalyn - We Should All Be Feminists

ravalyn 's review for:

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

4.0

emotional inspiring fast-paced

An inspiring introduction to feminism, written in clear and relatable language. It is especially useful to an audience that does not identify as feminist (yet ;-)). For instance, to the many men that believe they're one of "the good guys" but wouldn't call themselves a feminist. For people who do identify as a feminist, there's not much to learn from this essay. To me, it did show me once again that I was brought up with feminist ideals and that what seems self-evident to me isn't to everyone.

One small note (not affecting my opinion of the essay as a whole):
At some point, Adichie writes that “perhaps 1000 years ago it was important to be strong”. As an archaeologist, I feel I do have to speak out against the notion that strength was more important historically and a patriarchal society a natural result of that. (Perhaps Adichie alludes to the situation in Nigeria 1000 years ago - in that case I'll rest my case, as I'm not familiar with the situation in that specific time and place.) I feel it's important to know that there's no indication from archaeological nor from anthropological sources that prehistoric hunter gatherer societies were exclusively, or even predominantly, patriarchal.

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