2019-04-11: Yay! A feminist manifesto that's spot on. I think my agreement level was around 90-95%.

Stray Thoughts: You know what women don't realize? That 100% of their problems with men come from the men being unconscious. Hmmm, "unconscious" doesn't really work, maybe unawake? 🤷‍♂️ Regardless, the women don't realize that because they are also unawake. They're both just a bunch of apes running on autopilot. If they can wake up and become human then they'll get it. Is that true? I think so but don't want to generalize my experience to everyone. I think there were a lot of things that I understood even before I was awake.

I feel sad for humanity. 100% of humanity's problems are caused by humanity. If they'd wake the fuck up and stop acting like apes all the problems would get fixed in short order. Hmmm. The problems would get fixed because the awakened people would cooperate. Competition is what animals do. They do it because they don't have language and social structures to facilitate cooperation.


2024-02-19: Re-reading because I bumped into it and have fond memories of it's shortness so thought I'd re-visit to see if anything's changed. Nope, I'm like 60% (it's really short) and it's good advice all around.

There are a couple of places where I think she's missing things but they're sort of background items. For instance I just read the line "The premise of chivalry is the weakness of women" and I suspect that she's missing the truth of that premise. Women are in fact, weak. Of course I mean physically weak relative to men. But that shouldn't matter. Physical strength shouldn't be a factor unless the question is "who do we call to pick up this heavy thing?". Chivalry is from a time when physical strength was important because everyone was playing by power games rules, and under PG rule if you have the power then you can do whatever you want. So under those rules chivalry wasn't such a bad deal for women. At least there was lip-service toward treating them well. So what I think Adichie misses here, possibly intentionally because it's not the topic of this book, is that we shouldn't be playing by power game rules, we should be playing by liberal game rules. LG rules and PG rules come from What's Our Problem by Tim Urban and if you haven't read that then that's one factor in why humanity is probably doomed. You're part of the problem. If you want to be part of the solution then also read Everything is F*cked and get acquainted with the basics of buddhist philosophy. These things all point to what our problem is and buddhist philosophy points to solutions.

2024-02-19: Excellent advice in general with only a few quibbles.

She says to teach the kid to take pride in various things and I no. Take pride in what you do and not in anything else. I suppose second-hand pride in the actions of others is okay too, but take pride in actions, not in accomplishments, not in performances, not in things that you are, but only in the things that you do.

She says "People who are unkind and dishonest are still human, and still deserve dignity." I think their unkindness and dishonesty can forfeit their humanity. We might still treat them with a certain courtesy but only in the same way we should treat any animal with a certain courtesy. I'm avoiding the world dignity because I'm not sure what it means to me. It seems like another meaningless concept made up by humans who think they're special. Humans are just animals. By default they should get no more dignity than a pig on a factory farm. If we treat the pig like an object then it's okay to treat humans like objects, right?

She says of being "non-judgmental" that it "can easily devolve into means 'don't have an opinion about anything' or 'I keep my opinions to myself'" and I wouldn't disagree with that. My thoughts here come from non-judgement being important in buddhist philosophy. It's not so much about not judging though, as it is about recognizing how often our "judgements" are just bullshit pronouncements based on bullshit beliefs and intended to make our ego feel good because we're better than the people we're pronouncing judgement on. Absolutely do not engage in that sort of judgement. I don't think she would disagree. But I'd also say that non-judgement is not making snap judgements, it's seeing the judgements your brain makes and then saying "thanks brain, but I'm going to ignore that in favor of actually thinking this through". ( )

Je crois que je suis dans une phase « lecture féministe » depuis quelques mois. Dans ces cas-là, il est bon de se diversifier un peu, tant dans la forme que dans les périodes historiques ou les aires géographiques. Alors quand ce petit essai sous la forme d’une lettre que l’autrice nigériane Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie adresserait à une amie a été mis en onde par France Culture, je me suis dit qu’ils devaient être au courant de ma lubie livresque actuelle…
Cet essai n’a rien de révolutionnaire, mais c’est peut-être justement là qu’est son intérêt, dans cette façon agréable à lire et pas trop moralisateur (c’est tout de même une liste de conseils, mais à plusieurs reprises, l’autrice cherche aussi à déculpabiliser le lecteur ou la lectrice que ne pourrais pas mettre en œuvre tous ces principes), ce livre permet en quelque sorte de faire un point sur ce que peut être une éducation féministe, et met en avant que ce n’est pas qu’une liste de recettes à appliquer, mais plutôt un état d’esprit, une façon d’être. Et cet état d’esprit, cette façon d’être ne sont pas si faciles que cela à atteindre, car ils nécessitent de questionner notre propre éducation (que l’on a tendance à reproduire il faut bien le dire, puisque c’est souvent notre seul modèle) et de comprendre en quoi cette éducation n’a pas été féministe.

