We Should All Be Feminists

“You hate men, you hate bras, you hate African culture, you think women should always be in charge, you don’t wear makeup, you don’t shave, you’re always angry, you don’t have a sense of humor, you don’t use deodorant.”

Adichie is both serious and flippant in this passage. She’s highlighting the many negative stereotypes of feminists, including the stereotype that feminists are always women. Her blunt conversational tone shows her frustration with these stereotypes, which are usually more implied than stated outright. In stating them outright, Adichie means to emphasize their unreasonableness and their inherent sexism.

“I often make the mistake of thinking that something that is obvious to me is just as obvious to everyone else.”

Adichie is referring here to her personal experiences of sexism. Such experiences are often ignored or dismissed because they’re quiet, habitual, or both. This line also anticipates Adichie’s later discussion of different systems of oppression—and how one oppressed group can be oblivious to the experiences of another.

“We have evolved. But our ideas of gender have not evolved very much.”

Adichie is referring here to how men outnumber women in prominent leadership positions. She states that this male dominance was natural a long time ago, when our world was less complicated and physical strength was an important attribute for dominance, but that it makes less sense in our modern world, in which effective leadership requires attributes other than physical strength—attributes that men and women share equally.