Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

"I matter. I matter equally. Not ‘if only’. Not ‘as long as’. I matter equally. Full stop." This book is a very small book (65 pages) with very important messages. I wanted to highligh everything. Please read it! The text that follows is a personal sharing and not a comment on the book. Is is about my journey and why I am commited to educating myself about privile and feminism. Consider yourself warned, be gentle and proceed with caution. I grew up with 5 brothers and all my life I did the same things they did: I loved stories, I played with legos, I had dolls but also cars and Dinosaurs (barbies use to ride a T-Rex), I had a bike and rollerblades and loved them. I did not like football, but not all of them did anyway, and it was mostly because of my clumsiness. I run in parks, climbed trees and got dirty. I did this almost always wearing a dress or leggins because of the freedom of movement. I was always able to choose my own clothes, except when we had lunch with my grandparents. I grew loving books, music and board games. I love Star Wars and Lord of the Rings as well as Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid and Alladin (We all still know these movies by heart). I was always absolutely convinced I would study STEM subjects. My father advised me to choose any engineering course (because I loved math and physics) but I chose biochemistry. I hated it so much that I wanted to get as far away from the subject as possible and went on to study management, specializing in finance. I did not know how privileged I was when I was growing up. In fact, I am still learning about privilege in general. I knew I was privileged in many areas of my life: I grew up with a family, I was able to study and have nothing significant lacking in my life. I am aware that this is a huge amount of privilege obviously, what I didn’t understand was how lucky I was to grow in a family that teach me I could be whatever I wanted. When I started going to interviews I was asked if I had a boyfriend, when was I planning to have kids and if I felt comfortable travelling since it would affect the family. When I started working in corporate finance we were 8 women in approximately 40 employees and only one was a Director. When I started going to client board meetings I was almost always the only woman in the room. In 10 years of consultancy I only spoke with 3 women with decision making power and only one of them was CEO. When we decided to have kids I really wanted a girl because of the extra challenge of preparing her for a world that it is still not equal for women. I wanted to raise a girl to be whatever she wants but aware of her privilege, as well as the dificulties she might face. Little did I know about the immensity of a challenge it is. I know what I want to teach her and is absolutely in line with everything written in this book. The problem is educating society. Society begins to invent gender roles even before they are born! I keep explaining to my husband’s family the kind of toys and clothes I want and go on receiving kitchen appliances and pink babies. At this point, I am not even sure if she really likes pink and purple or if it was manipulated by the tons of pink objects available in the world (I try to choose everything in happy colours to counterbalance but it is a challenge). I keep seeing friends and family raising their kids with gender biases and its tricky to interfere as nobody likes to be told what to do. Gender injustice is real, but I always have to prove its existence and its exhausting. Even the friends that acknowledge gender injustice have difficulty in understanding that a lot of their actions and language are gender biased. I feel very lucky with my life and what I have accomplished. I want to see more females in positions of power. I want it not to feel like luck and to be available to all women. I will keep educating myself and force my friends do the same and eventually we will #BreakTheBias.

Every woman should read this to fuel authentic growth and empowerment.

This book may seem light and simple but is really quite profound. She is the first person that acknowledges sexism is more prevalent than racism-and she is African! Sexism exists in every race and involves half of humanity. If only people could see that it is freeing for men as well as women.

There's a tiny stack of parenting books from which I choose gifts for new parents - the books either help shift perspective into parenting mode or offer important insights and guidance in an accessible way. I'm pleased to add this little gem to my collection. Adichie, through her writing, has the ability to strip what matters and why down to its essence and then offers it up plainly, with little fanfare. She reminds me a bit of Hemingway that way - each word carefully chosen, and beneath each written sentence, an iceberg of ideas and consideration. Her fifteen suggestions for raising a feminist daughter are not necessarily profound: raise your daughter to value her inherent worth, to live in a world of diversity, to be proud of her heritage and her sex, to never tie morality to fashion. To be kind - but also to expect kindness. Basically, raise her to see herself as a person who matters, who deserves respect and should offer that respect in kind; show her that her opinions and perspectives matter because they're hers - and that she needn't acquiesce to popular thought or opinion. My biggest complaint is that, with very little restructuring, this book can (and in my view, should) be revised to "how to raise a feminist" - both boys and girls should be raised in the manner Adichie suggests, and with the ideas she promotes.

