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00:00:14,951 --> 00:00:19,378
My brother Chuks and my best friend
Ike are part of the organizing team,

2
00:00:19,378 --> 00:00:23,088
so when they ask me to come,
I couldn't say no.

3
00:00:23,626 --> 00:00:24,859
But I'm so happy to be here.

4
00:00:24,859 --> 00:00:27,418
What a fantastic team of people
who care about Africa

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00:00:27,418 --> 00:00:29,948
I feel so humble and so happy to be here.

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00:00:29,948 --> 00:00:33,647
And I'm also told that the most beautiful,

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00:00:33,647 --> 00:00:36,771
most amazing little girl in the world
is in the audience

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00:00:36,771 --> 00:00:38,399
her name is Kamzia Adichie

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00:00:38,399 --> 00:00:41,533
and I want her to stand up...
she's my niece!

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00:00:41,533 --> 00:00:46,691
(Applause)

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00:00:51,123 --> 00:00:57,485
So, I would like to start by telling you
one of my greatest friend, Okuloma.

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00:00:57,485 --> 00:00:59,217
Okuloma lived on my street

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and looked after me like a big brother.

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00:01:01,596 --> 00:01:06,061
If I liked a boy, I would ask
Okuloma's opinion.

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00:01:06,061 --> 00:01:09,318
Okuloma died in the notorious
Sosoliso Plane Crash

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00:01:09,318 --> 00:01:12,575
in Nigeria in December of 2005.

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00:01:12,575 --> 00:01:15,832
Almost exactly seven years ago.

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00:01:16,063 --> 00:01:21,591
Okuloma was a person I could argue with,
laugh with, and truly talk to.

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00:01:21,591 --> 00:01:25,078
He was also the first person
to call me a feminist.

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I was about fourteen,
we were at his house, arguing.

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Both of us bristling with
half bit knowledge from books we had read.

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I don't remember what this
particular argument was about,

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but I remember that
as I argued and argued,

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Okuloma looked at me and said,
"You know, you're a feminist."

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It was not a compliment.

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00:01:46,856 --> 00:01:50,420
I could tell from his tone, the same tone
that you would use to say something like

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"You're a supporter of terrorism."

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00:01:53,165 --> 00:01:55,415
(Laughter)

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00:01:55,415 --> 00:01:59,245
I did not know exactly what this word
"feminist" meant,

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and I did not want Okuloma
to know that I did not know,

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so I brushed it aside
and I continued to argue.

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00:02:04,920 --> 00:02:07,623
And the first thing I planned to do
when I got home

33
00:02:07,623 --> 00:02:10,650
was to look up the word
"feminist" in the dictionary.

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00:02:10,650 --> 00:02:14,956
Now fast forward to some years later,
I wrote a novel

35
00:02:15,002 --> 00:02:17,561
about a man who among other things
beats his wife

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00:02:17,561 --> 00:02:20,120
and whose story doesn't end very well.

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00:02:20,120 --> 00:02:22,681
While I was promoting the novel
in Nigeria,

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a journalist, a nice well-meaning man,
told me he wanted to advise me.

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00:02:29,405 --> 00:02:32,883
And for the Nigerians here,
I'm sure we're all familiar with

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00:02:32,883 --> 00:02:38,360
how quick our people are to give
unsolicited advice.

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00:02:39,436 --> 00:02:43,237
He told me that people were saying
that my novel was feminist

42
00:02:43,237 --> 00:02:45,116
and his advice to me --

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00:02:45,116 --> 00:02:47,519
and he was shaking his head sadly
as he spoke --

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00:02:47,519 --> 00:02:50,584
was that I should never
call myself a feminist because

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00:02:50,584 --> 00:02:54,916
feminists are women who are unhappy
because they cannot find husbands.

46
00:02:54,934 --> 00:02:58,568
(Laughter)

47
00:02:59,679 --> 00:03:02,561
So I decided to call myself
"a happy feminist."

48
00:03:03,299 --> 00:03:05,993
Then an academic, a Nigerian woman
told me

49
00:03:05,993 --> 00:03:08,843
that feminism was not our culture
and that feminism wasn't African,

50
00:03:08,843 --> 00:03:11,139
and that I was calling myself a feminist 


51
00:03:11,139 --> 00:03:14,125
because I had been corrupted
by "Western books."

52
00:03:14,125 --> 00:03:17,257
Which amused me,
because a lot of my early readings

53
00:03:17,257 --> 00:03:19,173
were decidedly unfeminist.

54
00:03:19,173 --> 00:03:21,767
I think I must have read every single
Mills & Boon romance

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00:03:21,767 --> 00:03:24,169
published before I was sixteen.

56
00:03:24,169 --> 00:03:26,384
And each time I tried to read those books

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called "the feminist classics"
I'd get bored

58
00:03:28,599 --> 00:03:30,816
and I really struggled to finish them.

59
00:03:30,816 --> 00:03:33,057
But anyway, since feminism was un-African,

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I decided that I would now call myself
"a happy African feminist."

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00:03:37,974 --> 00:03:42,241
At some point I was a happy
African feminist who does not hate men

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and who likes lip gloss

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00:03:43,895 --> 00:03:47,387
and who wears high-heels
for herself but not for men.

64
00:03:48,065 --> 00:03:50,398
Of course a lot of these
was tongue-in-cheek,

65
00:03:50,398 --> 00:03:54,741
but that were feminists so heavy
with baggage, negative baggage.

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00:03:55,004 --> 00:03:56,652
You hate men, you hate bras,

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00:03:56,652 --> 00:03:59,847
you hate African culture,
that sort of thing.

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00:04:00,463 --> 00:04:02,834
Now here's a story from my childhood.

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00:04:03,081 --> 00:04:04,581
When I was in primary school,

70
00:04:04,581 --> 00:04:09,016
my teacher said at the beginning of term
that she would give the class a test

71
00:04:09,339 --> 00:04:12,519
and whoever got the highest score
would be the class monitor.

72
00:04:12,519 --> 00:04:15,174
Now, class monitor was a big deal.

73
00:04:15,174 --> 00:04:17,588
If you were a class monitor,

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00:04:17,588 --> 00:04:20,881
you got to write down the names
of noise makers,

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00:04:21,497 --> 00:04:24,456
which was having enough power of its own.

