Please welcome Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
(cheers and applause)
-Welcome to the show. -Thank you.
I'm so excited to have you here because, uh,
I've been a fan of your work for a long time.
I've been a fan of your words for a long time.
I have to ask you, before we get into the book,
as a person who is considered
as one of the most foremost feminists of our time,
why is it that so many people see the word "feminist"
as a negative thing?
Um, because, I think that feminism
has long been associated with the most extreme versions of it.
So people think a feminist is sort of a crazy woman
who hates men and doesn't shave, and...
-Right? -(laughter)
So all of these sort of really crazy negative stereotypes,
I think, have been attached to feminism,
and so people don't want to associate with it.
People who've said to me,
"Why do you call yourself feminist?
"Why don't you just say you're a humanist
or an equalist?"
-But that is what feminism is. -Right.
Right. Feminism is about justice for everyone,
but you have to name a problem.
And the problem is it's women who've been excluded,
so we need to call it what it is.
Wow. That's fascinating, 'cause that's-that's, um...
(cheers and applause)
In many ways... in many ways that's the same thing
-people say about Black Lives Matter. -Yes.
-They go, "Why don't you say all lives matter?" -Yes.
It's like, well, we know the rest of the lives matter,
-the problem needs to be addressed, though. -Yes.
-Exactly, yes. Yes. -The book that you have written here
is really different from your other offerings.
It's A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions.
And I like that you keep making it easier and easier and easier
for people to be feminist.
This is a really interesting book.
How did book come about?
So a few years ago, I wrote-- my friend had a baby.
And so she said to me, "I want her to be feminist.
I want her life to be better than mine. What should I do?"
I was like, "I don't know." Right?
And then, so then I thought I should write her a letter.
-Right. -So it was an e-mail that I wrote to her.
And, and then I decided to turn it into a book.
And I made a few changes, but really,
it-it was for my friend.
And only after I had a baby--
my daughter is two and a half--
did I realize how easy it is
to sort of tell people what to do about child raising
-when you don't have a child. -Right.
(laughs): It's much easier to deal
with a hypothetical child than a real child.
But I'm still trying to follow all of the suggestions.
It's-it's just that it's...
it's more difficult than you would think.
Well, what would you say is the most difficult part
of teaching a child or raising a child
to be a feminist?
You know, it's not that it... It's easy to do,
but it's that you have to fight against...
It sort of feels like the universe
has a conspiracy against you.
So, you-you tell your child,
"You know, you don't have to play with dolls."
But then you go to the store,
-and the girls' sections are just dolls. -Right.
And, you know, th-there's still very much
that-that blue and pink binary in the world,
-Uh-huh. -and you're trying to teach your child
that, you know, you can be whoever you want to be.
So it can feel as though there's a lot
-that you need to push back, you know, -Right, right, right.
from the world.
But, um, but it's doable.
I'm-I'm very optimistic
about how we can change the world.
What-what I've always admired about your words on feminism
is that you-you don't seem to live in a world
where it's abstract or it's just extreme.
-Like, it doesn't... It never seems to me -Yeah.
like you talk about feminism like it's like,
"This is how it is, and it's... that is the way it is."
Like, in the book, for instance, there are some suggestions
where you talk about how you can encourage your daughter--
if she's a daughter-- to be anything she wants to be.
To like blue, to play with boys' toys, etcetera.
But that shouldn't mean
-that she should shun her femininity. -Yeah.
-That's not what feminism is. -Yeah. Yeah.
Well, so, when people find themselves
caught up in a conundrum with feminism,
like, what is the one thing they can say to themselves
that just makes it easier to understand?
Um, think of yourself as an individual.
-(laughs) Right? There's no... -Right.
I mean, I think feminism and femininity
are not mutually exclusive.
I think that the early feminists in the West shunned femininity
because femininity had for so long
been used as a way to put them down.
-So women were property. -Right.
You're supposed to look pretty and stay at home.
So I think when women started to push back against that,
they were like, "We don't want pretty."
But I think now we've come to the stage where we can accept
-that people can be many things, right? -Right.
You can be feminine and feminist.
-It depends on whether you want to be. -Uh-huh.
The problem is if somebody's pushing you
to be what you don't want to be,
-then that's not feminism. -Right.
So I usually say to women who are thinking about it,
"Just think of your individual self.
"Right? What do you like,
"and is that thing causing you harm?
-Wow. -"Right? Is it-- is it somehow...
is it reducing your spirit? Is it making you resentful?"
Because I think that when there's real equality,
resentment will not exist.
Right, in relationships where people are unhappy
-because there's a gender problem... -Yes.
...there's resentment.
If there isn't a problem,
you just... you don't have resentment.
-You kind of know. It's intuitive, I think. -Right.
-Yeah. -Would you say then it's still possible for a woman...
I mean, I know my mom always says this to me.
But some people struggle with the cons...
Would you say it's possible for a woman to say,
"I am... I'm a feminist, I believe in equality,
"but I still want a man to open the door for me.
I like that gesture," or is that problematic in of itself?
You know, the thing about...
By the way, your mother is wonderful,
-just from reading your book. You're so -Thank you. Thank you.
fortunate to have been raised by her. Trevor, I'm serious.
I think... I think everything good in you
is because your mother raised you.
