Katrina's Reviews > Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

Ah, I badly wanted to give this five stars, since Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the only author who's earned that rating for every single one of her books thus far. This one's just a little too simplistic for that last star.

I'm not convinced it should've been published as-is. I think it was a little lazy to publish a (slightly edited) version of a letter to a friend. While it does follow in the tradition of publishing things such as graduation ceremony speeches, having a singular addressee limits the audience far more than something that was originally geared toward hundreds (even thousands) of individuals.

Adichie's writing is eloquent, sharply intelligent, and thoughtful, as always. She has very important things to say about raising a girl in a world where being female comes with an almost unavoidable set of restrictions, limitations, and assumptions. I agree with nearly all of what she says, particularly the point she hammers home over and over about marriage and children not being something that should define a female's sense of self-worth.

One of my final thoughts as I closed the book was: "But why isn't she talking about how to raise a feminist son?" The answer is, of course, that she was writing to a friend who had just given birth to a daughter. Another question is: Am I feeding into my own internalized, socially-influenced sexism by wanting the conversation to be about men, too? But no, I think it's important to put that weight on the men, too.

Adichie does talk about this sort of thing more in her earlier (and similar) book, We Should All Be Feminists, which is the volume I would recommend if you're only going to read one of these. It's crucial for women to be raised in a way that affirms their individuality, their value, and their independence. But for equality to truly happen, you can't just tell women to be confident and self-assured, because men are still in power, oppressing women, and being raised to believe that women are something to be owned, earned, or controlled. We cannot change society without changing the mindsets of women and men.

I go to work believing I am as valuable as any man or woman there. That doesn't change the fact that men are more likely to be promoted or recognized for their work or that women, on average, earn less money than men for doing similar work or having similar experience.

The other issue I had was Adichie's focus (which she admitted in passing) on heterosexuality as the norm. "I'm writing this assuming she is heterosexual," she tells her friend. "I am assuming that because it is what I feel best equipped to talk about." This wasn't a book about sexuality, no. Her editor probably would have told her it was muddying the message if she'd tried to include that in this slim essay. But I think assuming heterosexuality is as damaging as any number of the other anti-feminist assumptions she cut away at here.

I'm sounding more critical than I intend to be, because I'm only writing about the parts that felt insufficient to me. The rest was typical Adichie, which is a high compliment. This one just lacked a wider, more expansive view, which made it a very wonderful letter to a friend but didn't exactly make it worthy of publication. I wish she'd taken more time to expand it into a true set of essays, because I know she'd have more brilliant thoughts about these topics that would shine if given the space to do so.