76
00:04:24,456 --> 00:04:29,234
But my teacher would also give you
a cane to hold in your hand

77
00:04:29,234 --> 00:04:33,251
while you walk around and
patrol the class for noise makers.

78
00:04:33,251 --> 00:04:36,639
Now of course you're not
actually allowed to use the cane.

79
00:04:36,639 --> 00:04:40,557
But it was an exciting prospect
for the nine-year-old me.

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00:04:40,557 --> 00:04:43,458
I very much wanted to be
the class monitor.

81
00:04:43,458 --> 00:04:45,675
And I got the highest score on the test.

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00:04:45,891 --> 00:04:49,613
Then, to my surprise, my teacher said that
the monitor had to be a boy.

83
00:04:50,243 --> 00:04:54,116
She've forgotten to make that clear earlier
because she assumed it was... obvious.

84
00:04:54,146 --> 00:04:56,669
(Laughter)

85
00:04:56,669 --> 00:04:59,884
A boy had the second highest
score on the test

86
00:04:59,884 --> 00:05:02,415
and he would be monitor.

87
00:05:02,661 --> 00:05:05,256
Now what was even more
interesting about this

88
00:05:05,256 --> 00:05:08,437
is that the boy was a sweet, gentle soul

89
00:05:08,437 --> 00:05:12,017
who had no interest in patrolling
the class with the cane,

90
00:05:12,109 --> 00:05:15,565
while I was full of ambition to do so.

91
00:05:16,581 --> 00:05:18,900
But I was female, and he was male

92
00:05:18,900 --> 00:05:21,349
and so he became the class monitor.

93
00:05:21,441 --> 00:05:24,187
And I've never forgotten that incident.

94
00:05:24,310 --> 00:05:26,986
I often make the mistake of thinking that

95
00:05:26,986 --> 00:05:29,662
something that is obvious to me
is just as obvious to everyone else.

96
00:05:29,662 --> 00:05:32,340
Now, take my dear friend Louis
for example.

97
00:05:32,340 --> 00:05:34,407
Louis is a brilliant, progressive man,

98
00:05:34,407 --> 00:05:36,851
and we would have conversations
and he would tell me,

99
00:05:36,851 --> 00:05:41,198
"I don't know what you mean by things
being different or harder for women.

100
00:05:41,198 --> 00:05:43,618
Maybe in the past, but not now."

101
00:05:43,645 --> 00:05:48,224
And I didn't understand how Louis
could not see what seems so self-evident.

102
00:05:48,362 --> 00:05:52,301
Then one evening, in Lagos,
Louis and I went out with friends.

103
00:05:52,301 --> 00:05:54,828
And for people here who
are not familiar with Lagos,

104
00:05:54,828 --> 00:05:57,155
there's that wonderful Lagos' fixture,

105
00:05:57,155 --> 00:06:01,638
the sprinkling of energetic man
who hung around outside establishments

106
00:06:01,638 --> 00:06:05,243
and very dramatically "help" you
park your car.

107
00:06:06,043 --> 00:06:09,337
I was impressed with
the particular theatrics

108
00:06:09,337 --> 00:06:12,631
of the man who found us
a parking spot that evening,

109
00:06:12,631 --> 00:06:15,927
and so as we were leaving,
I decided to leave him a tip.

110
00:06:16,495 --> 00:06:18,173
I opened my bag,

111
00:06:18,173 --> 00:06:19,859
put my hand inside my bag,

112
00:06:19,859 --> 00:06:22,677
brought out my money that
I had earned from doing my work,

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00:06:22,677 --> 00:06:25,439
and I gave it to the man.

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00:06:25,977 --> 00:06:27,117
And he,

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00:06:27,117 --> 00:06:30,323
this man who was very grateful,
and very happy,

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00:06:30,323 --> 00:06:32,345
took the money from me,

117
00:06:32,345 --> 00:06:34,123
looked across at Louis,

118
00:06:34,123 --> 00:06:36,094
and said "Thank you, sir!"

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00:06:36,094 --> 00:06:41,441
(Laughter)

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00:06:41,441 --> 00:06:45,100
Louis looked at me, surprised, and asked

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00:06:45,100 --> 00:06:48,969
"Why is he thanking me?
I didn't give him the money."

122
00:06:48,969 --> 00:06:52,838
Then I saw realization
dawned on Louis' face.

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00:06:52,838 --> 00:06:55,945
The man believed that
whatever money I had

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00:06:55,945 --> 00:06:59,682
had ultimately come from Louis.

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00:06:59,928 --> 00:07:02,159
Because Louis is a man.

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00:07:02,805 --> 00:07:04,750
The men and women are different.

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00:07:04,750 --> 00:07:07,244
We have different hormones,
we have different sexual organs,

128
00:07:07,244 --> 00:07:10,199
we have different biological abilities,

129
00:07:10,199 --> 00:07:13,015
women can have babies, men can't.

130
00:07:13,015 --> 00:07:14,772
At least not yet.

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00:07:15,727 --> 00:07:20,382
Men have testosterone and are
in general physically stronger than women.

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There's slightly more women
than men in the world,

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00:07:24,020 --> 00:07:26,888
about 52% of the world's population
is female.

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00:07:26,888 --> 00:07:30,772
But most of the positions of power
and prestige are occupied by men.

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00:07:30,772 --> 00:07:34,336
The late Kenyan Nobel Peace Laureate,

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00:07:34,351 --> 00:07:37,458
Wangari Maathai, put it simply
and well when she said:

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"The higher you go,
the fewer women there are."

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00:07:41,823 --> 00:07:46,269
In the recent US elections we kept hearing
of the Lilly Ledbetter law,

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00:07:46,269 --> 00:07:49,917
and if we go beyond the nicely
alliterative name of that law,

140
00:07:49,917 --> 00:07:52,736
it was really about a man and a woman


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00:07:52,736 --> 00:07:55,555
doing the same job being equally qualified

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00:07:55,555 --> 00:07:58,374
and the man being paid more
because he's a man.