-(laughter) -You know what's funny is...
-Now... Now... -(applause)
Oh, no. I-I appreciate that, but it...
And the way you said it is... It's a beautiful compliment
that sounds like an insult, you know?
It's just like, "Everything good in you is from your mom."
-I'm so... -"The rest of that shit is you.
That's you and your dad." But yeah. But thank you.
But-but how do you respond to that... to that idea?
I think... I think gestures
like holding the door shouldn't be gender.
I think it's a lovely thing to hold the door,
-but we should hold the door for everyone. -Right.
-Right? I hold the door for men. -Right.
And women. Um, and so I think the idea
of sort of holding the door for a woman because she's a woman--
I have trouble with it.
-I'm quite happy for people to hold the door for me... -Right.
...but I hope they're not doing it because of this sort of idea
of chivalry, because chivalry is really about the idea
-that women are somehow weak. -Right, right, right.
Right? And need protection.
But we know that really there are many women
-who are stronger than many men. -Right.
Right? Um, so really, what I think is
that the people we should protect
-are people who need protecting... -Right.
...whether men or women.
Which is also why I sort of have trouble with the idea
of "women and children"
when women are classified in the same...
You know, when there's a tragedy,
and we say, "Women and children should leave first."
I think, actually, is the people who are weak,
-unwell, you know, young... -Oh, that's interesting.
...who should... who should leave first, yeah.
Wow. This is like a more eloquent
argument of what some of the guys on the Titanic said.
(laughter)
They were like, "Uh, I think
"Chimamanda would want me to leave.
Uh, with women and children stay behind."
But I-I really do understand what you are saying.
Here. There's a fascinating, um,
passage in the book, and this was...
It's called the "Seventh Suggestion,"
and in this, it's, um...
The line... The paragraph starts with, um,
"Never speak of marriage as an achievement."
And then when we skip forward, it says,
"When Hillary Clinton was running
"for president of the United States,
"the first descriptor on her Twitter account was 'wife.'
"The first descriptor on the Twitter account of Bill Clinton,
her husband, is 'founder,' not 'husband.'
"Because of this, I have an unreasonable affection
"for the very few men who use 'husband'
as their first descriptor."
Do you think, in that moment, it made you feel like,
uh, in society we've created a world
where the best thing you can be as a woman, sometimes,
is a wife to a man,
but a man can have every other achievement.
Was that the problem with that idea for yourself?
Yes. Yes. But it's also the larger question
of what we expect of women in public life.
And why... I think that there are many people
-for whom Hillary Clinton is not "relatable" -Right.
unless she primarily defines herself in domestic terms.
Wife. Mother.
-But wife, in particular. -Right.
Because I think it makes people feel comfortable.
I think people are very, um... people don't know what to do
with the idea of a woman who has power
or who's seeking power, and so the way to somehow...
temper that is to say, well, "Wife, I'm a wife,
-so therefore I'm not that scary." Right? -Right.
And it's not... I mean, obviously, I think marriage
is a wonderful thing, and it can be, you know,
just such a joy and all of that,
but it's that we raise girls to aspire to marriage
in a way we don't raise boys to.
-Right. -And I think there's a problem with that.
So you have little girls who, from very early on,
are thinking about the wedding dress. Right?
I don't know how many boys think about their...
-wedding tuxedos. Right? -Right.
Not at all. Yeah, that's true.
So what it means is that there's an immediate imbalance, I think,
in just the idea of what is aspirational.
And so I think what we should do is, in raising boys and girls,
teach them that love is wonderful,
marriage is wonderful, but none of that is something
that one should aspire to.
Right? When you say to a girl, "Oh, you've got your PhD,
but when are you getting married?"
Right. Which is a common phrase we hear all the time.
When raising a child and saying, "I'm going to raise a feminist,"
for many people, the immediate connotation
that would come to their mind is
-that means you're raising a daughter. -Yeah. Yeah.
But from reading your work,
a lot of the work has to be done by men.
Men need to participate. Why is that so important?
Because men have to be on board.
I think you can change women all you want--
if you don't change men, nothing changes.
Because we share the world, right? It's men and women.
And I also think, sadly, that we live in a world
where men are more likely to listen to men.
-Oh. -It's true.
-Wow. -You don't think so?
So, then how do you convince the first man?
-(laughter) -Um...
I think some men have already been convinced.
-I think people like Barack Obama, for example, -Right.
is a very good role model, because he's feminist
and he's cool, right?
So... so he's actually...
And we need more men like that to speak up.
I think men need to speak up, men need to be on board,
men need to... not think of feminism
as something to sort of, um... something that's attacking them.
-Right. -'Cause I think some men think that.
They need to understand that feminism is something
that's good for everyone-- because, really,
when all of us are released from gender rules,
-we're all better off, right? -Right.
And in the end, it's about justice.
Don't you want to live in a just world?
So there are some men who have been convinced.
More men need to be.
Um, Trevor, you should, uh...
-get cracking. -(laughter)
(applause, cheering, whistling)
Oh... oh, man. I'm-I'm gonna call my mom,
that's what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna call my mom.
Thank you so much for being on the show.
I really love speaking to you every single time.
It's an amazing book.
Dear Ijeawele is available now.
Chimamanda Adichie, everybody.