My guest tonight is a critically acclaimed author from Nigeria whose most recent best-selling book is called dear EDG Ola or a
Feminist manifesto in 15 suggestions, please. Welcome Chimamanda Ngozi, Adichie
Welcome to the show. Thank you
I'm so excited to have you here because 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 of feminists is sort of a crazy woman who hits men and doesn't shave
Really crazy negative stereotypes, right? It's an attach to feminism
And so people don't want to associate with it that people who've said to me. Why do you call yourself feminists?
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, especially because that's that's wrong
Anyway in many ways that's that's the same thing people say about black lives matter or as they go to one you say all lives
Matter, well, we know the rest of the lives matter the problem needs to be obsessed
Yes, the the book that you have written here is really different from your other offerings
It's a feminist manifesto in 15 suggestions
And I like that you keep making it easier and easier and easier for people to be feminists
This this is a really interesting. But how did this book come about?
So a few years ago, I wrote my friend had a baby. And so she said to me I won't have to be feminist
I want her life to be better than mine. What should I do?
So then I thought I should write her a letter right it was an email 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 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 raise and when you don't have a child, right?
It's much easier to deal with a hypothetical child and a real
But I'm still trying to follow all of the suggestions. It's just that it's it's more difficult than you think
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'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 that they're still very much that that glue and pink binder in the wall
Are you 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
Right, right, you know from the world
But but it's doable
I'm very optimistic about how we can change the world what what I've always admired about your 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
It never seems to me like you talk about feminism like it's like this is how it is
And it's it's it that is the way it is like in the 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 etc. But that shouldn't mean that she should shun her femininity
That's not what feminism is
So when people find themselves caught up in a conundrum with feminism
Like what is the one thing they could say to themselves? It just makes it easier to understand
Think of yourself as an individual
There is no I mean, I think the feminism and femininity are not mutually exclusive right? 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 are 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 stage where we can accept that
People can be many things right you can be feminine and feminist. It depends on whether you want to be huh?
The problem is if somebody is pushing you to be what you don't want to be then that's not feminism, right?
So so I usually say to women who are thinking about you. Just think of your individual self, right?
What do you like and is that thing causing you harm?
Right. Is it is it somehow is reducing your spirit?
Is it making you resentful because I think that when there's really quality 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 what would you say then? It's still possible for a woman
I mean, I I know my mom always says this to me
But some people struggle with the concept 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 and of itself, you know the thing about by the way?
Your mother is wonderful just from reading your book. Thank you. You're so fortunate. I've been raised by her if I'm serious
I think everything good in you is because your mother is
Appreciative and the way you said it is it's a beautiful compliment that sounds like an insult, you know
Just like everything good in you is from your mind the rest of that shit is you
Think I think just just 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 still 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?
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 and and me protects in that but we know that really there many women who are stronger than many men. Right, right
So really what I think is that the people we should protect at people who need protecting 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 when there's a tragedy and we say women and children should leave first
I think actually is the people who are weak on. Well, you know you
Should leave first. Yeah. Wow. This is like a more eloquent argument of what some of the guys on the Titanic said
Like my mother would want me to leave
Women and children stay behind, but I really do understand what you were saying. Yeah, there's a fascinating passage in the book
and this was it's called the seventh suggestion and in this it's
In the line that the paragraph starts with them 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 descripted do you think in
in that moment it made you feel like
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 many people for whom Hillary Clinton is
Not relatable right unless she primarily defines a certain domestic terms wife mother but wife in particular
Right because I think it makes people feel comfortable. I think people are very
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 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 and all of that but it's that we raise girls to aspire to marriage in a way
We don't raise boys to well. 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 the
wedding
tuxedos right
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 you've got your PhD, but when are you getting married?
Right, which is a common phrase we hear all the time when when raising a child and saying I'm going to raise a feminist
For many people the immediate connotation that will come to their mind. Is that means you're raising a daughter?
Yeah
but from reading your work a lot of the work has to be done by men men need to
Participate and 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 wall
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. Sure then how do you convince the first man?
I think some men have already been convinced
I think people like Barack Obama for example is a very good role model because his feminists and he's cool
Right, so so he's actually good and we need more men like that to speak up
I think men me to speak up men need to be on board men need to not think of feminism as something to sort of
Something that's attacking them, right?
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 roles were all better
Off right, right. And in the end it's about justice don't we want to live in a just world?
So there's some men who've been convinced more men need to be and Trevor. Well, you should
Get cracking
I'm gonna call my mom. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna come on. Thank you so much for being on the show
I really love shooting shoot every single time. It's an amazing book dear egi whele is available now Chimamanda, Adichie everybody
You