Un livre clair, facile et rapide à lire mais qui fait réfléchir à sa propre expérience, passée ou à venir. Un livre qui ne s’adresse pas qu’aux femmes et pas qu’aux mères de filles, les hommes et les parents de garçons pourront aussi y trouver matière à réflexion, parce qu’au fond, ce que propose Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, c’est une éducation respectueuse de la personnalité de chacun, une éducation qui n’enferme pas les enfants et les gens dans des boîtes en fonction d’attendus sociaux immuables.
Et peut-être que je surinterprète, mais encore plus au fond, ce que dit en filigrane cet essai, c’est que dans une société où chacun pourrait se réaliser pour ce qu’il est et non selon des stéréotypes pré-établi, le féminisme serait inutile. Mais nous n’en sommes pas là, alors en attendant, il est bon de lire ce petit essai qui permettra peut-être de faire un petit pas de plus dans le bon sens...

Like in We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie offers a short explanation on empowering girls to become strong, independent women. While nothing contained within this work is groundbreaking, Adichie’s writing makes it feel like it is; she manages to convey such profound importance with the most simple, eloquent statements.

A must read for everyone. ( )

I liked this essay very much - well-written, very thoughtful, and very feminist. ( )

Another feminist writing (one long essay / kind of an essay collection since its broken down into 15 suggestions) by Adichie. I had read her other piece. As a father of three girls, and someone who does believe women should be completely equal with men, I feel its my duty to stay up on this stuff.

Adichie is a terrific and wonderful writer. Flowerful, and powerful prose, writing style, and word usage. Unfortunately, I do think some of the suggestions in this.... well... not 100% practical, or at least 100% truly strives for equality. And this is always where feminism is kind of an issue. There can never be truly 100% equality, because the striving for equality will either keep you behind the higher/believed higher people you are striving to become equal to, or will surpass them. Then in so doing, you do not become equal, you become above, and do you then attempt to self-correct? Or accept that you now have the higher position? Or do they then do their own version of feminism and attempt to become equal?

The striving for equality isn't so much the problem. Its methods. And while I believe the majority of her ideas and suggestions are on point. Some just aren't. And this isn't just so much as her, as it is all of feminism. It kind of ties into Vonnegut's short story where to create equality, everyone is basically shackled down to the lowest person's abilities. If everyone is so handicapped, then everyone is equal. The way to make women equal, isn't to undermine men, but to build up women. It is to recognize key differences, and understand them, and correlate them into things, not to undermine, or to only push for the differences that benefit women. This sometimes (often times) becomes an issue; especially from a male perspective. That feminism wants equality, but also doesn't want to fully distance and remove the differences that make women ... women; and make men men. So they push for the equality, but then also try to push the better parts of women past men, like wanting men to open doors, be chivalrous, but at the same time let women have complete freedom and autonomy, that they can do every job that men can do - plus the jobs only women can do; and should be paid same/better than men for it all, etc, etc.

This isn't an "every woman" or "every feminist" thing either. Just select some. And relatively, its not a huge issue, just something I often see, and bring up. Especially working in an industry where women and men are all paid the exact same (literally, all employees are paid the same, and we even share tips), but also see some women gain favor (promotions because they get to dress up, whereas men don't, and get to accentuate certain aspects whereas men don't; also they sometimes get to curry favor and not have to work the more strenuous games or games they don't like, citing certain reasons, etc.).

Ultimately I will defend feminism, and fight, and strain myself in its defense, not just for my daughters, not just for my mother, not just for my sister, but all women, because I honestly believe equality needs to be the ultimate goal. Not just between men and women, but between all races, all creeds, all religions and philosophies, and all genders. ( )