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9ddf46f
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A world of happier men and happier women who are truer to themselves. And this is how to start: We must raise our daughters differently. We must also raise our sons differently.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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b69fe7f
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The educated ones leave, the ones with the potential to right the wrongs. They leave the weak behind. The tyrants continue to reign because the weak cannot resist. Do you not see that it is a cycle? Who will break that cycle?
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fight
oppression
revolution
voice
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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1aff0cf
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there was cement in her soul. It had been there for a while, an early morning disease of fatigue, shapeless desires, brief imaginary glints of other lives she could be living, that over the months melded into a piercing homesickness.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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a844d2e
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Because when there is true equality, resentment does not exist.
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feminism
resentment
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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dda8afc
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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.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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6b91515
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Oppression Olympics is what smart liberal Americans say to make you feel stupid and to make you shut up. But there IS an oppression olympics going on. American racial minorities - blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Jews - all get shit from white folks, different kinds of shit but shit still. Each secretly believes that it gets the worst shit. So, no, there is no United League of the Oppressed. However, all the others think they're better than bl..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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39c5f0d
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Because you are a girl" is never a reason for anything. Ever."
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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61c2017
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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.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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023fe01
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People will selectively use "tradition" to justify anything."
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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eacda31
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I looked the word up in the dictionary, it said: Feminist: a person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. My great-grandmother, from stories I've heard, was a feminist. She ran away from the house of the man she did not want to marry and married the man of her choice. She refused, protested, spoke up when she felt she was being deprived of land and access because she was female. She did not know that wor..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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cb9d1fc
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In America, racism exists but racists are all gone. Racists belong to the past. Racists are the thin-lipped mean white people in the movies about the civil rights era. Here's the thing: the manifestation of racism has changed but the language has not. So if you haven't lynched somebody then you can't be called a racist. If you're not a bloodsucking monster, then you can't be called a racist. Somebody has to be able to say that racists are n..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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65017e1
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Teach her about difference. Make difference ordinary. Make difference normal. Teach her not to attach value to difference. And the reason for this is not to be fair or to be nice but merely to be human and practical. Because difference is the reality of our world. And by teaching her about difference, you are equipping her to survive in a diverse world. She must know and understand that people walk different paths in the world and that as ..
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equality
feminism
inspirational
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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a5cf8ff
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And it's wrong of you to think that love leaves room for nothing else. It's possible to love something and still condescend to it.
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kainene
love
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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44190b6
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He was already looking at their relationship through the lens of the past tense. It puzzled her, the ability of romantic love to mutate, how quickly a loved one could become a stranger. Where did the love go? Perhaps real love was familial, somehow, linked to blood, since love for children did not die as romantic love did.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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a5bbcc8
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If she likes makeup, let her wear it. If she likes fashion, let her dress up. But if she doesn't like either, let her be. Don't think that raising her feminist means forcing her to reject femininity. Feminism and femininity are not mutually exclusive.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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d2c4b82
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There were people thrice her size on the Trenton platform and she looked admiringly at one of them, a woman in a very short skirt. 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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25832bc
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Teach her to question language. Language is the repository of our prejudices, our beliefs, our assumptions.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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52dfbe1
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The truth has become an insult.
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hypocrisy
political-correctness
truth
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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01e66f7
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She could not complain about not having shoes when the person she was talking to had no legs.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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9d4c39f
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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?
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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4472eb3
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Maybe it's time to just scrap the word "racist." Find something new. Like Racial Disorder Syndrome. And we could have different categories for sufferers of this syndrome: mild, medium, and acute."
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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0bdf05d
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They never said "I don't know." They said, instead, "I'm not sure," which did not give any information but still suggested the possibility of knowledge."
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culture
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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efce848
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Academics were not intellectuals; they were not curious, they built their stolid tents of specialized knowledge and stayed securely in them.
