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...
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 choo...
Why should a woman’s success be a threat to a man? What if we decide to simply dispose of that word—and I don’t know if there is an English word I dislike more than this—emasculation.
When you visit the home of an American with some money, they will offer to show you their house.
When it comes to dressing well, American culture is so self-fulfilled that it has not only disregarded this courtesy of self-presentation, but has turned that disregard into a virtue. We are too super...
When Philip complained about the French couple building a house next to his in Cornwall, Emenike asked, 'Are they between you and the sunset?
When Buchi said Amen! with that delight, that gusto, Obinze feared she would grow up to be a woman who, with that word amen, would squash the questions she wanted to ask of the world.
What she must feel for him was an awed fear. Whether or not Mama had told her to go to his room, she had not said no to Odenigbo because she had not even considered that she could say no. Odenigbo mad...
What if, in raising children, we focus on ability instead of gender? What if we focus on interest instead of gender? I
What if, in raising children, we focus on ability instead of gender? What if we focus oninterest instead of gender?
What if both boys and girls were raised not to link masculinity and money? What if their attitude was not the boy has to pay, but rather, whoever has more should pay. Of course, because of their histo...
We watch films in class, she told Obinze. They talk about films here as if films are as important as books. So we watch films and then we write a response paper and almost everybody gets an A. Can you...
We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, ‘You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful, otherwise you will t...
We teach girls to be likeable, to be nice, to be false. And we do not teach boys the same. This is dangerous. Many sexual predators have capitalized on this. Many girls remain silent when abused becau...
We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way boys are. If we have sons, we don’t mind knowing about their girlfriends. But our daughters’ boyfriends? God forbid. (But we of course expec...
We teach females, that in relationships, ‘compromise’ is what women do. We raise girls to see each other as competitors, not for jobs, or for accomplishments — which I think can be a good thing — but...
We spend too much time telling girls that they cannot be angry or aggressive or tough, which is bad enough, but then we turn around and either praise or excuse men for the same reasons.
We spend too much time teaching girls to worry about what boys think of them. But the reverse is not the case. We don’t teach boys to care about being likeable. We spend too much time telling girls th...
We spend too much time teaching girls to worry about what boys think of them. But the reverse is not the case. We don’t teach boys to care about being likable.
We say to girls: You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten the man. If you are the breadwinner in your relationship w...