We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In the essay, We Should All Be Feminists, Adichie focuses on the perception of feminism in Nigeria, her home country. She recounts anecdotes with peers and family members about what it means to be a feminist. “Some people ask: ‘Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights of 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”. In this passage, Adichie describes perfectly the significance of the word “feminist”. Women’s rights are human rights, but by trying to put feminism in the broad and general category of human rights, you are diminishing the centuries of oppression. Adichie emphasizes on how humans view gender in the 21st century. She says, “...in a literal way, men rule the world. This made sense-- a thousand years ago. Because human beings lived then in a world in which physical strength was the most important attribute for survival; the physically stronger person was most likely to lead...Today we live in a vastly different world. The person most qualified to lead is not the physically stronger person. It is the more intelligent, the more knowledgeable, the more create, more innovative...A man is as likely as a woman to be intelligent, innovative, creative. We have evolved. But our ideas of gender have not evolved very much”. Adichie makes a brilliant point in describing how time moves on, our ideologies and expectations should as well.