Talks by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This Blog-post is a response to the Sunday reading task on 'Talks by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie' given by our professor Dr.Dilip Barad Sir. To know about the task, CLICK HERE.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a writer and storyteller, best known for her themes of politics, culture, race, and gender. Her novels, short stories, and plays have all received both public and critical acclaim. (womenofhopkins.com)

 1) The Dangers of Single Story

As it is mentioned in the description of the talk, Our lives, and our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

The talk is based on 'The Dangers of Single Story by one of the very prominent - contemporary figures in feminist and post-colonial discourse. In this video, she talked about how the very idea of poor condition is often talked about by people in certain ways that become more dangerous for their new growing up because the environment is created by society and political agendas as a particular narration of their life. But people couldn't search for their real world and the truth behind the artificial narration done by such troops. I like one incident she shared, 

I come from a conventional, middle-class Nigerian family. My father was a professor. My mother was an administrator. And so we had, as was the norm, live-in domestic help, who would often come from nearby rural villages. So, the year I turned eight, we got a new house boy. His name was Fide. The only thing my mother told us about him was that his family was very poor. My mother sent yams and rice, and our old clothes, to his family. And when I didn’t finish my dinner, my mother would say, “Finish your food! Don’t you know? People like Fide’s family have nothing.” So I felt enormous pity for Fide’s family.

Then one Saturday, we went to his village to visit, and his mother showed us a beautifully patterned basket made of dyed raffia that his brother had made. I was startled. It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually make something. All I had heard about them was how poor they were, so it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor. Their poverty was my single story of them.

Key takeaways: 

- One can not depend on only the given narration. We have to see beyond the given story. If it is not possible, it may create more danger for the character(here in the talk, a speaker talked about her own experience as per about Nigerian or African people)

- As the speaker concluded her speech with a very effective quotation when we reject 'the single story when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.

- Also the media and such power hold peoples use the single story to increase the concern and to make the people within the particular narration for their self-purpose and benefits in politics. 

2) We Should All Be Feminist

In the above talk, the speaker talked about her personal experience behind her writing the book named 'We Should All Be Feminist'. This makes a strong case for the importance of feminism for everyone, not just women. She discusses how the world is not a fair or just place for women, and how we need to fight for gender equality. Adichie's essay is important for what it says, and for how it says it. She is unapologetic and unafraid to speak her truth. This is an essay that will make you think, and it is one that you will want to come back to again and again. Some quite interesting questions she raised: 

"the problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are"

"You can have ambition but not too much"

"Why should a woman's success be a threat to a man?"

"But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and don't teach boys the Same?"

"Culture does not make people, People make culture." 

Her own definition of feminism is,'

"a feminist is a man or a woman who says,--' yes, there's a problem and we must fix it, we must do better.' "

Key takeaways: 

 - we all should be feminists because the meaning for men, it should be the discourse to understand the female's embarrassments by all. 

- all people can be at the center for talking about feminist concerns and the masculinity of patriarchy.