What are you reading?

We Should All Be Feminists Genre?

Non-fiction (gender studies).

How did you get hold of it? How far have you got?

I bought it from Kinokuniya.

What’s it about? A rape survivor takes a memory-erasing PTSD drug leading to unexpected consequences.

Finished.

What’s it about? A short e-book based on Chimamanda’s TED Talk of the same name, the book explores what it means to be a feminist in the modern world and other issues such as gender expectations. Chimamanda makes her points gently but effectively, drawing on her own experiences and those of her friends, both from her homeland Nigeria and from the US. She speaks of the time when she wasn’t made a class monitor just because she was a girl, even though she met the criterion of scoring the highest marks in class – something that shook her nine-year-old self to the very core.

Chimamanda touches on the topic of society’s misperception of a feminist as a male-hater, and discusses how women are often criticised for the same attributes that men are praised for. For example, a male CEO is likely to be praised for his assertiveness, while that’s not usually the case for a female CEO. She doesn’t blame men for this “grave injustice”, but discusses the need for our culture to evolve for a fairer world.

Would you recommend it? I would highly recommend it to all, especially to women and to young people curious about gender issues, because this is a great introduction. Chimamanda’s tone is very conversational and not at all pedantic, which makes this book a good read!

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