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00:07:58,374 --> 00:08:01,458
So in the literal way, men rule the world,

144
00:08:01,458 --> 00:08:04,705
and this made sense a thousand years ago

145
00:08:04,705 --> 00:08:08,168
because human beings lived then in a world

146
00:08:08,168 --> 00:08:12,348
in which physical strength was
the most important attribute for survival.

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00:08:12,348 --> 00:08:17,026
The physically stronger person
was more likely to lead,

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00:08:17,396 --> 00:08:20,533
and men, in general,
are physically stronger.

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00:08:20,533 --> 00:08:23,366
Of course there are many exceptions.

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00:08:23,366 --> 00:08:27,332
But today we live
in a vastly different world.

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00:08:28,240 --> 00:08:32,150
The person more likely to lead
is not the physically stronger person,

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00:08:32,150 --> 00:08:35,786
it is the more creative person,
the more intelligent person,

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00:08:35,786 --> 00:08:37,822
the more innovative person,

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00:08:37,822 --> 00:08:40,659
and there are no hormones
for those attributes.

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00:08:40,659 --> 00:08:43,739
A man is as likely as a woman
to be intelligent,

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00:08:43,739 --> 00:08:46,789
to be creative, to be innovative.

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00:08:46,789 --> 00:08:51,149
We have evolved; but it seems to me
that our ideas of gender had not evolved.

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Some weeks ago I walked into a lobby
of one of the best Nigerian hotels.

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I thought about naming the hotel,
but I thought I probably shouldn't,

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00:08:58,924 --> 00:09:02,981
and a guard at the entrance stopped me
and ask me annoying questions,

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00:09:04,106 --> 00:09:07,228
because their automatic assumption is
that a Nigerian female

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00:09:07,228 --> 00:09:10,813
walking into a hotel alone is a sex worker.

163
00:09:10,813 --> 00:09:12,180
And by the way,

164
00:09:12,180 --> 00:09:14,666
why do these hotels focus on

165
00:09:14,666 --> 00:09:19,283
the ostensible supply rather than
the demand for sex workers?

166
00:09:19,822 --> 00:09:25,046
In Lagos I cannot go alone into
many "reputable" bars and clubs.

167
00:09:25,046 --> 00:09:27,251
They just don't let you in
if you're a woman alone,

168
00:09:27,251 --> 00:09:29,504
you have to be accompanied by a man.

169
00:09:29,890 --> 00:09:32,604
Each time I walk into a
Nigerian restaurant with a man,

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00:09:32,604 --> 00:09:35,638
the waiter greets the man and ignores me.

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00:09:36,438 --> 00:09:39,093
The waiters are products...

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00:09:39,293 --> 00:09:41,944
at this some women felt like
"Yes! I thought that!"

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00:09:41,944 --> 00:09:44,563
The waiters are products of a society that

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00:09:44,563 --> 00:09:48,272
has taught them that men are
more important than women.

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00:09:48,272 --> 00:09:51,282
And I know that waiters
don't intend any harm.

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00:09:51,282 --> 00:09:55,410
But it's one thing to know intellectually
and quite another to feel it emotionally.

177
00:09:55,410 --> 00:09:57,886
Each time they ignore me,
I feel invisible.

178
00:09:57,886 --> 00:09:59,821
I feel upset.

179
00:10:00,037 --> 00:10:03,120
I want to tell them I'm just as human
as the man,

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00:10:03,120 --> 00:10:06,358
that I'm just as worthy
of acknowledgement.

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00:10:06,541 --> 00:10:08,415
These are little things,

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00:10:08,415 --> 00:10:11,369
but sometimes it's the little things
that sting the most.

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00:10:11,369 --> 00:10:14,145
And not long ago I wrote an article

184
00:10:14,145 --> 00:10:17,094
about what it means to be
young and female in Lagos,

185
00:10:17,094 --> 00:10:20,794
and the printers told me
"It was so angry."

186
00:10:21,086 --> 00:10:23,119
Of course it was angry!

187
00:10:23,119 --> 00:10:26,194
(Laughter)

188
00:10:27,069 --> 00:10:28,748
I am angry.

189
00:10:28,748 --> 00:10:31,870
Gender as it functions today
is a grave injustice.

190
00:10:31,870 --> 00:10:33,459
We should all be angry.

191
00:10:33,459 --> 00:10:37,190
Anger has a long history of
bringing about positive change;

192
00:10:37,190 --> 00:10:40,416
but, in addition to being angry,
I'm also hopeful.

193
00:10:41,051 --> 00:10:43,846
Because I believe deeply
in the ability of human beings

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00:10:43,846 --> 00:10:46,661
to make and remake themselves
for the better.

195
00:10:46,661 --> 00:10:48,910
Gender matters everywhere in the world,

196
00:10:48,910 --> 00:10:53,052
but I want to focus on
Nigeria and on Africa in general,

197
00:10:53,052 --> 00:10:55,010
because it is where I know,

198
00:10:55,010 --> 00:10:56,849
and because it is where my heart is.

199
00:10:56,849 --> 00:10:58,712
And I would like today to ask

200
00:10:58,712 --> 00:11:02,459
that we begin to dream about
and plan for

201
00:11:02,459 --> 00:11:06,261
a different world, a fairer world;

202
00:11:06,261 --> 00:11:08,948
a world of happier men and happier women 


203
00:11:08,948 --> 00:11:11,113
who are truer to themselves.

204
00:11:11,113 --> 00:11:12,848
And this is how to start:

205
00:11:12,848 --> 00:11:14,949
we must raise our daughters differently.

206
00:11:14,949 --> 00:11:17,833
We must also raise our sons differently.

207
00:11:18,294 --> 00:11:21,419
We do a great disservice to boys
on how we raise them;

208
00:11:21,419 --> 00:11:24,390
we stifle the humanity of boys.

209
00:11:24,775 --> 00:11:27,490
We define masculinity in a very narrow way,

210
00:11:27,490 --> 00:11:30,477
masculinity becomes this hard, small cage

211
00:11:30,477 --> 00:11:33,230
and we put boys inside the cage.

212
00:11:33,230 --> 00:11:36,097
We teach boys to be afraid of fear.

213
00:11:36,097 --> 00:11:40,388
We teach boys to be afraid
of weakness, of vulnerability.

