I had read her before I met her and it was through her crazily arresting first novel, Purple Hibiscus. The storyline, the dialogue, the simplicity, the closing lines… Breath-takingly beautiful and the reason, quite clearly, is its engaging allure and, more importantly, its simplicity.
My colleague, Ibrahim Ismaila Ahmed, describes simplicity as an effort. Indeed. While Chimamanda’s books look and read simple, the craft of simplicity is a great effort. Writing fiction as if it were real life takes a lot of doing. I have read all her books except Half of a Yellow Sun and my favourite of all times is ‘The thing around Your Neck’, a collection of fantastic homegrown, America-related short stories. Perhaps, as a short story writer myself, I relate quite easily with the beauty of the craft and the joy or shock, as the case maybe, that kicks in at the end of every short story.
The twist in the tale. That’s the gorgeousness of short stories, which is the reason I am a lifetime fan of Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer who writes the most nimble stories ever. But this is not about short stories nor Nadine Gordimer. This is about Chimamanda’s latest outing on feminism.
After delivering her very profound position on award-winning Beyoncé, she sang Flawless about power to the woman. This is about Chimamanda’s new book from her Tedx Euston talk in December 2012. As a Tedx Aso Rock speaker myself, I know how it feels to speak candidly, freely and give an opinion on an issue that is very dear to one’s heart or an issue that one has severally interrogated or experienced. Chimamanda’s Tedx talk, which I missed on social media, has become her latest piece of work in the International Book Market.
Titled ‘We should all be Feminists, it is a seminal piece of non-fiction, brilliant in a sizzling manner; it speaks to most issues concerning women that have often bothered me to the point of despair. Here are some take home quotes. “…My teacher said at the beginning of term that she would give the class a test and whoever got the highest score would be the class monitor. ..
If you were class monitor, you would write down the names of noise-makers each day, which was heady enough power on its own, but my teacher would also give you a cane to hold in your hand while you walked around and patrolled the class for noise-makers. Of course, you were not allowed to actually use the cane. But it was an exciting prospect for the nine-year-old me…
I got the highest score on the test. Then to my surprise, my teacher said the monitor had to be a boy. She had forgotten to make that clear earlier; she assumed it was obvious. A boy had the second-highest score on the test. And he would be monitor. What was even more interesting was that this boy was a sweet, gentle soul who had no interest in patrolling the class with a stick.
While I was full of ambition to do so. But I was female and he was male and he became class monitor. I have never forgotten the incident. If we do something over and over again, it becomes normal. If we see the same thing over and over again, it becomes normal. If only boys are made class monitor, then at some point we will all think, even if unconsciously, that the class monitor has to be a boy. If we keep seeing only men as heads of corporations, it starts to seem ‘natural’ that only men should be heads of corporations’.
“In my family, I am the child who is most interested in the story of who we are, in ancestral lands, in our tradition. My brothers are not as interested as I am. But I cannot participate, because Igbo culture privileges men, and only the male members of the extended family can attend the meetings where major family decisions are taken…I cannot have a formal say.
Because I am female. Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture”.
In another part of the book she talks about giving money to a man who helped park her car and how, to her dismay, the man turned and looked across at her friend (male) Louis and said “Thank you Sah!” Wow!
“I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femininity. And I want to be respected in all my femaleness. Because I deserve to be…” “… My own definition of a feminist is a man or a woman who says ‘Yes, there’s a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better’.
All of us, women and men, must do better”. Need I say more? These are things I have said over and over again and observed in its entirety. Chimamanda has spoken for women, she has spoken for humanity. She has said all the things I have always said but went a step further to put it in a book.
A great read!
Eugenia Abu
