Why we all need to be feminists according to Adichie. She’s bloody right.

Feminism, even from the inception of the word, had been an almost taboo word wrought with negative associations. We imagine feminists as armpit-hair laden female college graduates, someone with short-hair and tattoos and possibly a lesbian, and though these examples of women may belong in this category (or not), these stereotypes are what is fundamentally wrong about how we see feminism today. And this is the crux of the problem that Adichie is trying to address.

And you know what? She’s fucking spot on.

Adichie is better known for her novels Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun. All her novels have been hits with the critics and readers alike. But what matters for her novels is hardly the story, though the stories themselves are compelling. Adichie writes strong female characters and writes them well. Her voice is genuine and it is in full display in her characters, whether it is Ifemelu from Americanah coming to terms with her identity as a black female migrant in the United States, or the beautiful Olanna, offered as a sexual currency by her parents for their own upward mobility in Half of the Yellow Sun. Sadly, I have yet to read Purple Hibiscus or That Thing Around Your Neck.

Though her works represent feminine issues well, it is only in We Should All Be Feminists that her opinions are more explicitly discoursed. It is worthwhile mentioning that the book started as a Ted Talk, thus it is a quick read — something which you might finish over a cup of morning coffee or a single commute to work. But that does not tarnish the message. If anything, because of its accessibility, it should be more widely read (or widely watched).

So why should we all be feminists?

Adichie has endured, like most women, discrimination from cultural bias and expectations. For example, when she decided to tip a young man who looked after her car in Lagos, he thanked her male companion instead of her, thinking that the money really came from him. The hotel guard assumed that she was a prostitute for staying in the hotel, as the only women who came there alone would hold that profession, so would ask her who she was visiting and the room number. When she was young, her teacher awarded the class monitor position to a boy who had inferior grades, because well, he’s a boy.

Gender bias is as subconscious as racism often is, and it is something that we must actively recognise. When a man talks down to a woman, it’s up to us to call that man out. When a woman is sexually harassed, it’s up to us to defend her. Small gestures like such mean a lot and it is what Adichie is asking from us. But the first step is to let go of our gender bias, and this is more difficult for some cultures. For example, the patriarchal paradigm is very much well set in Nigeria.

The effect for women to adapt to this patriarchy is a loss of their personal identity. The expectations of gender roles forces women to pretend to like activities which they don’t like. Sadly these same expectations are missing for males. Women are still praised for chastity and men equally so for their promiscuity. On the other side of the coin, this also puts the pressure on men to rise to societal expectations, even though in reality, they are only forced to do so.

The definitions for feminism may change overtime. When Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, her principal request was to make education available for women, to the same way men were being educated. We have come a long way since then, yet at times we’re still backwards.

Adichie’s call is a call for sensibility. It is a call for that elusive word “common sense” which to begin with, is a misnomer. It is to treat women fairly, but in a larger picture, to treat others fairly. Similar prejudices and consequences are being suffered by migrants and minorities. Adichie’s call to call people out when it just ain’t right should be a baseline attitude for everybody. We live in a society where the majority rules, and those who are different are more likely to be oppressed. It’s not a freedom that we can take for granted and it is an obligation for us to defend those treated wrongly.

So yes, you should be a feminist.