Inspiring Women: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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”

Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage

I am expected to make my life choices

Always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important

Now, marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support

But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage

And we don’t teach boys the same?

We raise girls to see each other as competitors

Not for jobs or for accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing

But for the attention of men

We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are

Feminist: a person who believes in the social

Political, and economic equality of the sexes.’

Do the words above residue with any of you? Sound familiar, maybe perhaps heard this before…? Well, most likely yes! Where though? What if I gave you a few clues…

• First documented on a Tedx Talk in 2012
• Written by a famous and very active 21st century Nigerian feminist

Any closer? No

•  The intro to Beyonce’s 2013 hit song ‘FLAWLESS’

Ah! (lightbulb moment all round!)

Yes this is the intro to Beyonce – Flawless! Let me fill those of you who do not know about the inspiring women, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, behind the sampled excert.

Born in Nigeria in 1977. Adichie studied medicine and pharmacy at the University of Nigeria for a year and a half. During this period, she edited The Compass, a magazine run by the university’s Catholic medical students. At age 19, Adichie left Nigeria for the United States to study communications and political science at Drexel University in Philadelphia; she transferred to Eastern Connecticut State University.. She received a bachelor’s degree from Eastern. In 2003, she completed a master’s degree in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University. In 2008, she received a Master of Arts degree in African studies from Yale University. Adichie was a Hodder fellow at Princeton University during the 2005–06 academic year. In 2008 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She has also been awarded a 2011–12 fellowship by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. Evidently very smart women, she was always a keen writer.

Her work has been translated into thirty languages and has appeared in various publications, including The New Yorker, the Financial Times, and Zoetrope. She is the author of the novels Purple Hibiscus, and Half of a Yellow Sun, The Thing Around Your Neck and her latest novel Americanah.

It was actually in a roundabout way that I discovered Adichie. It was after signing up for the Rwanda Genocide class for one of my fourth year modules that I was first introduced Adichie. We were told to watch her Tedx talk (https://www.ted.com/speakers/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie) on ‘The Danger of a Single Story.’ She divulges into how stereotypes and myths have shaped some ideas of people/countries in the world, reducing our capacity to view countries with fresh eyes and truly appreciate each culture/history/individual. I was in awe of her talk, I thought she was so articulate, coherent and had a real presence about her. I really understood the message she was trying to convey in her talk. Thanks to Adichie’s words and writings I now feel I actively try and view situations in other countries (not just African countries) with both an open mind and no prejudice.

Another key Tedx Talk (which was sampled in the song FLAWLESS) is ‘We Should All be Feminists’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg3umXU_qWc). Again another interesting watch!.

Adichie has gone on to win such honours as;

 2010 Listed among The New Yorker′s “20 Under 40”

 2013 Listed among New York Times′ “Ten Best Books of 2013”, for Americanah

 2013 Listed among BBC’s “Top Ten Books of 2013”, for Americanah

 2013 Foreign Policy magazine “Top Global Thinkers of 2013″[33]

 2013 Listed among the New African′s “100 Most Influential Africans 2013”

 2014 Listed among Africa39 project of 39 writers aged under 40

To finish here is a quote from Adichie’s ‘We Should All be Feminists’ Tedx Talks.

“About 52% of the world’s population is female. But most of the positions of power and prestige are occupied by men. The late Kenyan Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai put it simply and well when she said ‘The higher you go, the fewer women there are.”

Photo Credits: 

www.guardian.co.uk

www.vogue.it