Raising children is one of the most significant responsibilities a human being can take up in their lifetime because along with joy, it also comes loaded with numerous challenges and to raise a good human being is no easy task, especially in a world where patriarchy has a stronghold over our minds, lives and experiences. One of her recent works that address all of the above and more, is her book titled “ Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions” published in the year 2017. Adichie and the Feminist ManifestoĬhimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the award winning Nigerian writer, and lecturer, is understood to be one of the most notable of African feminist voices in our present times and she has, whether through writing or other forms of activism, always advocated for better representation of various cultures, an acceptance of differences, and the increasing need for true empowerment of women.

All of us, women and men, must do better.” That is exactly how it should be because society needs to unshackle itself from its age-old ties to inhumane patriarchal beliefs. In her acclaimed book ‘ We Should All be Feminists’, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says that according to her a feminist “ is a man or a woman who says, yes, there’s a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better. I was left appalled at that conversation not only because of the amount of ignorance one must have to make statements like these but also at the sheer misunderstanding people have about feminism and what it means to be a feminist, which, while being many different things to different people, is certainly not equivalent to being a misandrist.

On a personal note, just the other day, I heard a close family member say that being feminists in this world is a recipe for unhappiness, disaster and women can lose out on the joys of life, like marriage and companionship and even a great career, if they hold on to rage and their men-hating tendencies.

People fear feminism and its consequences, because so deep-rooted are patriarchal ideas in human minds, with the centuries of conditioning we have undergone as a species, that they believe it something to be detested, something hateful and better avoided if one is to be happy in society.

Feminist manifesto adichie