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knowledge
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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17915b7
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This is our world, although the people who drew this map decided to put their own land on top of ours. There is no top or bottom, you see.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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f4fddf0
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What struck me--with her and with many other female American friends I have--is how invested they are in being "liked." How they have been raised to believe that their being likable is very important and that this "likable" trait is a specific thing. And that specific thing does not include showing anger or being aggressive or disagreeing too loudly. We spend too much time teaching girls to worry about what boys think of them. But the rever..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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23db9e6
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Understanding America for the Non-American Black: Thoughts on the Special White Friend One great gift for the Zipped-Up Negro is The White Friend Who Gets It. Sadly, this is not as common as one would wish, but some are lucky to have that white friend who you don't need to explain shit to. By all means, put this friend to work. Such friends not only get it, but also have great bullshit-detectors and so they totally understand that they can ..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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b14a655
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I'm chasing you. I'm going to chase you until you give this a chance.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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76aba1d
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Being defiant can be a good thing sometimes," Aunty Ifeoma said. "Defiance is like marijuana - it is not a bad thing when it is used right."
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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e6411ef
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You Americans, always peering under people's beds to look for communism.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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71b08a9
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Richard exhaled. It was like somebody sprinkling pepper on his wound: Thousands of Biafrans were dead, and this man wanted to know if there was anything new about one dead white man. Richard would write about this, the rule of Western journalism: One hundred dead black people equal to one dead white person.
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western-journalism
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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503d78e
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So instead of teaching Chizalum to be likeable, teach her to be honest. And kind. And brave. Encourage her to speak her mind, to say what she really thinks, to speak truthfully. And then praise her when she does. Praise her especially when she takes a stand that is difficult or unpopular because it happens to be her honest position. Tell her that kindness matters. Praise her when she is kind to other people. But teach her that her kindness ..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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61c7d78
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Is love this misguided need to have you beside me most of the time? Is love this safety I feel in our silences? Is it this belonging, this completeness?
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love
safety
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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4f8a7b3
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Be a full person. Motherhood is a glorious gift, but do not define yourself solely by motherhood. Be a full person. Your child will benefit from that.
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parenting
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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a3ccc50
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Gender matters everywhere in the world. And I would like today to ask that we begin to dream about and plan for a different world. A fairer world. A world of happier men and happier women who are truer to themselves. And this is how to start: We must raise our daughters differently. We must also raise our sons differently.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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3944c6e
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He was making her feel small and absurdly petulant and, worse yet, she suspected he was right. She always suspected he was right. For a brief irrational moment, she wished she could walk away from him. Then she wished, more rationally, that she could love him without needing him. Need gave him power without his trying; need was the choicelessness she often felt around him.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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3a63c4d
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I realized that if I ever have children, I don't want them to have American childhoods. I don't want them to say 'Hi' to adults I want them to say 'Good morning' and 'Good afternoon'. I don't want them to mumble 'Good' when someone says 'How are you?' to them. Or to raise five fingers when asked how old they are. I want them to say 'I'm fine thank you' and 'I'm five years old'. I don't want a child who feeds on praise and expects a star for..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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41aa755
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Never speak of marriage as an achievement. Find ways to make clear to her that marriage is not an achievement, nor is it what she should aspire to. A marriage can be happy or unhappy, but it is not an achievement. We condition girls to aspire to marriage and we do not condition boys to aspire to marriage, and so there is already a terrible imbalance at the start. The girls will grow up to be women preoccupied with marriage. The boys will gr..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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b7dfc50
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You know, you're a feminist." It was not a compliment. I could tell from his tone--the same tone with which a person would say, "You're a supporter of terrorism."
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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a811f42
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Why were we raised to speak in low tones about periods? To be filled with shame if our menstrual blood happened to stain our skirt? Periods are nothing to be ashamed of. Periods are normal and natural, and the human species would not be here if periods did not exist. I remember a man who said a period was like shit. Well, sacred shit, I told him, because you wouldn't be here if periods didn't happen.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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1886c49
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She had always liked this image of herself as too much trouble, as different, and she sometimes thought of it as a carapace that kept her safe.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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2e6944b
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But of course it makes sense because we are Third Worlders and Third Worlders are forward-looking, we like things to be new, because our best is still ahead, while in the West their best is already past and so they have to make a fetish of that past.Remember this is our newly middle-class world. We haven't completed the first cycle of prosperity, before going back to the beginning again, to drink milk from the cow's udder.
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third-world-countries
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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8a2d133
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There are many different ways to be poor in the world but increasingly there seems to be one single way to be rich.
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rich
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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3be22d9
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Greatness depends on where you are coming from.
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relativism
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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ae02d52
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Some people ask: "Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?" Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general--but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying..
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |