Respond to Adichie’s Introduction and the First Suggestion by citing a significant quote from this section and explaining its significance. Responses should be 4 to 6 sentences in length.
Introduction
When a couple of years ago a friend of mine
from childhood, who’d grown into a brilliant,
strong, kind woman, asked me to tell her how to
raise her baby girl a feminist, my first thought
was that I did not know.
It felt like too huge a task.
But I had spoken publicly about feminism
and perhaps that made her feel I was an expert In response to my friend’s request, I decided to and practical, while also serving as a map of sorts version of that letter, with some details changed. ful baby girl, I realize how easy it is to dispense Still, I think it is morally urgent to have hon- My friend sent me a reply saying she would And in rereading these as a mother, I, too, ,, Dear Ijeawele,
What joy. And what lovely names: Chizalum Your note made me cry. You know how I get sponse to situations should be. For me, feminism rule; the closest I have to a formula are my two The first is your premise, the solid unbend- The second tool is a question: Can you re- For example: Many people believe that a 6 a gender inequality. Sadly, the reality in most
marriages is that the answer to that question
would often be no, and the reason would be men,” which means having a much lower stan- I have some suggestions for how to raise Here are my suggestions:
FIRST SUGGESTION
Be a full person. Motherhood is a glorious gi ft, 7 r ist Marlene Sanders, who was the first woman
to report from Vietnam during the war (and your child.” even have to love your job; you can merely love It doesn’t surprise me that your sister-in-law . People will selectively use “tradition” to jus- 8 family is actually the true Igbo tradition be-
cause not only did mothers farm and trade sively done by women in some parts oflgboland. Our mothers worked full-time while we In these coming weeks of early mother- I) love. (I do wish, though, that “parent” had not
been turned into a verb, which I think is the Give yourself room to fail. A new mother Please do not think of it as “doing it all.” c1ns, an
J O idea that I strongly reject. Domestic work and it all” but how best to support parents in their SECOND SUGGESTION
Do it together. Remember in primary school we 4 THIRD SUGGESTION
Teach her that the idea of “gender roles” is “Because you are a girl” is never a reason for I remember being told as a child to “bend There have been recent Nigerian social that we are still talking about cooking as some The knowledge of cooking does not come
pre-installed in a vagina. Cooking is learned. We also need to question the idea of mar- It is interesting to me how early the world . 1 ad outfits in vibrant shades ‘rhe boys’ section 1
I 5 of blue. Because I thought blue would be ador- looked horrified. “Blue for a girl?” marketing person who invented this pink-blue neutral” is silly because it is premised on the age and displayed in all colors? The bodies of
male and female infants are similar, after all. arranged by gender. Toys for boys are mostly r6 1 had not quite realized how early society starts
to invent ideas of what a boy should be and what I wished the toys had been arranged by type, Did I ever tell you about going to a U.S. mall mother? She saw a toy helicopter, one of those I have never for gotten that. Her mother If we don’t place the straitjacket of gender
17 roles on young children, we give them space strengths in an individual way. Do not measure A young Nigerian woman once told me that Another acqu · 18 . tl,e Pacific Northwest, once told me that 1 n · play group, where babies had been brought by of baby girls were very restraining, constantly nice,” and she noticed that the baby boys were Gender roles are so deeply conditioned in us . . . t to make sure that and so 1t 1s important to ry · h ‘d f gender roles, teach her self-reliance. Tell her FOURTH SUGGESTION
Beware the danger of what I call Feminism
Lite. It is the idea of conditional female equal- 1 equa 1ty o Feminism Lite uses analog,.ies 1 ·k··” “h . head and you are the neck” 0 “} . . . _ · . r 1e 1s Jn v,ng
on the subject. I had over the years also helped
care for many babies ofloved ones; I had worked
as a babysitter and helped raise my nephews and
nieces. ·1 had done a lot of watching and listen-
. and 1 had
write her a letter, which I hoped would be honest
for my own feminist thinking. This book is a
Now that I, too, am the mother of a delight-
advice about raising a child when you are not
facing the enormously complex reality of it
yourself.
est conversations about raising children differ-
ently, about trying to create a fairer world for
women and men.
“try” to follow my suggestions.
am determined to try.
Adaora. She is so beautiful. Only a week old
and she already looks curious about the world.
What a magnificent thing you have done,
bringing a human being into the world. “Con-
gratulations” feels too slight.
foolishly emotional sometimes. Please know that
I take your charge-how to raise her feminist-
very seriously. And I understand what you mean
by not always knowing what the feminist re-
is always contextual. I don’t have a set-in-stone
“Feminist Tools” and I want to share them with
you as a starting point.
ing belief that you start off with. What is your
premise? Your feminist premise should be: I
matter. I matter equally. Not “if only.” Not “as
long as.” I matter equally. Full stop.
verse X and get the same results?
woman’s feminist response to a husband’s in-
fidelity should be to leave. But I think staying
can also be a feminist choice, depending on the
context. If Chudi sleeps with another woman
and you forgive him; would the same be true
if you slept with another man? If the answer
is yes, then your choosing to forgive him can
be a feminist choice because it is not shaped by
gender-based-that absurd idea of “men will be
dard for men.
