Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central, Please welcome chimamandazi Adichi. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Thank you. I'm so excited to have
Speaker 1: you here because I've been a fan of your work
Speaker 1: for a long time. I've been a fan of your
Speaker 1: words for a long time. I have to ask you
Speaker 1: before we get into the book. As a person who
Speaker 1: is considered as one of the most foremost feminists of
Speaker 1: our time, why is it that so many people see
Speaker 1: the word feminist as a negative thing? Um? Because I
Speaker 1: think that feminism has long been associated with the most
Speaker 1: extreme versions of it. So people think of feminists is
Speaker 1: sort of a crazy woman who hates men and doesn't
Speaker 1: shave and right to all of these sort of really
Speaker 1: crazy negative stereotypes and an attached to feminism, and so
Speaker 1: people don't want to associate with it. That people who
Speaker 1: have said to me, why do you call yourself feminist?
Speaker 1: Why don't you just say you're a humanist or an equalist?
Speaker 1: But that is what feminism is, right, right? Feminism is
Speaker 1: about justice for everyone. But you have to name a problem,
Speaker 1: and the problem is it's women who have been excluded,
Speaker 1: So we need to call it what it is. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's fascially because that's that's um in many ways. In
Speaker 1: many ways, that's that's the same thing people say about
Speaker 1: black lives matter. They go to one to say all
Speaker 1: lives Matter's like, well, we know the rest of the
Speaker 1: lives matter. The problem needs to be exactly. The book
Speaker 1: that you have written here is really different from your
Speaker 1: other offerings. It's a feminist manifesto in fifteen suggestions. And
Speaker 1: I like that you keep making it easier and easier
Speaker 1: and easier for people to be feminists. This this is
Speaker 1: a really interesting How did this book come about? So
Speaker 1: a few years ago I wrote, my friend had a baby,
Speaker 1: and so she said to me, I won't have to
Speaker 1: be feminist. I want have life to be better than mine.
Speaker 1: What should I do? I was like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: And then so then I thought I should write her letter.
Speaker 1: It was an email that I wrote to her, and
Speaker 1: and then I decided to turn it into a book
Speaker 1: and I made a few changes, but really it was
Speaker 1: for my friend. And only after I had a baby
Speaker 1: my daughter is still and I have did I realize
Speaker 1: how easy it is to sort of tell people what
Speaker 1: to do about child raising when you don't have a child.
Speaker 1: It's much easier to deal with a hypothetical child than
Speaker 1: a real child. But I'm still trying to follow all
Speaker 1: of the suggestions. It's it's just that it's it's more
Speaker 1: difficult than you would think. What would you say is
Speaker 1: the most difficult part of teaching a child, of raising
Speaker 1: a child to be a feminist. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: that it's it's easy to do, but it's that you
Speaker 1: have to fight against It sort of feels like the
Speaker 1: universe has a conspiracy against you. So you you tell
Speaker 1: your child, you know, you don't have to play with dolls,
Speaker 1: but then you go to the store and the girl's
Speaker 1: sections are just dolls, and you know there's still very
Speaker 1: much that that blue and pink biner in the wall,
Speaker 1: and you're trying to teach your child that you know,
Speaker 1: you can be who where you want to be. So
Speaker 1: it can feel as though there's a lot that you
Speaker 1: need to push back from the world. But but it's doable.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm very optimistic about how we can change the world.
Speaker 1: What I've always admired about your your words on feminism
Speaker 1: is that you you don't seem to live in a
Speaker 1: world where it's abstract or it's just extreme, Like it
Speaker 1: never seems to me like you talk about feminism like
Speaker 1: it's like this is how it is, and it's it's
Speaker 1: that is the way it is. Like in the in
Speaker 1: the book, for instance, there are some suggestions where you
Speaker 1: talk about how you can encourage your daughter, if she's
Speaker 1: a daughter, to be anything she wants to be, to
Speaker 1: like blue, to play with boys, toys, et cetera. But
Speaker 1: that shouldn't mean that she should shun her femininity. That's
Speaker 1: not what feminism is. So when people find themselves caught
Speaker 1: up in a conundrum with feminism, like what is the
Speaker 1: one thing they could say to themselves that just makes
Speaker 1: it easier to understand, Um, think of yourself as an individual,
Speaker 1: right right, there's no I mean, I think feminism and
Speaker 1: femininity are not mutually exclusive. And I think that the
Speaker 1: early feminist in the West sean femininity because femininity had
Speaker 1: for so long been used as a way to put
Speaker 1: them down. So women were property, You're supposed to look
Speaker 1: pretty and stay at home. So I think when we
Speaker 1: meant it to push back against that, they were like,
Speaker 1: we don't want pretty. But I think now we've come
Speaker 1: to a stage where we can accept that people can
Speaker 1: be many things. Right, you can be feminine and feminist.
