Critique on “We Should All Be Feminist”

From a very early age the Hunter-Gatherers bands (the hunters being the male and the gatherers of fruits etc. being the female), till date the gender roles are predefined and associated with each gender by the society. “Gender roles are sets of culturally defined behaviors such as masculinity and femininity”. As soon as an individual is born he/she is subjected to these gender specifications: girls in pinks and boys in blues. These differences are injected into the children brain’s and this procedure continues and rehappens. In this binary division of the gender man has been predominant, from the word go. Whereas women have been at man’s mercy since forever. Being a sufferer, provoked by this dissimilitude Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie felt the need to do something about it and wrote a short book “We Should All be Feminist” adapted from a speech that she gave in TEDx talk 2012. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's is a Nigerian writer whose works fight against “The Danger of a Single Story”, how stereotypes confine thinking of people and creates social problems such as gender discrimination. Despite the disapproval that feminism gets, Adichie makes evident that feminism can work for everyone because an acceptance of feminism and the responsibilities that come with it can mean the movement to a fairer world for humans.

The book is a call to action for the people worldwide in order to put an end to the stereotypical gender discrimination which has always led to women oppression. It talks about the Adichie’s life experiences which she had because she was a woman and would have never had if she was not one. She had never known about the word ‘feminist’, its meaning, and its cause of existence. The instance when she scored the highest marks in class and was still not ranked as the monitor of the class because she was not a boy, “Then, to my surprise, my teacher said the monitor had to be a boy. She had forgotten to make that clear earlier; she assumed it was obvious”, was a turning point in her life, “I have never forgotten that incident.” She further tells in her book how if a woman in Africa tips someone or pays for her hotel bills it is the man’s money she is spending and that she cannot earn for herself. When she tipped the person, who helped her park the car, thanked louis (who is a man) instead and when she was ignored by the waiter, showed how males are always thought of to be superior to females. She goes on by saying the world has evolved, “But our ideas of gender have not evolved very much.” Earlier the physically stronger person was more likely to lead however now the physical strength has been replaced by the need to be creative, qualified, intelligent, innovative and these attributes are not just circumscribed to the males. From not knowing the term feminist to becoming a “Happy Feminist” then “Happy African Feminist” then “Happy African Feminist Who Does Not Hate Men” then “Happy African Feminist Who Does Not Hate Men and Who Likes to Wear Lip Gloss and High Heels for Herself and Not For Men” to finally just a “feminist: a person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.” is her journey of life and how she embraced the word without being scared of the negative baggage that is attached to it is what this book talks about.

Firstly, the title of the book is very bold and direct. Regardless of the fact that how people respond to the word feminism she is open about supporting it and therefore shows how staunch feminist she is. In less than 20 pages, Adichie expresses a broad range of issues that are faced by women and society as a whole namely suffocating gender expectations, sexism at workplace and normalization. Males and females are raised differently. The girls are taught to cook, do cleaning, do laundry, be polite, be patient, be delicate and not aggressive. In short, she has to be very girly. There is a term that prevails in all articles “girly girls” lying emphasis on how there is a mold in which the girls need to be molded properly. There are books like “How to Attract Men” that give ladies tips on what men want so that they can transform themselves accordingly, “How to be A Good Wife”, “Super Wife” etc. showing how the roles are set gender accordingly. “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 men. There are far fewer guides for men about pleasing women.” The men are whereas made inhumane and insensitive to girls being treating unequally and their masculinity is defined as “to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability.” The term Macho-Man is very commonly used in movies, articles, magazines to describe a perfect rough and tough man along with other terms like “hard man”, “Tough Guy” and “Mard” in different places worldwide. All women no matter where in the world they are are expected to respect the men, “We use the word respect for something a woman shows a man but often not for something a man shows a woman.”

Sexism at workplace is another problem addressed by Adichie. As you move up the hierarchy you will see the law of diminishing variable (women names) being applied. The CEO’s of most of the companies in the world are men“. ”Women even if they are equally qualified to men are not considered equally intellectual. A research took place “Male Visual Dominance Continues”, its major finding was that “men dominate the front screens on global online newspaper Web sites. The data concluded men were cropped with an emphasis on the head, emphasizing intellect. Women were often cropped with emphasis on the body. The manner in which men and women are depicted in global online newspapers play a role in how visual images can dictate stereotypes in mass culture”. Women do not have a say as much as men do at workplace according to Adichie. They have the fear to not be taken seriously and therefore they wear manly suits to their workplaces rather than skirts and girly clothes so that people differentiate them from the girls who do not work and to show how much they value the work. “You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten the man.” The only solution to these two problems is that the males and the females should be brought-up in a different manner from what they are being taught now as Adichie has also stated.

Thirdly, Adichie talks about the problem of normalization. Stereotypes make one single story the only story and therefore everything becomes so customary to everyone that they react so normally to it let it be something as big as suffocating the women of the society. “I cannot participate, because Igbo culture privileges men and only the male members of the extended family can attend the meetings where major family decisions are taken”. Adichie mentions this regulation of her family and makes us wonder if “has not a woman of their family ever questioned why? or ever tried going to the meeting. The women of the world are also normalized to the patriarchal nature of the society they live in and therefore they have accepted it and quietly sit back. When Indigenous women in Davao City, Philippines where asked that why did they not participate in decisions about the land mostly said, “our husbands are more appropriate to attend.” Moreover, the advertisement of cereals or healthy cooking oils that portray a happy perfect family always show the man who is getting late for work or is going to work outside, the children going to school and the women serving the breakfast or meals and doing the household. These advertisements portray the systems of the societies, and how all the viewers who think of this family to be perfect are all the ones who have normalized the stereotypes. “Both men and women are resistant to talk about gender or are quick to dismiss the problems of gender.” Patriarchy has been so prevalent that women themselves have become the perpetuators of patriarchal society. An articles says,“It is the female population that is promoting a patriarchal society in the messages, values and attitudes they have passed down to their children. It is the small actions that perpetuate men’s power in the society. Majority of the times when the men of the family enter the house, our mothers would be on their feet or would send us to rush to the kitchen and get them water and food.” 

Adichie has smoothly conveyed her message making appeals to logos and pathos time and again leaving an impact on the readers. She has used very simple language and vocabulary but has at the same time chosen appropriate words that create an effect at every part of her story. The use of anecdotes from her personal life imprint the concept of feminism on the readers mind. She though is a staunch feminist but has no where used harsh language that can be offensive instead has provided solutions which can help overcome these problems. In conclusion, the author has appropriately reached out to the people and is able to make evident that feminism can be beneficial for both man and women.

Work Cited 

• Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. We Should All Be Feminist. 
• 'Gender Roles.' Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender: Culture Society History. . Encyclopedia.com. 27 Feb. 2019 .
• Luebering, J.E. “Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 11 Sept. 2018
• Kelly Blake Price-Rankin. “Male Visual Dominance Continues: a Global Study of Images of Men and Women in 750 Online Newspapers in 74 Nations.” School Of Graduate Studies
• “List of World's Most Popular Multi-National Companies and Their CEOs.”
• Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. We Should All Be Feminists. New York, NY, Vintage Books, 2014.
• Celine Salcedo-La Viña. “Why Are Women Left Out of Land Decisions, Despite Gender Equity Laws?” 2018 Will See High Meat Consumption in the U.S., but the American Diet Is Shifting | World Resources Institute, 28 July 2016
• Dabeer, Fatima. “Women Are Perpetuators of a Patriarchal Society.” Daily Times, Daily Times, 19 July 2018