Letter to Ms. Adichie, respond to TED Talk “We Should All Be Feminists”

Good afternoon Ms. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

My name is Anna, I am a student at Borough of Manhattan Community College in NYC. First, of all, I would like to tell you that you are a person who can inspire. The very first of your’s TedTalk that I watched was “Danger Of a Single Story” and I have to strongly agree with your point of how a single story can be powerful, destructive, and harmful. But today I am writing this letter to you because in my college English class, I watched your Ted Talk “We Should All Be Feminists”. I like this speech because it is very true to what you are talking about. First, I like how you pointed back to the situation in your school when your score on the class test was higher than other classmates, but the teacher chose the boy to be the class monitor, just because he was a boy, no matter if he was not interested in it. It shows how gender get mattered when you were a little girl and how you felt disappointed. It could greatly impact your future view of the relationship between women and men. You reminded about the situation once you tipped for parking but the men who worked there said “thank you” to your male friend, not to you. I do not like it eighter, this is disrespectful. And you are right now even if there are more women than men in the world most of the positions of power and prestige are occupied by men. In this world a man is perceived as a stronger person, therefore he can be a leader. But how you said, “Today we live in a vastly different world. The person more likely to lead is not the physically stronger person, it is the more creative person, the more intelligent person, the more innovative person, and there are no hormones for those attributes”.  I completely agree with you, let the women be a leader too. Of course, not every man’s job can be done by a woman but also the men cannot be pregnant. But man supposes to help the woman raise kids while she can go to the job and make a career. They can raise the kids and find a way to do that together. It supposes to be a balance. Now, how humiliating was the situation in a hotel in Nigeria, when a woman walks in and the guy at the entrance ask her an annoying question, suggesting she is a sex worker? Or in the restaurant when the waiter greets the man and ignores the woman? I feel upset too like you did., I am angry too. And I agree that we should raise girls and boys differently, the girls should know their value, and the boys should not be afraid of fear. Maybe then they will be more understanding of each other. Men do not have to be always superheroes; women do not have to be wick but they are supposed to support each other. How true is what you said, “The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are”.  Raise the girls and boys equally so the men will not feel ashamed when they have to cook dinner or change a diaper once their wives are at work or going to the gym. You have a right Ms. Adichie, “Gender matters. Men and women experience the world differently”. But the most important is respect for each other. Respect the rights of both gender and respect each other. How wise are these words, “Culture does not make people. People make culture”? And I strongly agree with your definition of feminist. A feminist is “a man or a woman who says, Yes, there is a problem with gender as it is today, and we must fix it, we must do better.” The man will not feel emasculated when he helps a woman, or she will do the job similar to his and get pay similar. A woman will not feel less valuable when she will work hard and earn less than a man.

Thank you,

Have a nice day,

Anna Wrobel