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8693782
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But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage, but we don't teach boys to do the same? I
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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6297688
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Our society teaches a woman at a certain age who is unmarried to see it as a deep personal failure. While a man at a certain age who is unmarried has not quite come around to making his pick. It
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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2020a0b
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We teach females that in relationships, compromise is what a woman is more likely to do. We
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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2790a19
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And they have been raised to expect so little of men that the idea of men as savage beings with no self-control is somehow acceptable. We
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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44cac05
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What if, in raising children, we focus on ability instead of gender? What if we focus on interest instead of gender? I
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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6cad623
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I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femininity. And I want to be respected in all my femaleness. Because I deserve to be. I
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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c576e60
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The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn't have the weight of gender expectations. Boys
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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f9c5ee6
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C'est etrange, a chaque evenement majeur dans ma vie, j'ai toujours pense que tu etais la seule personne qui puisse me comprendre.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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dc81d48
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Don't even bother telling a white conservative about anything racist that happened to you. Because the conservative will tell you that YOU are the real racist and your mouth will hang open in confusion.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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c003a67
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but racism is about the power of a group and in America it's white folks who have that power. How? Well, white folks don't get treated like shit in upper-class African-American communities and white folks don't get denied bank loans or mortgages precisely because they are white and black juries don't give white criminals worse sentences than black criminals for the same crime and black police officers don't stop white folk for driving while..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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6b9c9a6
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Because you are a girl" is never a reason for anything. Ever. I"
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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d21703b
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I discovered race in America and it fascinated me.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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1759d42
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And I was worried that if I looked too feminine, I would not be taken seriously. I really wanted to wear my shiny lip gloss and my girly skirt, but I decided not to. I wore a very serious, very manly, and very ugly suit.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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7a6dd1b
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The only race that matters is the human race.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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10f526c
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There are people, she once wrote, who think that we cannot rule ourselves because the few times we tried, we failed, as if all the others who rule themselves today got it right the first time. It is like telling a crawling baby who tries to walk, and then falls back on his buttocks, to stay there. As if the adults walking past him did not all crawl, once. Although
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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8ffbdb9
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Nature's first green is gold.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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e4d3d58
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People were flattered to be asked about themselves and if she said nothing after they spoke, it made them say more. They were conditioned to fill silences.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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b6e0689
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They reminded Ifemelu of television commercials, of people whose lives were lived always in flattering light, whose messes were still aesthetically pleasing.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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616797c
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We have evolved. But our ideas of gender have not evolved very much. Not
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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9075a6c
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We do a great disservice to boys in how we raise them. We stifle the humanity of boys. We define masculinity in a very narrow way. Masculinity is a hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage. We teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves, because they
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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c6a2465
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We do a great disservice to boys in how we raise them. We stifle the humanity of boys. We define masculinity in a very narrow way. Masculinity is a hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage. We teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves, because they have to be, in Nigerian-speak--a hard man. In
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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dd2e8ae
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But by far the worst thing we do to males--by making them feel they have to be hard--is that we leave them with very fragile egos. The harder a man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is. And then we do a much greater disservice to girls, because we raise them to cater to the fragile egos of males. We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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a87ebe1
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I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femininity. And I want to be respected in all my femaleness.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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99cb180
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Her friend is having a party, this Russian girl, they became friends because they have the same violin tutor. The first time I met the girl's mother, I think she was wearing something illegal, like the fur of an extinct animal, and she was trying to pretend that she did not have a Russian accent, being more British than the British!
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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d21235e
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O "olhar masculino", como determinante das escolhas da minha vida, nao me interessa."
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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9756788
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It brought to him a disorienting strangeness, because his mind had not changed at the same pace as his life, and he felt a hollow space between himself and the person he was supposed to be
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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0f0bc0c
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He said, 'Ifemelu is a fine babe bu she is too much trouble. She can argue. She can talk. She never agrees. But Ginika is just a sweet gil.' He paused, then added, "He didn't know that was exactly what I hoped to hear, I'm not interested in girls that are too nice"
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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1d6fe58
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Feminist: a person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes. My
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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c4a5b70
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Philadelphia had the musty scent of history. New Haven smelled of neglect. Baltimore smelled of brine, and Brooklyn of sun-warmed garbage. But Princeton had no smell.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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94ac2ab
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And after you register your own company, you must find a white man. Find one of your white friends in England. Tell everybody he is your General Manager. You will see how doors will open for you because you have an oyinbo General Manager. Even Chief has some white men that he brings in for show when he needs them. That is how Nigeria works. I'm telling you.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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8f8859e
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Your life belongs to you and you alone.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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fc9b110
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She thought nothing of slender legs shown off in miniskirts--it was safe and easy, after all, to display legs of which the world approved--but the fat woman's act was about the quiet conviction that one shared only with oneself, a sense of rightness that others failed to see.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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c0bc065
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Her insecurity, so great and so ordinary, silenced him.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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9275c60
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Mariama finished her customer's hair, sprayed it with sheen, and, after the customer left, she said, "I'm going to get Chinese." Aisha and Halima told her what they wanted--General Tso's Chicken Very Spicy, Chicken Wings, Orange Chicken--with the quick ease of people saying what they said every day. "You want anything?" Mariama asked Ifemelu. "No, thanks," Ifemelu said. "Your hair take long. You need food," Aisha"
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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0dc721d
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We did that often, asking each other questions whose answers we already knew. Perhaps it was so that we would not ask the other questions, the ones whose answers we did not want to know. "I have three assignments to do,"
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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aee8910
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If you're telling a non-black person about something racist that happened to you, make sure you are not bitter. Don't complain. Be forgiving. If possible, make it funny. Most of all, do not be angry. Black people are not supposed to be angry about racism. Otherwise you get no sympathy.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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09e288b
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How was it possible to miss something you no longer wanted? Blaine needed what she was unable to give and she needed what he was unable to give, and she grieved this, the loss of what could have been.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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b44d1a3
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physically stronger person. It is the more intelligent, the more knowledgeable, the more creative, more innovative. And there are no hormones for those attributes.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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e4a48ec
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Princeton, in the summer, smelled of nothing, and although Ifemelu liked the tranquil greenness of the many trees, the clean streets and stately homes, the delicately overpriced shops, and the quiet, abiding air of earned grace, it was this, the lack of smell, that most appealed to her, perhaps because the other American cities she knew had all smelled distinctly. Philadelphia had the musty scent of history. New Haven smelled of neglect. Ba..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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40c0733
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She had not thought of them as "fat," though. She had thought of them as "big," because one of the first things her friend Ginika told her was that "fat" in America was a bad word, heaving with moral judgment like "stupid" or "bastard," and not a mere description like "short" or "tall."
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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4e4f30b
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Philadelphia was the smell of the summer sun, of burnt asphalt, of sizzling meat from food carts tucked into street corners, foreign brown men and women hunched inside. Ifemelu would come to like the gyros from those carts, flatbread and lamb and dripping sauces, as she would come to love Philadelphia itself. It did not raise the spectre of intimidation as Manhattan did; it was intimate but not provincial, a city that might yet be kind to y..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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b4eaa2f
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He believed in good omens and positive thoughts and happy endings to films, a trouble-free belief, because he had not considered them deeply before choosing to believe; he just simply believed.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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04006ec
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These Nigerians have been raised to think of women as inherently guilty. And they have been raised to
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feminism
victim-blaming-blaming
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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05290a7
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Pero no les ocurrio nada.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |