International Women’s History: A Happy African Feminist

Feminist, a person who believes in the social, political and economic equality
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of the sexes. Now here’s a story from my childhood. When I was in primary
school, my teachers said at the beginning of term that she would give the class a test
and whoever got the highest call would be the class monitor. Now, class money is always a big deal
if you’re a custom one. So you got to write down the names of noisemakers,
which was heavy enough power and its own boards. My teacher would also give
you a kid to hold in your hand while you walked around and patrol the classroom. Noisemakers.
Now, of course, you were not actually allowed to use the king, but it was an exciting prospect
for the 9 year old me. I very much wanted to view the class monitor and I got
the highest score on the test. Then to my surprise, my teacher said that the monitor had to be a boy.
She had forgotten to make that clear earlier because she assumed it was obvious
a boy had the second highest score on the test and he would be monitored.
Now, what was even more interesting about this is that the boy was a sweet, gentle soul
who had no interest in controlling the class with a king. While I
was full of ambition to do so, but I was female and he was male,
and so he became the class. And I’ve never forgotten that incident.
In this episode of Death in Numbers, part of a series for International Women’s Day, we talk about
Chima Monda and Gosa, a DC. This clip is from her TEDTalk titled
We Should All Be Feminists Given in 2012, in which a DC argues that feminism
and gender equality should be topics of conversation.
Born in 1977 and I knew ggu Nigeria to an Igbo family,
a DG splits her time between Nigeria and the United States, having moved the U.S.
at the age of 19 for university. She eventually completed a masters in creative writing
at Johns Hopkins, as well as a Masters in African Studies from Yale.
Raised in an intellectual family, her parents worked at the University of Nigeria. Her mother,
Grace, was the first female registrar, and her father James was a professor of statistics.
Although she grew up in this environment, the notion of feminism was not well received in her community
as a D, she explains in her talk. She learned the term from a male friend and embraces it
in spite of its negative cultural connotations. Over time, she recognized
the stigma attached to the word once her writing career became successful and she openly identified
as a feminist. A She began receiving unsolicited advice, such as the warning by
a journalist that feminists are women who are unhappy because they can’t find husbands.
A fellow Nigerian female academic informed her that feminism was not our culture,
that it was UN-African and the influence of Western books. Of course, the stigma
is not limited to Nigeria, let alone Africa and the United States. The word feminist
conjures up a variety of images bra burnings, mobs of angry man hating females.
Hillary Clinton’s pantsuits. Beyonce’s lemonade. Feminist is a polemical term,
with people positioning themselves as its vehement opponents or ardent supporters. And while no
bras were ever actually burned in the name of feminism, the movement and its supporters have been derided
for a century. ADC explains in the preface to the printed
edition of her talk that the word feminist and the idea of feminism itself
is limited by stereotypes. So why talk about such an unpopular subject?
Because she hoped to start a necessary conversation. Adichie’s writings and speeches
contribute to ongoing conversations on intersectionality or intersectional feminism,
a term coined by legal scholar Kimberly Crenshaw. Intersectional theory studies,
social identities and their related systems of oppression, domination or discrimination.
For example, intersectional feminism considers how the experience of an upper class
black woman may differ from a lower class white woman. Americana,
a novel by a DC published in 2013, explores these intersections through the story
of two lovers who escaped a militarised Nigeria, one moved to
the United States, where she confronts her black identity for the first time. Meanwhile,
her lover unable to join her following immigration restrictions post 9/11, moves
to London. This novel, along with others such as Purple Hibiscus
and Half of a Yellow Sun, our Dialogs DC initiates by asking readers
to place themselves in the positions of characters, she forces them to confront the discomforts of sexism
and racism, among other issues. A recognizes the role that literature
can play in sparking these conversations and eventually and changing culture,
which is why she helped found the nonprofit Fera Fino Trust, which promotes a culture
of literary arts in Nigeria through events like writing workshops that she often leads.
In a talk she gave in 2009, the danger of a single story, a D.C. explains
that stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories
can also be used to empower and to humanize. When we reject the single story,
when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.
Her commitment to fundamental human rights for women and men through storytelling
earned a DC, a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship or genius grant in 2008
at the age of 31. Each year, the committee awards over half a million dollars
to recipients over five years celebrating and inspiring their creative potential.
The foundation recognized the DRC as a writer of great promise, whose powerful rendering
of the Nigerian experience is enlightening audiences both in her homeland and around the
world. The genius grants remind us that a multiplicity of voices is what makes
the United States so unique. We are fortunate to be a country built upon the diversity of our indigenous
and immigrant communities. Respecting this diversity not only supports innovation, but more importantly,
progress towards equality. We have to allow women a multiplicity,
she explained in an interview with The New York Times in 2016. While she argues that
men, too, must be afforded this multiplicity of identities, especially as pertains to the connection
of masculinity and male identity, DC models how multiplicity is possible for
women. Not only has she chosen to no longer be apologetic for her femaleness
and femininity, but she has embraced them. Adichie’s the current face of boots make a brand
number seven. She’s a fashion icon, embracing bold patterns and colors and fuzing
elements of her identity into her wardrobe. Mixing African prints with Western cuts
through her personal style, she demonstrates that yes, you can wear lipstick and high heels. Still
be a respected, intellectual and gifted writer and more importantly, a feminist. These
categories are not mutually exclusive. Feminism welcomes a diversity of expressions,
a multiplicity of identities, and a fluidity of gender. Now a
mother and wife, ADC, continues to expand our conversations about gender and equality. Her newest
epistolary book, Deri Jewel or a Feminist Manifesto and 15 Suggestions,
is a response to a childhood friends request for how to raise a feminist daughter
through her advice a d, she reminds us of the importance of redefining what it means to be feminist
in the 21st century. In Nigeria, in the United States, in a global
community. A feminist is a man or woman
who says, yes, there’s a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix
it. We must do better. 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 threaten the man. Because I am female. I am expected
to aspire to marriage. I’m expected to make my life choices. Always keeping
in mind that marriage is the most important. A marriage can be a source of
joy and love and mutual support. But why do we teach girls to aspire to
marriage? And we do not teach boys the same. We raise girls to see each other as competitors, not
for jobs of accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men.
We teach girls that they can not be sexual beings in the way that boys are
feminist, a person who believes in the social, political and economic
equality of the sexes.
This has been Death in Numbers, a podcast created and produced by the Humanities Media Project and
the College of Liberal Arts at U.T. Austin and Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services.
We are Amy Vidar and Caroline Baarda. Notes for the show, including links and photos can be found
on our website. Humanity’s media project doored. Our theme music is Enthusiasts
by Tourre’s. Thank you for listening.