Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

“Motherhood is a glorious gift, but do not define yourself solely by motherhood. Be a full person. Your child will benefit from that.”

There is a tension at the core of the author’s view of motherhood. On the one hand, motherhood is a positive thing and feminists should support women who make the choice to be mothers. At the same time, women should be careful not to subsume their identity under motherhood entirely. In fact, the best thing mothers can do for themselves and for their children is to maintain a sense of identity apart from that of “mother.” So, both denigrating motherhood completely and venerating motherhood completely are both problematic positions for the author. A true feminist must sail the middle path between these two extremes.

“[The father] should do everything that biology allows—which is everything but breastfeeding.”

This is a great example of paraprosdokian, which involves setting up an expectation only to overturn it to humorous effect. The first part of the sentence sets up the expectation, as the proponent of “traditional” gender roles would have it that the father’s role in child-raising is limited by his biology. The second part of the sentence overturns this expectation by stating that, on the contrary, there is nothing about the father’s biology that should limit his role in child-raising, with the one exception of his inability to breastfeed.

“He loves her. It’s good for her to be cared for by her father. So look away, arrest your perfectionism, still you’re socially conditioned sense of Duty.”

Women are sometimes complicit in enforcing unfair gender dynamics that disadvantage them. One example of this is when women wilfully limit the father’s role in childcare responsibilities out of fear that he will do it incorrectly. Here, the author uses asyndeton to implore mothers to be self-critical and resist the temptation to do everything themselves. The function of asyndeton in this sentence is very different from the previous usage. Here, asyndeton allows the author to begin each clause with a verb so that the sentence becomes a list of imperatives directed at the reader.

“I remember being told as a child to ‘bend 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 clean the floor better.’ And I wish my brothers had been told the same thing.”

This is an example of a personal anecdote the author uses to support a general point about how language reinforces gender roles. When people repeatedly use the phrase “like a girl” in conjunction with certain activities or behaviors, the overall effect is to mark that activity or behavior as feminine—in this case, the act of sweeping. The value of personal anecdotes like this one is not only to provide concrete examples of more general philosophical arguments but also to make the reader feel the devastating subjective consequences of such practices.

“If we don’t place the straitjacket of gender roles on young children, we give them space to reach their full potential.”

Here, the author uses analogy to reveal something about the nature of gender roles. She compares gender roles to a “straitjacket,” which has a very negative connotation, evoking images of a person who is trapped and constrained. The analogy achieves two things: Firstly, it presents gender roles as something artificial that is imposed on the body, rather than essential to it. Secondly, it presents the struggle to be rid of gender roles as a personal struggle for freedom.

“There must be more than male benevolence as the basis for a woman’s well-being.”

The expression “male benevolence” is an example of irony, since the author doesn’t believe it’s out of benevolence that men exercise control over women. The use of irony is effective here because the reader knows that benevolence is too high a standard for anyone to achieve; it’s precisely because men are not benevolent that women can’t rely on their benevolence.

“Language is the repository of our prejudices, our beliefs, our assumptions.”

Here, we have the metaphor of language as a kind of container for a culture’s beliefs and attitudes. The idea is that the language we use contains baggage that we don’t always intend, including prejudices, stereotypes, and other negative connotations—and not only in the sentences we make but in the individual words themselves. This is a rather convenient metaphor for the author because it justifies her preoccupation with language. If we can change the language people use, then that’s a step in the right direction to changing cultural attitudes and behaviors.

“Teach her that if you criticize X in women but do not criticize X in men, then you do not have a problem with X, you have a problem with women. For X, please insert words like anger, ambition, loudness, stubbornness, coldness, ruthlessness.”

This is a unique instance of importing a technique from mathematics into written language. By substituting a noun with X, the author has transformed a specific assertion into a general formula. This formula can be used by anyone at any time to determine whether one is employing a double standard for men and women.

“The value we give to Mrs means that marriage changes the social status of a woman but not that of a man. (Is that perhaps why many women complain of married men still ‘acting’ as though they were single? Perhaps if our society asked married men to change their names and take on a new title, different from Mr, their behavior might change as well?”

The author argues that, since men are not obligated to advertise their marital status, they are free to continue acting as though they are single, whereas women don’t have the same luxury. In other words, something as minor as a title change can have significant ramifications on how men and women express and realize their sexuality after marriage. The use of rhetorical questions here is appropriate because the argument enters speculative territory. No one can be certain exactly how changing marital practices would impact men’s behavior. However, the use of rhetorical questions leaves the point open-ended and free for the reader to imagine.

“We teach girls to be likeable, to be nice, to be false. And we do not teach boys the same. This is dangerous. Many sexual predators have capitalized on this. Many girls remain silent when abused because they want to be nice. Many girls spend too much time trying to be ‘nice’ to people who do them harm. Many girls think of the ‘feelings’ of those who are hurting them. This is the catastrophic consequence of likability.”

The point Adichie makes here is that the way we condition young girls to behave leaves them vulnerable to abuse when they grow up. The literary device she employs is anaphora, whereby a phrase is repeated at the beginning of several successive sentences. In this case, four sentences in a row begin with the word “many” and three of those begin with “many girls.” The repetition of “many girls” here serves to drive home that this is a widespread problem. It also generates a feeling of urgency in searching for a solution. 

“In every culture in the world, female sexuality is about shame. Even cultures that expect women to be sexy—like many in the West—still do not expect them to be sexual.”

Here we have an example of polyptoton, which is a rhetorical device that employs a repetition of a root word in the same sentence. In this case, the repeated words are “sexy and “sexual,” which imply that there is a difference between being a sex “object” and a sex “subject.” This device serves to draw out a subtle irony. While westerners often take it for granted that western women are sexually liberated, the truth is, western women’s sexuality is still oriented around gratifying men’s sexual appetites as opposed to their own.

“Periods are nothing to be ashamed of. Periods are normal and natural, and the human species would not be here if periods did not exist.”

Still, even today, women can’t speak openly about periods. They must speak about it under their breath. They feel ashamed if they get period blood on their clothes. They pretend like nothing’s wrong even when they’re suffering from intense cramps. The author believes that this needs to change. In the quote above, she overturns the common assessment of periods through an act of reframing: We should be grateful for periods, she tells us, because without them we wouldn’t exist.

“There is sometimes, in the discourse around gender, the assumption that women are supposed to be morally ‘better’ than men. They are not. Women are as human as men are. Female goodness is as normal as female evil.”

Some readers may find it surprising, or even shocking, that the author claims that exalting female virtue is a sexist tendency while affirming female evil is a feminist one. Of course, the point is not that feminists ought to see female evil as a good thing, the point is simply to recognize women as fully human—faults and all. When people go too far in venerating women, they inadvertently present women as a different species to men, even if it is in a positive way.