In Dear Ijeawele: A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie offers a deeply personal yet universally relevant guide on raising a child to embrace gender equality. Written as a letter to a friend seeking advice on raising her daughter, Adichie blends poignant storytelling with incisive social critique, crafting a work that is both accessible and profoundly impactful. A central theme is the dismantling of gender roles. Adichie emphasizes the importance of teaching children that "gender is not an indicator of ability" and encourages questioning societal norms that perpetuate inequality. Her advice to empower girls by prioritizing self-worth over societal expectations is both timely and transformative. Reading this book reshaped my understanding of feminism, highlighting the subtle ways gender biases manifest in everyday life. Adichie’s candid examples—from language choices to the division of domestic labor—compelled me to reflect on my own actions and assumptions. While the book’s conversational tone makes it engaging, its brevity sometimes leaves certain ideas underexplored. Readers seeking more depth may find themselves wanting additional context or examples. Overall, Dear Ijeawele is an inspiring and practical guide for fostering equality. Its simplicity is its strength, making it a must-read for parents and anyone committed to a more equitable world.

Spend $10 to buy this book right now. It's brilliantly simple, gentle but direct, unapologetic, and earnest. It took me a mere 15 minutes to get halfway through it this morning while getting ready for work, and now I'm itching to get back home to finish it. EVERYONE should read this book and it MUST change the way you interact with all those you love: women, men, girls, and boys alike. When I hear the word feminism, I think, "Oh, to be a feminist I have to be really in-your-face, angry, on a pointed mission, purposeful about flouting cultural norms, and anti-men." I know I'm wrong... but that's unfortunately the ingrained association I have with that word, and thus I've always felt unfit to call myself (or even to aspire to be) a feminist. Yet of course I want to set an amazing example for my children of how to be an unstoppable human being -- is that "in spite of" being a woman? is it "because" I'm a woman? is it because I am who I am, which is a lot of different things? In the span of a few pages, Adichie swiftly opens my eyes to a completely different definition of what it means to be a feminist: feminism is about being empowered, educated, authentic, and tenacious. Who wouldn't want to live in a society in which ALL individuals felt they were on equal footing to demonstrate those attributes?? I'm only halfway through this book and yet my spirits are renewed and my hope that I truly can make a difference is revitalized. Read this book... and then pass it on to everyone you love.

Reading this "feminist manifesto" made me realised that my father, now 74, was and is still a feminist. My father was always the first one the wake up in the morning, by 5 am the latest. He will take his torch, a broom and sweep the compound. Then he will fetch water and store it in the two big jars. He will warm up some water for the bath of all family members. By the time we wake around 6 am, he had his bath and would start listening to news with his old radio. During weekends, he will get firewood. Our neighbours would always treat my father as too weak because "he was doing household chores reserved to my mother". But my father didn't care at all. He kept sweeping, fetching water, and getting firewood because for him it was his duty as husband and as father. As I grew up, I started "copying" my father's exemple. I would sweep the compound, fetch water, get firewood etc.. My friends were always mocking at me but, but as my father, I didn't really care. My single childhood regret was the fact that my mother banned me access to the kitchen. For her, the kitchen belongs to women and bring bad luck to boys. As you can see, my mother wasn't a feminist; not her fault, but the fault of the culturally constructed gender roles in our societies. Looking back, my father was a great help for me. He, consciously or unconsciously, rejected the idea of gender roles (the third suggestion of Chimamanda to her friend Ijeawele. Reading this "manifesto" comfort me: my father was right; our neighbours were wrong. I wish this book was published earlier and that I had read it before getting married and having children. I would have raised my two boys differently. Nevertheless, I've raised them to respect girls (and boys) not because of their sex or gender identity but because they are human beings with rights and dignity that must be respected, promoted and protected by all means and by all costs. This book reinforced my conviction.

