Monday, March 16, 2020

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie


Source of book: Borrowed from the library. 

Every March for the past 7 years, I have read a selection for Women’s History Month. I have generally chosen works connected with Feminism. Although demonized by the Cultural Fundamentalist circles I was raised in (and sadly by an increasingly reactionary and fundamentalist Evangelicalism as well), it really shouldn’t be controversial. Feminism is simply this:

The Cultural, Political, and Economic Equality of men and women.

Of course, the problem with this for many is that this idea is anathema to them. Their worldview depends on a structural inequality of the sexes, one where men control the institutions of power and the money we use as a means of exchange. In order to justify this, they cling to ideas of a congenital inferiority of women (whatever euphemisms they use to deny this), whereby women are unfit for leadership, or even control of their own lives and destinies.

Here are my selections for previous years:

A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft (2015)
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (2016)
Woman Lawyer: The Trials of Clara Foltz by Barbara Babcock (2017)
The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (2018)
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (2019) 

***

 
For this year, I decided to read Adichie’s short book - pamphlet really - adapted from her marvelous TED talk. I was already pretty familiar with it, but wanted to check and see if it was something that I would put on my list to recommend. 

The thing that rings the most true about Adichie’s experiences as detailed in the book is the way that “Feminism” is used as an epithet. It certainly was in my family, sadly. The ironic thing is that my dad is actually a feminist in practice, most of the time: he has never believed certain things were “women’s work,” he vigorously enforced policies against sexual harassment when he was a supervisor, and I have never known him to do anything inappropriate toward a woman. So it really was disheartening to hear him, even recently, complain that feminism had ruined everything. Sigh. 

I used to believe kind of the same thing, because I bought the Fundie/Conservative bullshit about what Feminism was really about. You know, man hating, humorless, whatever. And also, it was easier to believe that most (secretly all) women wanted to be stay at home mothers rather than work, because biology, when the women closest to me said that was what they wanted. 

The thing is, having strong women as music teachers kind of made that seem silly. And then, once I got into law, well, the whole thing fell apart. And that was before I met my wife…

Anyway, here are some highlights. 

But I remember that as I argued and argued, Okoloma looked at me and said, “You know, you’re a feminist.”
It was not a complement. I could tell from his tone -- the same tone with which a person would say, “You’re a supporter of terrorism.” 

Unfortunately, this is still a problem. I am now an open feminist, but that means that I am looked on like a serial killer in certain circles. Usually, this is because of the lies about feminism which are believed as (literally) gospel truth. I love this bit in the book:

Anyway, since feminism was un-African, I decided I would now call myself a Happy African Feminist. Then a dear friend told me that calling myself a feminist meant that I hated men. So I decided I would now be a Happy African Feminist Who Does Not Hate Men. At some point I was a Happy African Feminist Who Does Not Hate Men And Who Likes To Wear Lip Gloss And High Heels For Herself And Not For Men. 
Of course much of this was tongue-in-cheek, but what it shows is how that word feminist is so heavy with baggage, negative baggage: you hate men, you hate bras, you hate African culture, you think women should always be in charge, you don’t wear make-up, you don’t shave, you’re always angry, you don’t have a sense of humour, you don’t use deodorant. 

In my case, instead of “African,” use “Christian.” Because in those circles, gender roles and gender essentialism have become core beliefs of the religion. 

Another bit that really stood out was this one. 

We spend too much time teaching girls to worry about what boys think of them. But the reverse is not the case. We don’t teach boys to care about being likeable. We spend too much time telling girls that they cannot be angry or aggressive or tough, which is bad enough, but then we turn around and either praise or excuse men for the same reasons. All over the world, there are so many magazine articles and books telling women what to do, how to be and not to be, in order to attract or please men. There are far fewer guides for men about pleasing women. 

True story: before my wife and I were dating, she visited us, riding with a family member who stopped by a neighbor’s briefly. We heard later that she (who was my grandmother’s age) told my mom, “she seemed really sweet until she opened her mouth.” And that is kind of how it has been. Amanda is not concerned about making men like her. She isn’t interested in playing the femininity game. She doesn’t dress based on what men think, and doesn’t particularly care about “likeability.” This has, alas, caused unnecessary friction with my family. As has this one:

I know a woman who hates domestic work, but she pretends she likes it, because she has been taught that to be ‘good wife material’, she has to be -- to use that Nigerian word -- homely. And then she got married. And her husband’s family began to complain that she had changed. Actually, she had not changed. She just got tired of pretending to be what she was not. 

Not that Amanda ever pretended, but there is this expectation that women pretend that their greatest joy in life is childcare and housework. She refused to pretend to be who she was not. Like Dorothy Sayers, Adichie homes in on the core issue:

The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. Imagine how much happier we would be, how freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn’t have the weight of gender expectations. 

And that is exactly what feminism is about. 

Adichie also notes that sexism also hurts men, who are taught to be hard, violent, and so on, so they are “not like a woman.” I also loved that she noted the connection between masculinity and money. A man’s worth is measured by his paycheck, which leaves lower income males seeking to prove their manliness through other, less beneficial means. 

I also recognized Amanda in another passage. 

A Nigerian acquaintance once asked me if I was worried that men would be intimidated by me.
I was not worried at all -- it had not even occurred to me to be worried, because a man who would be intimidated by me is exactly the kind of man I would have no interest in. 

This is one hundred percent Amanda. One reason she liked me was that I am not intimidated by strong women. Actually, I rather like strong women. I like working with them, because they don’t play stupid manipulative games. I like competence. Just saying. 

One final bit that struck me was this one. 

Some people ask, ‘Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?’ Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general -- but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women. That the problem was not about being human, but specifically about being a female human. For centuries, the world divided human beings into two groups and then proceeded to exclude and oppress one group. It is only fair that the solution to the problem should acknowledge that.

And that is the crux of the problem with the denialism so trendy in right wing circles right now. On a related note, the “all lives matter” bullshit didn’t arise until “black lives matter.” This nonsense about being concerned for all rights is just a deflection whenever an excluded group protests. 

Adichie is right: we should all be feminists. And we should be clear what it means to not be a feminist as well. It is nothing less than opposition to social, economic, and political equality for women. 

***

As I write this, much of our state is being shut down to try to slow the spread of the Covid-19 virus. The effect on our family will be that Amanda (who is an ICU nurse) will likely be working a lot of extra shifts to keep our healthcare system functioning. I, on the other hand, will essentially lose a couple months of income. That means that our roles (which are already more egalitarian than most) will have to shift. She will be the primary breadwinner, and I will have to take over most of the household duties. Not a big deal for us, because I don’t measure my worth in dollars, or believe housework is beneath me. And she knows that I respect her career and will support her 100% through this crisis.


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