I first came to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's work via The Thing Around Your Neck. I like short story collections for discovering new authors because there's so much less commitment -- I read a couple of stories and if I like them I continue; if not, I've only lost a few minutes of my time. The former, in this case.
I finished The Thing Around Your Neck (full of eloquent, insightful and sometimes snarky observations on being Nigerian in Nigeria vs. the US) and later had my heart broken by Purple Hibiscus. Since finishing Americanah in 2013 Adichie has stepped away from fiction to write concise manifestos of feminism: first We Should All Be Feminists (fairly self-explanatory), and now Dear Ijeawele, on how to raise a feminist. Both are very short and easy to read so you can easily finish one in your lunch break.
It's all very common sense stuff but depressingly it apparently needs to be said. Things like: Don't let motherhood consume you. Share parenthood equally. Bin the concept of gender roles. (That last one especially difficult to do in today's blue and pink segregated toy aisles.)
I cannot overstate the power of alternatives. She can counter ideas about static 'gender roles' if she has been empowered by her familiarity with alternatives. If she knows an uncle who cooks well - and does so with indifference - then she can smile and brush off the foolishness of somebody who claims that 'women must do the cooking'.
Some advice is more specific to raising an Igbo daughter, but you can easily substitute your own cultural heritage in her suggestion to cultivate a strong sense of identity, or in recognising the pros and cons of the society you live in.
Teach her never to universalize her own standards or experiences. Teach her that her standards are for her alone, and not for other people. This is the only necessary form of humility: the realization that difference is normal.
I wish someone had sat me down as a child and explained some of these things to me. Especially that I don't have to be nice to everyone: kind, yes, but I don't owe it to other people to be nice to them when they are hurting me. It can be difficult to have opinions on the internet without being stomped on, but that doesn't mean we should silence ourselves.
I don't have any children but I have an interest in making this world easier for everyone to live in, and the suggestions in Dear Ijeawele seem like a good place to start.
Dear Ijeawele, Or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Published by HarperCollins
ISBN: 9780008241032
Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions
Add a comment to: Review: Dear Ijeawele