Speaker 1: It depends on whether you want to be. The problem
Speaker 1: is if somebody is pushing you to be what you
Speaker 1: don't want to be, then that's not feminism. So so
Speaker 1: I usually say to women who are thinking about it,
Speaker 1: just think of your your individual self. Right, what do
Speaker 1: you like and is that thing causing you harm? Right?
Speaker 1: Is it? Is it somehow? Is it reducing your spirit?
Speaker 1: Is it making you resentful? Because I think that when
Speaker 1: there's really quality, resentment will not exist. Right in relationships
Speaker 1: where people are unhappy because there's a gender problem, there's resentment.
Speaker 1: If there isn't the problem, you just you don't have resentment.
Speaker 1: You kind of know, it's intuitive, I think, Right, what
Speaker 1: would you say that it's still possible for a woman?
Speaker 1: I mean, I know my mom always says this to me,
Speaker 1: but some people struggle with the concert. Would you say
Speaker 1: it's possible for a woman to say, I am I'm
Speaker 1: a feminist, I believe in equality, but I still want
Speaker 1: a man to open the door for me. I like
Speaker 1: that gesture? Or is that problematic and of itself? You
Speaker 1: know the thing about by the way, your mother is
Speaker 1: wonderful just from reading your book. You're so fortunate to
Speaker 1: have been reached by her. I'm serious. I think I
Speaker 1: think everything good in you is because your mother is.
Speaker 1: You know, what's funny is now we now know. I
Speaker 1: appreciate that. But and the way you said it is
Speaker 1: it's a beautiful compliment that sounds like an insult. You know.
Speaker 1: It's just like everything good in you is from your mind.
Speaker 1: The rest of that ship is you. That's you and
Speaker 1: your dad. But yeah, but thank you, but but but
Speaker 1: you respond to that. I think I think, just just
Speaker 1: like holding the door shouldn't be gender, and I think
Speaker 1: it's a lovely thing to hold the door, but we
Speaker 1: should hold the door for everyone, right right, I hold
Speaker 1: the dolphin men and women. So I think the idea
Speaker 1: of sort of holding the door for a woman because
Speaker 1: she's a woman, I have trouble with it. I'm quite
Speaker 1: happy for people to hold the doll from me, but
Speaker 1: I hope they're not doing it because of this sort
Speaker 1: of idea of chivalry. Because ship is really about the
Speaker 1: idea that women are somehow weak, right right right, and
Speaker 1: and need protecting. But we know that really that many
Speaker 1: women who are stronger than many men, right, So really,
Speaker 1: what I think is that the people we should protect
Speaker 1: are people who need protecting, whether men or women, which
Speaker 1: is also why I sort of have trouble with the
Speaker 1: idea of women and children when women are classified in
Speaker 1: the same You know, when when there's a tragedy and
Speaker 1: we say women and children should leave first, I think, actually,
Speaker 1: is the people who are weak un well, you know
Speaker 1: that's interesting, we should leave first. Yeah. Wow, This is
Speaker 1: like a more eloquent argument of what some of the
Speaker 1: guys on the Titanic said. They're like, I think my
Speaker 1: man would want me to leave women and children say,
Speaker 1: we have, but but I really do understand what you're
Speaker 1: saying here. There's there's a fascinating passage in the book,
Speaker 1: and this was It's called the seventh Suggestion, And in
Speaker 1: this it's um the line that the paragraph starts them,
Speaker 1: never speak of marriage as an achievement. And then when
Speaker 1: we skip forward, it says, when Hillary Clinton was running
Speaker 1: for president of the United States, the first descriptor on
Speaker 1: her Twitter account was wife. The first descriptor on the
Speaker 1: Twitter account of Bill Clinton her husband is founder, not husband.