214
00:11:40,526 --> 00:11:42,758
We teach them to mask their true selves,

215
00:11:42,758 --> 00:11:47,659
because they have to be,
in Nigerian speak, "hard man!"

216
00:11:48,626 --> 00:11:52,631
In secondary school, a boy and a girl,
both of them teenagers,

217
00:11:52,631 --> 00:11:55,222
both of them with the same amount
of pocket money,

218
00:11:55,222 --> 00:11:58,521
would go out and then
the boy would be expected always

219
00:11:58,521 --> 00:12:01,752
to pay, to prove his masculinity.

220
00:12:02,436 --> 00:12:05,158
And yet we wonder why boys
are more likely to steal money

221
00:12:05,158 --> 00:12:07,399
from their parents.

222
00:12:07,880 --> 00:12:10,602
What if both boys and girls were raised 


223
00:12:10,602 --> 00:12:14,175
not to link masculinity with money?

224
00:12:14,175 --> 00:12:17,748
What if the attitude was not
"the boy has to pay"

225
00:12:17,748 --> 00:12:21,041
but rather "whoever has more should pay"?

226
00:12:21,041 --> 00:12:23,804
Now of course because of that
historical advantage,

227
00:12:23,804 --> 00:12:25,997
it is mostly men who will have more today,

228
00:12:25,997 --> 00:12:28,192
but if we start raising children
differently,

229
00:12:28,192 --> 00:12:30,561
then in fifty years, in a hundred years,

230
00:12:30,561 --> 00:12:35,455
boys will no longer have the pressure
of having to prove this masculinity.

231
00:12:35,455 --> 00:12:39,025
But by far the worst thing we do to males,

232
00:12:39,025 --> 00:12:41,335
by making them feel
that they have to be hard,

233
00:12:41,335 --> 00:12:45,167
is that we leave them
with very fragile egos.

234
00:12:45,275 --> 00:12:49,467
The more "hard-man"
the man feels compelled to be,

235
00:12:49,637 --> 00:12:51,742
the weaker his ego is.

236
00:12:53,128 --> 00:12:56,096
And then we do a much greater
disservice to girls

237
00:12:56,096 --> 00:12:59,953
because we raise them to cater
to the fragile egos of men.

238
00:13:00,567 --> 00:13:04,068
We teach girls to shrink themselves,
to make themselves smaller,

239
00:13:04,068 --> 00:13:05,867
we say to girls,

240
00:13:05,867 --> 00:13:09,284
"You can have ambition,
but not too much."

241
00:13:09,284 --> 00:13:12,469
"You should aim to be successful,
but not too successful,

242
00:13:12,469 --> 00:13:15,197
otherwise you would threaten the man."

243
00:13:15,197 --> 00:13:17,872
If you are the breadwinner
in your relationship with a man,

244
00:13:17,872 --> 00:13:19,900
you have to pretend that you're not,

245
00:13:19,900 --> 00:13:24,390
especially in public, otherwise
you will emasculate him.

246
00:13:24,974 --> 00:13:27,541
But what if we question
the premise itself,

247
00:13:27,541 --> 00:13:31,560
why should a woman's success
be a threat to a man?

248
00:13:31,560 --> 00:13:35,133
What if we decide to simply dispose
of that word,

249
00:13:35,133 --> 00:13:40,488
and I don't think there's an English word
I dislike more than "emasculation."

250
00:13:40,934 --> 00:13:44,464
A Nigerian acquaintance once asked me
if I was worried that

251
00:13:44,464 --> 00:13:46,847
men would be intimidated by me.

252
00:13:46,847 --> 00:13:48,688
I was not worried at all.

253
00:13:48,688 --> 00:13:50,756
In fact it had not occurred to me
to be worried because

254
00:13:50,756 --> 00:13:53,563
a man who would be intimidated by me

255
00:13:53,563 --> 00:13:57,549
is exactly the kind of man
I would have no interest in.

256
00:13:57,549 --> 00:14:04,535
(Laughter)
(Applause)

257
00:14:04,535 --> 00:14:07,741
But still I was really struck by this.

258
00:14:07,941 --> 00:14:12,542
Because I'm female,
I'm expected to aspire to marriage;

259
00:14:12,542 --> 00:14:15,182
I'm expected to make my life choices
always keeping in mind

260
00:14:15,182 --> 00:14:17,822
that marriage is the most important.

261
00:14:17,822 --> 00:14:20,464
A marriage can be a good thing;

262
00:14:20,464 --> 00:14:24,927
it can be a source of joy
and love and mutual support.

263
00:14:24,927 --> 00:14:27,664
But why do we teach girls
to aspire to marriage

264
00:14:27,664 --> 00:14:30,573
and we don't teach boys the same?

265
00:14:31,080 --> 00:14:33,989
I know a woman who decided
to sell her house

266
00:14:33,989 --> 00:14:37,483
because she didn't want to
intimidate a man who might marry her.

267
00:14:38,222 --> 00:14:42,243
I know an unmarried woman in Nigeria who,
when she goes to conferences,

268
00:14:42,243 --> 00:14:44,232
wears a wedding ring

269
00:14:44,232 --> 00:14:47,836
because according to her, she wants
the other participants in the conference

270
00:14:47,836 --> 00:14:50,565
to "give her respect."

271
00:14:50,565 --> 00:14:53,350
I know young women who are
under so much pressure

272
00:14:53,350 --> 00:14:56,505
from family, from friends,
even from work to get married

273
00:14:56,505 --> 00:14:59,477
and they're pushed
to make terrible choices.

274
00:14:59,477 --> 00:15:02,134
A woman at a certain age
who is unmarried,

275
00:15:02,134 --> 00:15:06,946
our society teaches her to see it
as a deep, personal failure.

276
00:15:06,946 --> 00:15:10,366
And a man at a certain age
who is unmarried

277
00:15:10,366 --> 00:15:12,872
we just think he hasn't come around
to making his pick.

278
00:15:12,872 --> 00:15:14,598
(Laughter)

279
00:15:14,598 --> 00:15:16,716
It's easy for us to say,

280
00:15:16,716 --> 00:15:18,956
"Oh but women can just say no
to all of this",

281
00:15:18,956 --> 00:15:21,445
But the reality is more difficult
and more complex.

