We Should All Be Feminists

Sun, 05 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Laws changed faster than habits. Women won the vote, legal pay equality, and the right to an abortion, and yet a woman can enter any profession and still be talked over, addressed through the man beside her, and penalized for the same assertiveness that reads as leadership in him. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote this essay because she kept meeting people, including women, who thought feminism had done its job — that the freedoms were now equal, so the argument was over. She answers with a small, exact scene. A friend of hers doubted feminism was still relevant until they went to dinner and she handed the valet a tip; the valet thanked her friend. In one gesture, the invisible became visible: the reflex that treats the man as the one who matters, even when the woman is standing right there doing the thing.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on SummaryShelf

We Should All Be Feminists