Now, popular author, Chimamanda Ngozi-Adichie, has been in the spotlight for quite some time, forcing everyone to be at ‘twar’ (that’s the Twitter name for ‘war’. You’re welcome.) While many of us are still grappling with engaging or disengaging with the conversation, I figured that I might as well give my take on the subject considering, I announced my stance on feminism, just the other day. If you missed that confessional, click here.
Last night, Chimamanda was a guest on Trevor Noah’s The Daily Show, and she spoke about her new book, Dear Ijeawele or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, which she says contains a number of suggestions for raising a child to become feminist. Mother of a 2 and a half year old herself, she mentions motherhood isn’t black and white, as she herself is still learning the ropes.
During the course of her conversation with Trevor, she made some interesting points about feminism that got social media talking, as usual.
So I’ll attempt to break down three key points she made in her interview with the show’s host:
Feminism means you get to be whoever you want to be
Adichie raised a few points which were necessary to be heard by all who opposed the social concept. She explained that feminism was a sort of humanism: Feminism fights for both genders to be heard and for women to be whoever they want to be even if that’s little girls having other interests that aren’t dolls. As long as it’s not building resentment, that’s ok, she opined. For the woman or little girl who loves being feminine, that’s fine too. According to the author, the key is to ask the question: Who am I? What do I like? Feminism, she added, encourages individualism.
Chivalry is a concept that makes women appear weak
Now, this is where it got tricky. Trevor spoke about the idea of holding the door for women as a concept which he learnt from his mother. Adichie countered that the concept of ‘holding the door’ should be both for women and for men. ‘Holding the door’, she added, gives the impression that women are weaker and somehow, needed to be protected when “in fact we all know that there are several women who are much stronger than men.”
To this point, I’ll say this: I like my man holding the door for me because he knows damn well, I’m his queen and like to be treated as such especially on date night when I’m wearing make-up (you know that requires some effort). Holding the door to the car on date-night and holding the door to the restaurant comes with the territory. However, it also means I get to treat him with respect like the King that he is and where his hands are full, I open the door for him and even other times when they aren’t, because I’m a brisk walker so I tend to get to ‘that door’ before he does anyway. There’s a mutual respect here – in line with the ideals (or lack thereof) of feminism. She moved on from this point to my third point which is where I think she should have started from in the first place.
Save the unwell first, not the women
“When there’s a tragedy and they say: women and children should leave first, it classifies women in the same place as children, insinuating that women are in the same category as children, I think, it’s the weak and unwell who should leave first.”
Now this bit, made perfect sense and was a concept I had never before thought about. BUT, as social media and the media would have it, most people went in for the kill with the previous statement which I think in and of itself, was an unneccessary one to have made in the larger scheme of things. But then again, who’s perfect and who has this life thing figured out? In the way we have made Chimamanda a Reverend of sorts over feminism, were it a religion; one would find that there are several pastors and reverends we occassionally disagree with, yet, still practise the religion anyway. I would say, that we should take what we must from the conversation but not lose track of the basic principle itself.
Feminism basically means the political, economic and social equality of the sexes. That’s it! C’est fini.
In conclusion, I love Chimamanda, I do – I have three people with whom I would love to do dinner on my bucket list and she’s on that list, that’s love people. However, I feel that the raucus she’s stirring up especially of recent, might be deliberately geared towards increased publicity for her book. For someone whose prowess with words and imagery is probably well above excellent, she could explain her message without creating ambiguity which I feel that she managed to do last night. But then again, maybe that’s just the PR Consultant in me speaking.
Do we still love her? Yes, we do. Is she Human? That, we can all agree she definitely is!