282
00:15:21,445 --> 00:15:23,156
We're all social beings.

283
00:15:23,156 --> 00:15:25,624
We internalize ideas
from our socialization.

284
00:15:25,624 --> 00:15:28,479
Even the language we use

285
00:15:28,479 --> 00:15:31,334
in talking about marriage
and relationships illustrates this.

286
00:15:31,334 --> 00:15:34,189
The language of marriage
is often the language of ownership

287
00:15:34,189 --> 00:15:36,690
rather than the language of partnership.

288
00:15:36,690 --> 00:15:39,737
We use the word "respect"

289
00:15:39,737 --> 00:15:42,784
to mean something a woman shows a man

290
00:15:42,784 --> 00:15:45,832
but often not something
a man shows a woman.

291
00:15:46,170 --> 00:15:48,965
Both men and women in Nigeria will say -

292
00:15:48,965 --> 00:15:51,760
this is an expression I'm very amused by -

293
00:15:51,760 --> 00:15:54,557
"I did it for peace in my marriage."

294
00:15:54,557 --> 00:15:56,772
Now when men say it,

295
00:15:56,772 --> 00:15:59,891
it is usually about something that
they should not be doing anyway.

296
00:15:59,891 --> 00:16:01,730
(Laughter)

297
00:16:01,730 --> 00:16:04,209
Sometimes they say it to their friends,

298
00:16:04,209 --> 00:16:07,914
it's something to say to their friends
in a kind of fondly exasperated way,

299
00:16:07,914 --> 00:16:10,813
you know, something that ultimately proves
how masculine they are,

300
00:16:10,813 --> 00:16:12,760
how needed, how loved --

301
00:16:12,760 --> 00:16:15,709
"Oh my wife said I can't go to club
every night,

302
00:16:15,709 --> 00:16:18,450
so for peace in my marriage,
I do it only on weekends."

303
00:16:18,450 --> 00:16:20,493
(Laughter)

304
00:16:20,493 --> 00:16:23,932
Now when a woman says,
"I did it for peace in my marriage,"

305
00:16:23,932 --> 00:16:27,327
she's usually talking about having
giving up a job,

306
00:16:27,327 --> 00:16:28,918
a dream,

307
00:16:28,918 --> 00:16:30,852
a career.

308
00:16:30,852 --> 00:16:33,882
We teach females that in relationships,

309
00:16:33,882 --> 00:16:36,912
compromise is what women do.

310
00:16:36,912 --> 00:16:39,942
We raise girls to see each other
as competitors

311
00:16:39,942 --> 00:16:43,230
not for job or for accomplishments,
which I think could be a good thing,

312
00:16:43,230 --> 00:16:45,440
but for attention of men.

313
00:16:46,085 --> 00:16:48,907
We teach girls that they cannot be
sexual beings

314
00:16:48,907 --> 00:16:51,236
in the way that boys are.

315
00:16:51,236 --> 00:16:54,551
If we have sons, we don't mind
knowing about our sons' girlfriends.

316
00:16:54,551 --> 00:16:56,855
But our daughters' boyfriends?
God forbid.

317
00:16:56,875 --> 00:16:58,379
(Laughter)

318
00:16:58,379 --> 00:17:00,293
But of course when the time is right,

319
00:17:00,293 --> 00:17:04,064
we expect those girls to bring back
the perfect man to be their husbands.

320
00:17:04,403 --> 00:17:05,873
We police girls,

321
00:17:05,873 --> 00:17:07,821
we praise girls for virginity,

322
00:17:07,821 --> 00:17:09,769
but we don't praise boys for virginity,

323
00:17:09,769 --> 00:17:12,994
and it's always made me wonder
how exactly this is supposed to work out

324
00:17:12,994 --> 00:17:15,504
because...
(Laughter)

325
00:17:15,766 --> 00:17:23,213
(Applause)

326
00:17:24,152 --> 00:17:28,867
I mean, the loss of virginity
is usually a process that involves...

327
00:17:28,867 --> 00:17:30,754
Recently a young woman 


328
00:17:30,754 --> 00:17:32,891
was gang raped in a University in Nigeria,

329
00:17:32,896 --> 00:17:34,730
I think some of us know about that.

330
00:17:34,730 --> 00:17:36,666
And the response of many young Nigerians,

331
00:17:36,666 --> 00:17:38,098
both male and female,

332
00:17:38,098 --> 00:17:40,476
was something along the lines of this:

333
00:17:40,476 --> 00:17:42,974
"Yes, rape is wrong.

334
00:17:42,974 --> 00:17:47,019
But what is a girl doing in a room
with four boys?"

335
00:17:47,019 --> 00:17:52,391
Now if we can forget
the horrible inhumanity of that response,

336
00:17:52,391 --> 00:17:57,413
these Nigerians have been raised
to think of women as inherently guilty,

337
00:17:57,736 --> 00:18:01,233
and have been raised to expect
so little of men

338
00:18:01,233 --> 00:18:04,679
that the idea of men as savage beings
without any control

339
00:18:04,679 --> 00:18:06,495
is somehow acceptable.

340
00:18:06,495 --> 00:18:09,127
We teach girls shame.

341
00:18:09,127 --> 00:18:11,603
"Close your legs",
"Cover yourself".

342
00:18:11,700 --> 00:18:13,981
We make them feel as though
by being born female

343
00:18:13,981 --> 00:18:16,262
they're already guilty of something.

344
00:18:16,262 --> 00:18:18,544
And so, girls grow up to be women

345
00:18:18,544 --> 00:18:20,746
who cannot see they have desire.

346
00:18:20,746 --> 00:18:24,442
They grow up to be women
who silence themselves.

347
00:18:25,257 --> 00:18:28,516
They grow up to be women who
cannot see what they truly think,

348
00:18:28,516 --> 00:18:30,016
and they grow up -

349
00:18:30,016 --> 00:18:32,250
and this is the worst thing
we did to girls -

350
00:18:32,270 --> 00:18:36,807
they grow up to be women
who have turned pretense into an art form.

