We Should All Be Feminists
By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Published by Vintage Books (2014)
ISBN: 978-1-101-87293-2

AUGUST is Heroes’ month in Zimbabwe.
Locals take time to celebrate works of thousands of daughters and sons of the soil who helped liberate the country from the yoke of colonialism.
Without them, the country would still be under colonial rule.
History shows that from the First to the Second Chimurenga, women were part of the quest to liberate the country.
Women like Mbuya Nehanda, Ruth Chinamano, Victoria Chitepo, Vivian Mwashita and Joanna ‘Mama Mafuyana’ Nkomo took part in the fight.
Had these women and others used the excuse ‘we are women, we cannot do anything’, probably the war would still be raging.
Instead, they felt just like their male counterparts, they too could stand up against the brutal Ian Smith regime.
From these icons, women can draw lessons that they too can achieve whatever they set out to do.
It is this lesson renowned Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is giving in her book We Should All Be Feminists.
Her message is simple; women too deserve equal opportunities as their male counterparts.
Gone are the days, she writes, when women’s duties revolved around taking care of the family at home.
Today, the writer reckons, women have the capacity to work, be it in industries, corporations or other leadership roles.
Today women play an active role in politics and economic issues.
Even those living in rural areas have been given equal opportunities as their urban counterparts.
Locally, Government has made efforts to empower women in the agricultural sector.
Calls were made, and continue to be made, for women to create an environment for their development and empowerment by taking part in activities that promote their growth.
“If we do something over and over, it becomes normal,” writes Adichie.
“If we see the same thing over and over, it becomes normal.
If only boys are made class monitor, then at some point we will all think, even if unconsciously, that the class monitor has to be a boy.
If we keep seeing only men as heads of corporations, it starts to seem ‘natural’ that only men should be heads of corporations.”
The writer reminisces on an incident during her school days when only boys were made class monitors despite the fact there were girls who performed better than the boys.
“Today we live in a vastly different world,” writes Adichie.
The person more qualified to lead is not the physically stronger person.
“It is the more intelligent, the more knowledgeable, the more creative, more innovative.
We have evolved.
But our ideas of gender have not evolved very much.”
Adichie urges people to address gender issues.
“Gender matters everywhere in the world,” she writes.
“Gender is not an easy conversation to have.
It makes people uncomfortable, sometimes very irritable.
Both men and women are resistant to talk about gender, or are quick to dismiss the problems of gender.
Because thinking of changing the status quo is always uncomfortable.”
The issue of gender roles is highlighted in the book.
Adichie insists girls should be taught from an early age to be self reliant.
With the changing times, concerted efforts have been made to change the status of women in the society.
“We spend too much time teaching girls to worry about what boys think of them,” writes Adichie.
“But the reverse is not the case.
We raise girls to see each other as competitors — not for jobs or accomplishments, which in my opinion can be a good thing — but for the attention of men.
We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller.
We say to girls: You can have ambition, but not too much.
You should aim to be successful but not too successful; otherwise you will threaten the man.
If you are the breadwinner in your relationship with a man, pretend you are not, especially in public, otherwise you will emasculate him.”
Adichie says boys, through socialisation, should be taught to appreciate girls as equals.
“We teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability,” writes Adichie.
“What if both boys and girls were raised not to link masculinity and money?
“What if their attitude was not ‘the boy has to pay’, but rather, ‘whoever has more should pay’.”