Speaker 1: Because of this, I have an unreasonable affection for the
Speaker 1: very few men who use husband as their first descriptor
Speaker 1: do you think in that moment it made you feel
Speaker 1: like in society we've created a world where the best
Speaker 1: thing you can be as a woman sometimes is a
Speaker 1: wife to a man, but a man can have every
Speaker 1: other achievement. Was that the problem with that idea for yourself? Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: But it's also the larger question of what we expect
Speaker 1: of women in public life. Why I think that there
Speaker 1: are many people for whom Hillary Clinton is not relatable
Speaker 1: unless she primarily defines herself in domestic terms wife mother,
Speaker 1: but wife in particular, because I think it makes people
Speaker 1: feel comfortable. I think people are very um. People don't
Speaker 1: know what to do with the idea of a woman
Speaker 1: who has or who's seeking power, and so the way
Speaker 1: to somehow temper that is to say, well, wife and
Speaker 1: a wife. So therefore I'm not that scary, right, And
Speaker 1: it's not I mean, obviously, I think marriage is a
Speaker 1: wonderful thing and it can be, you know, just such
Speaker 1: a joy and all of that. But it's that we
Speaker 1: raise girls to aspire to marriage in a way we
Speaker 1: don't raise boys too, and I think there's a problem
Speaker 1: with that. So you have little girls who from very
Speaker 1: early on thinking about the wedding dress, right, I don't
Speaker 1: know how many boys think about the wedding xeros. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. So what it means is that there's there's
Speaker 1: an immediate imbalance I think in just the idea of
Speaker 1: what is aspirational. And so I think what we should
Speaker 1: do is in raising boys and girls, teach them that
Speaker 1: love is wonderful, marriage is wonderful, but none of that
Speaker 1: is something that wants you aspire to. Right when you
Speaker 1: say to a girl, oh, you've got you got your PhD.
Speaker 1: But when are you getting married? Right, which is a
Speaker 1: common phrase we hear all the time when when raising
Speaker 1: a child and shaying I'm going to raise a feminist.
Speaker 1: For many people, the immediate connotation that will come to
Speaker 1: their mind is that means you're raising a daughter. But
Speaker 1: from reading your work, a lot of the work has
Speaker 1: to be done by men. Men need to participate. Why
Speaker 1: is that so important? Because men have to be on board.
Speaker 1: I think you can change women all you want if
Speaker 1: you don't change men, nothing changes. Because we share the world.
Speaker 1: It's men and women. And I also think sadly that
Speaker 1: we live in a world where men are more likely
Speaker 1: to listen to men. Oh, it's true. Wow, you don't
Speaker 1: think so, So then how do you convince the first man? Um?
Speaker 1: I think some men have already been convinced. I think
Speaker 1: people like Barack Obama, for example, is a very good
Speaker 1: role model because he's feminist and he's cool, right, so,
Speaker 1: so he's actually good and we need more men like
Speaker 1: that to speak up. I think men need to speak up.
Speaker 1: Men need to be on board. Men need to not
Speaker 1: think of feminism as something to sort of, um, something
Speaker 1: that's attacking them, because I think some men think that
Speaker 1: they need to understand that feminily to me something that's
Speaker 1: good for everyone, because really, when all of us are
Speaker 1: released from gender rules, we're all better off, right And
Speaker 1: in the end, it's about justice, don't We want to
Speaker 1: live in a just world. So there's some men who
Speaker 1: have been convinced. More men need to be travel You
Speaker 1: should get cracking. Ha ha ha oh oh man, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna call my mom. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna call on Thank you so much for being on
Speaker 1: the show. I really love to taking to you every
Speaker 1: single time. It's an amazing book. Dear is available now.
Speaker 1: Chimamanda d Everybody The Daily Show with Covernoa Ears Edition.
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