351
00:18:36,807 --> 00:18:42,762
(Applause)

352
00:18:42,762 --> 00:18:46,126
I know a woman who hates domestic work,

353
00:18:46,126 --> 00:18:47,479
she just hates it,

354
00:18:47,479 --> 00:18:49,789
but she pretends that she likes it,

355
00:18:50,435 --> 00:18:54,333
because she's been taught that
to be "good wife material"

356
00:18:54,333 --> 00:18:58,857
she has to be -- to use that Nigerian word
-- very "homely."

357
00:18:59,625 --> 00:19:00,883
And then she got married,

358
00:19:00,883 --> 00:19:02,865
and after a while her husband's family 


359
00:19:02,865 --> 00:19:06,635
began to complain
that she had changed.

360
00:19:06,635 --> 00:19:08,237
Actually she had not changed,

361
00:19:08,237 --> 00:19:10,396
she just got tired of pretending.

362
00:19:10,873 --> 00:19:13,342
The problem with gender,

363
00:19:13,342 --> 00:19:16,377
is that it prescribes how we should be

364
00:19:16,377 --> 00:19:19,195
rather than recognizing how we are.

365
00:19:19,802 --> 00:19:22,232
Now imagine how much happier
we would be,

366
00:19:22,289 --> 00:19:25,557
how much freer to be
our true individual selves,

367
00:19:25,557 --> 00:19:29,200
if we didn't have the weight
of gender expectations.

368
00:19:29,200 --> 00:19:34,133
Boys and girls are undeniably
different biologically,

369
00:19:34,133 --> 00:19:37,191
but socialization exaggerates
the differences

370
00:19:37,191 --> 00:19:39,685
and then it becomes
a self-fulfilling process.

371
00:19:39,823 --> 00:19:42,171
Now take cooking for example.

372
00:19:42,171 --> 00:19:45,951
Today women in general are more likely
to do the house work than men,

373
00:19:45,951 --> 00:19:47,302
the cooking and cleaning.

374
00:19:47,302 --> 00:19:48,874
But why is that?

375
00:19:48,874 --> 00:19:51,566
Is it because women are born
with a cooking gene?

376
00:19:51,566 --> 00:19:53,358
(Laughter)

377
00:19:53,358 --> 00:19:56,951
Or because over years they have been
socialized to see cooking as their rule?

378
00:19:57,443 --> 00:20:00,402
Actually I was going to say that maybe
women are born with a cooking gene,

379
00:20:00,402 --> 00:20:04,390
until I remember that the majority
of the famous cooks in the world,

380
00:20:04,390 --> 00:20:06,647
whom we give the fancy title of "chefs,"

381
00:20:06,647 --> 00:20:08,428
are men.

382
00:20:09,275 --> 00:20:10,857
I used to look up to my grandmother

383
00:20:10,857 --> 00:20:12,570
who was a brilliant, brilliant woman,

384
00:20:12,570 --> 00:20:14,736
and wonder how she would have been

385
00:20:14,736 --> 00:20:18,365
if she had the same opportunity
as men when she was growing up.

386
00:20:19,195 --> 00:20:21,724
Now today, there are
many more opportunities for women

387
00:20:21,724 --> 00:20:23,775
than there were during
my grandmother's time

388
00:20:23,775 --> 00:20:26,661
because of changes in policy,
changes in law,

389
00:20:26,661 --> 00:20:28,466
all of which are very important.

390
00:20:28,466 --> 00:20:32,435
But what matters even more
is our attitude, our mindset,

391
00:20:32,490 --> 00:20:35,356
what we believe and what we value
about gender.

392
00:20:36,063 --> 00:20:38,408
What if in raising children

393
00:20:38,408 --> 00:20:41,853
we focus on ability instead of gender?

394
00:20:41,853 --> 00:20:43,377
What if in raising children

395
00:20:43,377 --> 00:20:47,152
we focus on interest instead of gender?

396
00:20:47,152 --> 00:20:49,521
I know a family who have
a son and a daughter,

397
00:20:49,521 --> 00:20:51,196
both of whom are brilliant at school,

398
00:20:51,196 --> 00:20:53,287
who are wonderful, lovely children.

399
00:20:53,287 --> 00:20:55,808
When the boy is hungry,
the parents say to the girl

400
00:20:55,808 --> 00:20:58,962
"Go and cook Indomie noodles
for your brother."

401
00:20:58,962 --> 00:21:02,821
Now the daughter doesn't particularly like
to cook Indomie noodles,

402
00:21:02,821 --> 00:21:05,609
but she's a girl,
and so she has to.

403
00:21:05,725 --> 00:21:07,196
Now, what if the parents,

404
00:21:07,196 --> 00:21:08,465
from the beginning,

405
00:21:08,465 --> 00:21:14,089
taught both the boy and the girl
to cook Indomie?

406
00:21:14,089 --> 00:21:17,185
Cooking, by the way,
is a very useful skill for boys to have.

407
00:21:17,185 --> 00:21:21,794
I've never thought it made sense
to leave such a crucial thing,

408
00:21:21,794 --> 00:21:25,028
the ability to nourish oneself,

409
00:21:25,028 --> 00:21:27,316
in the hands of others.

410
00:21:27,316 --> 00:21:32,055
(Applause)

411
00:21:32,055 --> 00:21:35,845
I know a woman who has the same degree
and the same job as her husband,

412
00:21:35,845 --> 00:21:38,576
when they get back from work
she does most of the house work,

413
00:21:38,587 --> 00:21:40,972
which I think is true for many marriages,

414
00:21:40,972 --> 00:21:42,972
But what struck me about them was that

415
00:21:42,972 --> 00:21:45,539
whenever her husband changed
the baby's diaper,

416
00:21:45,539 --> 00:21:48,446
she said "thank you" to him.

417
00:21:49,046 --> 00:21:53,750
Now what if she saw this
as perfectly normal and natural

418
00:21:53,750 --> 00:21:57,485
that he should, in fact,
care for his child?

419
00:21:59,592 --> 00:22:03,406
I'm trying to unlearn
many of the lessons of gender

420
00:22:03,406 --> 00:22:05,669
that I internalized when I was growing up.

421
00:22:05,669 --> 00:22:08,419
But I sometimes still feel very vulnerable

422
00:22:08,419 --> 00:22:11,169
in the face of gender expectations.

423
00:22:11,169 --> 00:22:14,258
The first time I taught a
writing class in graduate school

424
00:22:14,258 --> 00:22:15,726
I was worried.