This easy to read Manifesto goes straight to the heart of what it means to welcome a feminist into the world. As parents it can be difficult to abandon our misconceptions even when we are aware of the error of our ways. Nonetheless, some of us want to avoid passing along our convoluted thinking and doing, and that's the intention of this set of fifteen suggestions to basically help us get out of our own way. The outline presented almost seems elementary yet in practice (as the author notes) the work of socializing our children, and most specifically our girls, can be a daunting task. Yet, Adichie's thorough explanation and accompanying examples easily brings the task of thoughtful parenting into a space of functional familiarity. I read the book in an hour or so, and I appreciated breaking away from the text to excitedly explore the lives of a few impactful women mentioned as exemplars. I also paused to feed my stimulated curiosity about the feminist qualities I have possibly instilled in my own daughter thus far. To appease my wonder I asked my daughter what can men do, other than the single most obvious thing, that women cannot. She paused so long while searching for an answer that I had to admit that it was a trick question. I was thrilled to get so much insight about my teenage daughter's subjectivity from a single question exchange. I am confident that other readers will gain personal insight from what I consider, a conversation with a friend. Now I plan to pass my copy of the book to my daughter while sharing the practicality of the text with other parents who are committed to raising conscientious children.

Adoro questo libro, si può leggere tranquillamente in un'ora o anche meno. È bellissimo.

Libro de ágil lectura, súper-interesante e indispensable para cualquier persona que quiera educar a los más pequeños en unos valores cívicos, democráticos y justos. Feminismo del sentido común.

Perfect book for everyone, adults and kids no matter the gender or age

Si me preguntaran qué cosas cambiaría sobre cómo fui educada desde niña, pediría que lo hicieran así como propone Chimamanda. Me parece una reflexión bastante significativa sobre lo que significa, para otros y para una misma, nacer mujer. Me encantó la manera de abordar ciertas cuestiones, de visibilizarlas y de plantear una formación diferente. Quisiera que hubiera profundizado más en ciertas cuestiones, pero igual pienso que la extensión favorece el ritmo de lectura.

I loved every word expressed especially as in most cases it took the words off the tip of my tongue - thoughts out of my subconscious, lifted the feelings in my heart. I would have preferred to listen to Chimamanda reading as I always feel her spirit whenever I hear her speak. All the same her voice rings in my ears as I hear and read each word. Still I appreciated the reader who did it justice. I have recommended this book to all my friends and family. I am the single mother of a son born to a Nigerian father. Pregnant at the age of 29 and single parent out of my expression of female and Independence and feminism during a period in my life when I walked the talk which Chimamanda exposes. So proud of my one son who chooses beautiful pink or yellow shirts for his son knowing that it flatters his son's complexion. In particular I look forward to hearing from my Trinidadian cousin who recalls my 'Nigerian' accent whenever he hears Chimamanda speak. He refers to the way he 'understood' me in those years (1970's) when during the Biafran war my late father 'allowed' me at the age of 15 to leave Lagos for Trinidad and know my estranged mother in Port of Spain for the first time. Chimamanda expresses rules for humanity and gives reasons for each and every one for the benefit of every race or creed. At my age of 67 Chimamanda confirms for me that I have followed most of these suggestions like commandments in order to survive my life as a single parent. As a convent girl both in Lagos and Port of Spain I was well versed in the study of Catechism. By being 'that' feminist in my twenties I have survived a guilt free single parent life-style and kept my sanity and confidence through all that life has thrown my way especially as a black woman here in London. I have learnt to not question my son wearing dread locks when he started university and respect his need to assert his race, creed and sexuality in his own way. Thank you Chimamanda