My friend M has started a resistance Goodreads group for those of us who want to be better activists and more informed feminists. I’m also realizing that I’m in too many Book Clubs now. We’re trying to read a variety of books about activism and intersectionality, so that we can help inform others in our respective circles of influence. Because this group started in February, M suggested that we start with Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists, which was fine by me, since I haven’t […]
We should.
This would make a nice gift to a lot of people in all our lives. It’s not radical, it’s not even that transgressive, but it is clear and succinct. This essay, which I listened to the author read, is a perfect distillation of the goals and tenets of feminism, while even addressing the hangups so many people have with the word itself. It’s not a perfect text, but it is a well-reasoned and carefully argued text that has layers of argument embedded within it. If […]
Parts Better than the Whole, for sure
This is my third Chimamanda Adichie book. Previously I have read Purple Hibiscus and Americanah. In both previous books, I enjoyed the richness of language and the careful, detailed narration. I think I also must have enjoyed the relatively long gap between reading them, because having read Americanah not that long ago sort of soured this book a little. In part, this was souring because one of the stories traces some of the specific plot from that book or closely enough borrows the narration that […]
“I am angry. We should all be angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change.”
Raise your hand if you have been called a feminist as a derisive term. Raise your hand if you have ever had to explain to someone that feminism is, in fact, not the hatred of men or the wishing to take something away from them but rather believing in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. Raise both your hands if you’ve experienced that from someone younger than you. My hands are raised. I am, on the best of days, probably a lazy […]