425
00:22:15,726 --> 00:22:19,254
I wasn't worried about the material
I would teach because I was well-prepared

426
00:22:19,254 --> 00:22:21,483
and I was going to teach
what I enjoy teaching.

427
00:22:21,483 --> 00:22:24,011
Instead, I was worried about what to wear.

428
00:22:24,811 --> 00:22:26,805
I wanted to be taken seriously.

429
00:22:27,295 --> 00:22:29,014
I knew that because I was female

430
00:22:29,014 --> 00:22:32,999
I will automatically
have to prove my worth.

431
00:22:33,461 --> 00:22:35,379
And I was worried if I looked too feminine

432
00:22:35,379 --> 00:22:37,509
I would not be taken seriously.

433
00:22:37,540 --> 00:22:41,609
I really wanted to wear my shiny lip gloss
and my girly skirt,

434
00:22:41,686 --> 00:22:43,379
but I decided not to.

435
00:22:43,379 --> 00:22:45,965
Instead, I wore a very serious,

436
00:22:45,980 --> 00:22:49,175
very manly, and very ugly suit.

437
00:22:50,036 --> 00:22:52,666
Because the sad truth is
that when it comes to appearance

438
00:22:52,666 --> 00:22:54,590
we start off with man as the standard,

439
00:22:54,590 --> 00:22:56,171
as the norm.

440
00:22:56,202 --> 00:22:58,563
If a man is getting ready
for a business meeting

441
00:22:58,563 --> 00:23:00,421
he doesn't worry about
looking too masculine

442
00:23:00,421 --> 00:23:02,875
and therefore not being taken for granted.

443
00:23:03,029 --> 00:23:05,835
If a woman has to get ready
for business meeting,

444
00:23:05,835 --> 00:23:09,564
she has to worry about looking
too feminine, and what it says

445
00:23:10,439 --> 00:23:13,429
and whether or not
she will be taken seriously.

446
00:23:14,059 --> 00:23:16,872
I wish I had not worn
that ugly suit that day.

447
00:23:17,272 --> 00:23:20,218
I've actually banished it from my closet,
by the way.

448
00:23:20,724 --> 00:23:25,663
Had I then the confidence
that I have now to be myself

449
00:23:25,663 --> 00:23:28,588
my students would have benefited
even more from my teaching,

450
00:23:28,588 --> 00:23:30,503
because I would have been
more comfortable,

451
00:23:30,503 --> 00:23:33,438
and more fully and more truly myself.

452
00:23:33,715 --> 00:23:38,133
I have chosen to no longer be apologetic
for my femaleness

453
00:23:38,163 --> 00:23:40,432
and for my femininity.

454
00:23:40,432 --> 00:23:46,539
(Applause)

455
00:23:46,539 --> 00:23:49,810
And I want to be respected
in all of my femaleness

456
00:23:49,810 --> 00:23:52,052
because I deserve to be.

457
00:23:52,113 --> 00:23:54,745
Gender is not an easy conversation
to have.

458
00:23:55,637 --> 00:23:57,915
For both men and women,

459
00:23:57,915 --> 00:24:01,493
to bring up gender, sometimes
encounters almost immediate resistance.

460
00:24:01,493 --> 00:24:04,242
I can imagine some people here
are actually thinking

461
00:24:04,242 --> 00:24:06,515
"Women, true to selves? "

462
00:24:08,407 --> 00:24:10,249
Some of the men here might be thinking

463
00:24:10,249 --> 00:24:12,306
"Okay, all of this is interesting,

464
00:24:12,306 --> 00:24:14,784
but I don't think like that."

465
00:24:14,861 --> 00:24:16,953
And that is part of the problem.

466
00:24:16,953 --> 00:24:20,157
That many men do not actively think
about gender

467
00:24:20,157 --> 00:24:21,601
or notice gender,

468
00:24:21,601 --> 00:24:23,707
is part of the problem of gender.

469
00:24:23,707 --> 00:24:26,219
That many men, say, like my friend Louis,

470
00:24:26,219 --> 00:24:28,758
that everything is fine now.

471
00:24:28,758 --> 00:24:32,063
And that many men do nothing to change it.

472
00:24:32,063 --> 00:24:34,902
If you are a man and you walk
into a restaurant with a woman

473
00:24:34,902 --> 00:24:37,281
and the waiter greets only you,

474
00:24:37,281 --> 00:24:39,312
does it occur to you to ask the waiter

475
00:24:39,312 --> 00:24:41,697
"Why haven't you greeted her?"

476
00:24:43,866 --> 00:24:46,303
Because gender can be...

477
00:24:47,306 --> 00:24:54,210
(Laughter)

478
00:24:55,732 --> 00:24:59,383
Actually we may repose part of
a longer version of this talk.

479
00:25:00,306 --> 00:25:03,920
So, because gender can be
a very uncomfortable conversation to have,

480
00:25:03,920 --> 00:25:06,861
there are very easy ways to close it,
to close the conversation.

481
00:25:06,861 --> 00:25:10,101
So some people will bring up
evolutionary biology

482
00:25:10,101 --> 00:25:11,281
and apes,

483
00:25:11,281 --> 00:25:14,881
how, you know, female apes
bow down to male apes

484
00:25:14,881 --> 00:25:16,603
and that sort of thing.

485
00:25:16,603 --> 00:25:18,931
But the point is we're not apes.

486
00:25:18,931 --> 00:25:24,736
(Laughter)
(Applause)

487
00:25:25,685 --> 00:25:30,227
Apes also live on trees and
have earth worms for breakfast

488
00:25:30,227 --> 00:25:31,925
but we don't.

489
00:25:32,078 --> 00:25:33,393
Some people will say,

490
00:25:33,393 --> 00:25:36,469
"Well, poor men also have a hard time."

491
00:25:36,469 --> 00:25:38,665
And this is true.

492
00:25:38,957 --> 00:25:41,257
But that is not what this...
(Laughter)

493
00:25:41,318 --> 00:25:44,077
But this is not what this conversation
is about.

494
00:25:45,508 --> 00:25:49,214
Gender and class are different forms
of oppression.