Chizalum. But remember that you might do all
the things I suggest, and she will still turn out
to be different from what you hoped, because
sometimes life just does its thing. What matters
is that you try. And always trust your instincts
above all else, because you will be guided by
your love for your child.
hut do not defi ne yo urself solely by mot her-
hood. Be a full person. Your child will benefit
from that. The pioneering American journal-
who was the mother of a son), once gave this
piece of advice to a younger journalist: “Never
apologize for working. You love what you do,
and loving what you do is a great gift to give
I find this to be so wise and moving. You don’t
what your job does for you-the confidence
and self-fulfillment that come with doing and
earnmg.
says you should be a “traditional” mother and
stay home, that Chudi can afford not to have a
double-income family .
tify anything. Tell her that a double . ‘ -mcorne
befor e British colonialism, trading was exclu-
She would know this if reading books were not
such an alien enterprise to her. Okay, that snark
was to cheer you up. I know you are annoyed-
and you should be-but it is really best to ig-
nore her. Everybody will have an opinion about
what you should do, but what matters is what
you want for yourself, and not what others want
you to want. Please reject the idea that mother-
hood and work are mutually exclusive.
were growing up, and we turned out well-at
least you did; the jury is still out on me.
hood, be kind to yourself. Ask for help. Expect
to be helped. There is no such thing as a Su-
perwoman. Parenting is about practice-and
root of the global middle-class phenomenon of
“parenting” as one endless, anxious journey of
guilt.)
does not necessarily know how to calm a cry-
ing baby. Don’t assume that you should know
everything. Read books, look things up on the
Internet, ask older parents, or just use trial and
error. But above all, let your focus be on re-
maining a full person. Take time for yoursel£
Nurture your own needs.
Our culture celebrates the idea of women who
are able to “do it all” but does not question the
premise of that praise. I have no interest in the
debate about women “doing it all ” because it is
a debate that assumes that caregiving and do –
mestic work are singula rly female doma ·
caregiving should be gender-neutral, and we
should be asking not whether a woman can “do
dual duties at work and at home.
learned that a verb was a “doing” word? Well,
a father is as much a verb as a mother. Chudi
should do everything that biology allows-
which is everything but breastfeeding. Some-
times mothers, so conditioned to be all and
do all, are complicit in diminishing the role of
fathers. You might think that Chudi will not
bathe her exactly as you’d like, that he might
not wipe her bu m as perfec tly as you do. But
so what? What is the worst that can happen?
absolute nonsense. Do not ever tell her that
she should or should not do something because
she is a girl.
anything. Ever.
down properly while sweeping, like a girl.”
Which meant that sweeping was about being
female. I wish I had been told simply “bend
down and sweep properly because you’ll dean
the floor better.” And I wish my brothers had
been told the same thing.
media debates about women and cooking,
about how wives have to cook for husbands. It
is funny, in the way that sad things are funny,
kind of marriageability test for women.
Cooking-domestic work in general-is a life
skill that both men and women should ideally
have. It is also a skill that can elude both men
and women.
riage as a prize to women, because that is the
basis of these absurd debates. If we stopped
conditioning women to see marriage as a prize,
then we would have fewer debates about a wife
needing to cook in order to earn that prize.
starts to invent gender roles. Yesterday I went
to a children’s shop to buy Chizalum an out-
fit. In the girls’ section were pale creations in
washed-out shades of pink. I disliked them.
able against her brown skin-and photograph
better-I bought one. At the checkout counter,
the cashier said mine was the perfect present
for the new boy. I said it was for a baby girl. She
I cannot help but wonder about the clever
binary. There was also a “gender-neutral” sec-
tion, with its array of bloodless grays. “Gender-
idea of male being blue and female being pink
and “gender-neutral” being its own category.
Why not just have baby clothes organized by
I looked at the toy section, which was also
active, and involve some sort of doing-t rains,
cars-and toys for girls are mostly passive and
are overwhelmingly doll s. I was struck by this .
a girl should be.
rather than by gender.
with a seven-year-old Nigerian girl and her
things that fly by wireless remote control, and
she was fascinated and asked for one. “No,” her
mother said. “You have your dolls.” And she re-
sponded, “Mummy, is it only dolls I will play
with?”
meant well, obviously. She was well versed in
the ideas of gender roles-that girls play with
dolls and boys with helicopters. I wonder now,
wistfully, if the little girl would have turned out
to be a revolutionary engineer, had she been
given a chance to explore that helicopter.
to reach their full potential. Please see Chiza-
lum as an individual. Not as a girl who should
be a certain way. See her weaknesses and her
her on a scale of what a girl should be. Mea-
sure her on a scale of being the best version of
hersel£
she had for years behaved “like a boy”-she
liked football and was bored by dresses-until
her mother forced her to stop her “boyish” in-
terests. Now she is grateful to her mother for
helping her start behaving like a girl. The story
made me sad. I wondered what parts of herself
she had needed to silence and stifle, and I won-
dered about what her spirit had lost, because
what she called “behaving like a boy” was sim-
ply behaving like herself.
a1ntance, an Amer.ican living
when she took her one-year-old son to a baby
their mothers, she noticed that the mothers
telling the girls “don’t touch” or “stop and be
encouraged to explore more and were not re-
strained as much and were almost never told to
“b . “H h h e nice. er t eory wast at parents uncon-
sciously start very early to teach girls how to
be, that baby girls are given less room and more
rules and baby boys more room and fewer rules.
that we will often follow them even when they
chafe against our true desires, our needs, our
happiness. They are very difficult to unlearn,
Chizalum reJ· ects them from the beginning.
I d f letting her internalize t e t ea o nstea o ·
that it is important to be able to do for her-
self and fend for herself Teach her to try to fix
physical things when they break. We are quick
to assume girls can’t do many things. Let her
try. She might not fully succeed, but let her try.
Buy her toys like blocks and trains-and dolls,
too, if you want to.
ity. Please reject this entirely. It is a hollow, ap-
peasing, and bankrupt idea. Being a feminist is
like being pregnant. You either are or you are
not. You either believe in the full
. f
men and women or you do not.
, 1 e e 1s the