We Should All Be Feminists

“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...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 denying that the problem of gender targets women. That the problem was not about being human, but specifically about being a female human.” (p. 41)

This also strikes me as a phenomenal explanation of why “all lives matter” is not an acceptable modification of “Black lives matter”. The problem is the targeting of Black lives, and to try to broaden the scope of the issue (for certain people's comfort, as Adichie implies) results in erasure of the actual problem, sweeping it under the rug rather than highlighting the concern so that it must be directly seen and confronted.

As a whole, this essay is an excellent primer or refresher course on the basics of feminism: what it is, why it is needed, how people respond to the concept. It is largely basic information, but it is written clearly and engagingly, and even those of us well-familiar with the topic may benefit from this work as a quick refresher, or find new, compelling explanations or phrasings of concepts. Adichie also includes many examples and anecdotes from her own experiences in Nigeria, which may provide a novel and important intersectional perspective for many white/Western feminists.