Less than a month after it was revealed that the UK is planning to drop feminism from the politics A-level, every 16-year-old in Sweden is being given a copy ofChimamanda Ngozi Adichie\u2019s call to arms, We Should All Be Feminists.<\/p>\n
The essay, adapted from Adichie\u2019s award-winning TED talk of the same name, is being distributed in Swedish to high-school students by the Swedish Women\u2019s Lobby and publisher Albert Bonniers.<\/p>\n
Launching the project at Norra Real high school in Stockholm this week, they said they hoped the book would \u201cwork as a stepping stone for a discussion about gender equality and feminism\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy own definition of a feminist is a man or a woman who says, \u2018Yes, there\u2019s a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better,\u2019\u201d writes Adichie in the essay. \u201cAll of us, women and men, must do better.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people ask: \u2018Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?\u2019 Because that would be dishonest,\u201d Adichie continues. \u201cFeminism is, of course, part of human rights in general \u2013 but 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 pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Nigerian novelist is also critical of modern masculinity, calling it a \u201chard, small cage\u201d that forces men to hide emotion. \u201cWe teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability,\u201d she writes. \u201cWe teach them to mask their true selves, because they have to be, in Nigerian-speak \u2013 a hard man.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the book that I wish all of my male classmates would have read when I was 16,\u201d said Clara Berglund, chair of the Swedish Women\u2019s Lobby, announcing the giveaway. \u201cIt feels so important to contribute to this project. It is a gift to all second-grade high-school students, but it is also a gift to ourselves and future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adichie\u2019s essay was published in English last autumn. The 2012 TED talk has been watched by more than 2 million people on YouTube and was sampled by Beyonc\u00e9 in her single Flawless, including the lines: \u201cWe teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, \u2018You can have ambition, but not too much.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The novelist, in a video message for students played at the Stockholm launch event, said that for her, \u201cfeminism is about justice\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a feminist because I want to live in a world that is more just. I\u2019m a feminist because I want to live in a world where a woman is never told that she can or cannot or should or should not do anything because she is a woman. I want to live in a world where men and women are happier. Where they are not constrained by gender roles. I want to live in a world where men and women are truly equal. And that\u2019s why I\u2019m a feminist,\u201d said Adichie, who won the 2007 Orange prize for her novel Half of a Yellow Sun.<\/p>\n
She continued: \u201cWhen I was 16, I don\u2019t think I knew what the word \u2018feminist\u2019 meant. I don\u2019t think I knew the word at all. But I was a feminist. And I hope that the 16-year-olds that will read this book in Sweden will also decide that they\u2019re feminists. Mostly, I hope very soon that one day we will not need to be feminists. Because we will live in a world that is truly just and equal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The organisations behind the project, which is supported by the UN Association of Sweden, the Swedish Trade Union Conferation, the Order of the Teaspoon, Unizon and Gertrud \u00c5str\u00f6m, hope that teachers will integrate We Should All Be Feminists into their teaching, and will be distributing discussion guidelines to help.<\/p>\n
Publisher Johanna Haegerstr\u00f6m said: \u201cOur hope is that the Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie text will open up a conversation about gender and gender roles, starting from young people\u2019s own experiences.\u201d
\n–
\nBy: theguardian.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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