Home > Author > Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
21 " Because when there is true equality, resentment does not exist. "
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions
22 " That a woman claims not to be feminist does not diminish the necessity of feminism. If anything, it makes us see the extent of the problem, the successful reach of patriarchy. "
23 " There must be more than male benevolence as the basis for a woman's well-being. "
24 " Teach her to question men who can have empathy for women only if they see them as relational rather than as individual equal humans. "
25 " Make dressing a question of taste and attractiveness instead of a question of morality. "
26 " 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. And there are no hormones for those attributes. "
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , We Should All Be Feminists
27 " A man who would be intimidated by me is exactly the kind of man I would have no interest in. "
28 " Teach her about difference. Make difference ordinary. Make difference normal. Teach her not to attach value to difference. And the reason for this is not to be fair or to be nice but merely to be human and practical. Because difference is the reality of our world. And by teaching her about difference, you are equipping her to survive in a diverse world. She must know and understand that people walk different paths in the world and that as long as those paths do no harm to others, they are valid paths that she must respect. Teach her that we do not know – we cannot know – everything about life. Both religion and science have spaces for the things we do not know, and it is enough to make peace with that. Teach her never to universalise her own standards or experiences. Teach her that her standards are for her alone, and not for other people. This is the only necessary form of humility: the realisation that difference is normal. "
29 " ...above all, let your focus be on remaining a full person. Take time for yourself. Nurture your own needs. Please do not think of it as 'doing it all'. Our culture celebrates the idea of women who are able to 'do it all' but does not question the premise of that praise. I have no interest in the debate about women doing it all because it is a debate that assumes that caregiving and domestic work are singularly female domains, and idea that I strongly reject. Domestic work and caregiving should be gender-neutral, and we should be asking not whether a woman can 'do it all' but how best to support parents in their dual duties at work and at home. "
30 " We're all social beings. We internalize ideas from our socialization. "
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
31 " Now 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. "
32 " But by far the worst thing we do to males—by making them feel they have to be hard—is that we leave them with very fragile egos. The harder a man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is. "
33 " When you want to join a prestigious social club, do you wonder if your race will make it difficult to join? If you do well in a situation, do you expect to be called a credit to your race? Or to be described as different from the majority of your race? If you need legal or medical help, do you worry that your race might work against you? If you take a job with an affirmative action employer, do you worry that your co-workers will think that you are unqualified and were hired only because of your race? Do you worry that your children will not have books and school materials that are about people of their own race? "
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , Americanah
34 " 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. (But we of course expect them to bring home the perfect man for marriage when the time is right.) "
35 " 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. "
36 " All over the world, there are so many magazine articles and books telling women what to do, how to be and not to be, in order to attract or please these men. There are far fewer guides for men about pleasing women. "
37 " A man is likely as a woman to be intelligent, innovative and creative. We have evolved. But our ideas of gender have not evolved very much. "
38 " I should never call myself a feminist since feminists are women who are unhappy because they cannot find husbands.So I decided to call myself a Happy Feminist. "
39 " Each time they ignore me, I feel invisible. I want to tell them that I am just as human as the man, just as worthy of acknowledgement. These are the little things, but sometimes it is the little things that sting the most. "
40 " We define masculinity in very narrow way. Masculinity is 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. "