That absurd idea of men will be men, which means having a much lower standard for men.
Teach a writing workshop in Lagos and one of the participants, a young woman, told me that a friend had told her not to listen to my feminist talk; otherwise she would absorb ideas that would destroy...
Surrounded by students who were all folded easily on their seats, all flush with knowledge, not of the subject of the classes, but of how to be in the classes
Shouldn’t keep you,’ Olanna repeated, and placed the phone down. She picked it up again, and was about to give the operator her mother’s number before she dropped it back. She wished there was somebod...
She thought that the romance novelists were wrong and it was men, not women, who were the true romantics.
Only just emerged from a crush on Abe in her ethics class, Abe who was white, Abe who liked her well enough, who thought her smart and funny, even attractive, but who did not see her as female. She wa...
Me doy cuenta de lo fácil que es dar consejos sobre cómo criar a los hijos cuando no tienes que enfrentarte a la enorme complejidad que comporta.
Feminist is so heavy with baggage, negative baggage: You hate men, you hate bras, you hate African culture, you think women should always be in charge, you don’t wear makeup, you don’t shave, you’re a...
Feminism. If anything, it makes us see the extent of the problem, the successful reach of patriarchy. It shows us, too, that not all women are feminists and not all men are misogynists.
But it was the commercials that captivated her. She ached for the lives they showed, lives full of bliss, where all problems had sparkling solutions in shampoos and cars and packaged foods, and in her...
As though the writers lived in a world in which the present was unconnected to the past, and they had never considered this to be the normal course of history: the influx into Britain of black and bro...
And felt, for the first time, what she would often feel with him: a self-affection. He made her like herself. With him, she was at ease; her skin felt as though it was her right size.
You look like a black American was his ultimate compliment, which he told her when she wore a nice dress, or when her hair was done in large braids.
You know who really killed Lumumba? Master said, looking up from a magazine. It was the Americans and the Belgians. It had nothing to do with Katanga.
You gave him what he wanted, Curt said. The planes of his face were hardening. It was an odd thing for Curt to say, the sort of thing Aunty Uju, who thought of sex as something a woman gave a man at a...
Yes. He’s back at his desk. Blaine paused. I think he expects this sort of thing to happen. That’s the actual tragedy, Ifemelu said, and realized she was using Blaine’s own words; sometimes she heard...
Women must be covered up to protect men. I find this deeply dehumanizing because it reduces women to mere props used to manage the appetites of men.
Why does it have to be you as a woman? Why not you as a human being? This type of question is a way of silencing a person’s specific experiences.
Why didn't she just ask 'Was it the white girl or the black girl?' Because this is America. You're supposed to pretend that you don't notice certain things.
When you use the nude color of underwear and Band-Aids, do you already know that it will not match your skin?