495
00:25:49,214 --> 00:25:52,731
I actually learned quite a bit
about systems of oppression

496
00:25:52,731 --> 00:25:55,380
and how they can be blind to one another

497
00:25:55,380 --> 00:25:57,620
by talking to black men.

498
00:25:58,420 --> 00:26:01,297
I was once talking to a black man
about gender

499
00:26:01,297 --> 00:26:02,439
and he said to me,

500
00:26:02,439 --> 00:26:04,358
"Why do you have to say

501
00:26:04,358 --> 00:26:06,218
'my experience as a woman'?

502
00:26:06,218 --> 00:26:07,387
why can't it be

503
00:26:07,387 --> 00:26:10,285
'your experience as a human being'?"

504
00:26:10,808 --> 00:26:13,088
Now this was the same man
who would often talk about

505
00:26:13,088 --> 00:26:16,006
his experience as a black man.

506
00:26:18,462 --> 00:26:21,480
Gender matters. Men and women
experience the world differently.

507
00:26:22,029 --> 00:26:24,580
Gender colors the way
we experience the world.

508
00:26:24,580 --> 00:26:27,210
But we can change that.

509
00:26:27,210 --> 00:26:28,631
Some people will say,

510
00:26:29,421 --> 00:26:31,925
"Oh but women have the real power,

511
00:26:31,925 --> 00:26:33,386
bottom power."

512
00:26:33,386 --> 00:26:36,151
And for non-Nigerians, bottom power
is an expression which --

513
00:26:36,151 --> 00:26:37,724
I suppose means something like

514
00:26:37,724 --> 00:26:41,614
a woman who uses her sexuality
to get favors from men.

515
00:26:41,998 --> 00:26:45,421
But bottom power is not power at all.

516
00:26:46,775 --> 00:26:50,083
Bottom power means that a woman

517
00:26:50,083 --> 00:26:53,362
simply has a good root to tap into,
from time to time,

518
00:26:53,362 --> 00:26:55,996
somebody else's power.

519
00:26:56,027 --> 00:26:57,356
And then of course we have to wonder 


520
00:26:57,356 --> 00:26:58,685
what happens when that somebody else is

521
00:26:58,685 --> 00:27:00,014
in a bad mood,

522
00:27:00,014 --> 00:27:01,541
or sick,

523
00:27:01,541 --> 00:27:03,472
or impotent.

524
00:27:03,472 --> 00:27:07,080
(Laughter)

525
00:27:07,807 --> 00:27:12,748
Some people will say that a woman
being subordinate to a man is our culture.

526
00:27:13,841 --> 00:27:15,622
But culture is constantly changing.

527
00:27:15,622 --> 00:27:18,578
I have beautiful twin nieces
who are fifteen

528
00:27:18,578 --> 00:27:19,969
and live in Lagos,

529
00:27:19,969 --> 00:27:22,853
if they had been born a hundred years ago

530
00:27:22,863 --> 00:27:25,155
they would have been taken away
and killed.

531
00:27:25,155 --> 00:27:29,427
Because it was our culture,
it was our culture to kill twins.

532
00:27:29,427 --> 00:27:32,222
So what is the point of culture?

533
00:27:32,361 --> 00:27:33,683
I mean there's the decorative,

534
00:27:33,683 --> 00:27:35,056
the dancing...

535
00:27:35,056 --> 00:27:40,285
but also, culture really is about
preservation and continuity of a people.

536
00:27:40,285 --> 00:27:41,402
In my family,

537
00:27:41,402 --> 00:27:44,657
I am the child who is most interested
in the story of who we are,

538
00:27:44,657 --> 00:27:45,798
in our tradition,

539
00:27:45,798 --> 00:27:48,111
in the knowledge about ancestral lands.

540
00:27:48,188 --> 00:27:50,874
My brothers are not as interested as I am.

541
00:27:50,951 --> 00:27:53,074
But I cannot participate,

542
00:27:53,074 --> 00:27:54,877
I cannot go to their meetings,

543
00:27:54,877 --> 00:27:56,680
I cannot have a say.

544
00:27:56,680 --> 00:27:58,707
Because I'm female.

545
00:27:58,707 --> 00:28:00,943
Culture does not make people,

546
00:28:00,943 --> 00:28:02,914
people make culture.

547
00:28:05,420 --> 00:28:08,014
(Applause)

548
00:28:09,112 --> 00:28:12,497
So if it's in fact true
that the full humanity of women

549
00:28:12,497 --> 00:28:15,837
is not our culture,
then we must make it our culture.

550
00:28:17,283 --> 00:28:22,149
I think very often
of my dear friend Okuloma,

551
00:28:22,149 --> 00:28:26,847
may he and all the others that passed
away in that Sosoliso Crash

552
00:28:26,847 --> 00:28:29,299
continue to rest in peace.

553
00:28:29,299 --> 00:28:32,876
He will always be remembered
by those of us who loved him.

554
00:28:33,338 --> 00:28:36,289
And he was right that day many years ago

555
00:28:36,289 --> 00:28:38,191
when he called me a feminist.

556
00:28:38,191 --> 00:28:39,989
I am a feminist.

557
00:28:40,374 --> 00:28:42,508
And when I looked up the word
in the dictionary that day,

558
00:28:42,508 --> 00:28:43,709
this is what it said:

559
00:28:43,709 --> 00:28:44,964
Feminist,

560
00:28:44,964 --> 00:28:47,433
a person who believes
in the social, political

561
00:28:47,433 --> 00:28:50,242
and economic equality of the sexes.

562
00:28:51,239 --> 00:28:52,881
My great grandmother,

563
00:28:52,881 --> 00:28:54,235
from the stories I've heard,

564
00:28:54,235 --> 00:28:55,942
was a feminist.

565
00:28:55,942 --> 00:28:59,235
She ran away from the house of the man
she did not want to marry,

566
00:28:59,235 --> 00:29:02,083
and ended up marrying the man
of her choice.

567
00:29:02,083 --> 00:29:05,166
She refused,
she protested, she spoke up

568
00:29:05,166 --> 00:29:10,546
whenever she felt she's being deprived
of access, or land, that sort of thing.

569
00:29:10,573 --> 00:29:13,756
My great grandmother did not know
that word "feminist,"

570
00:29:13,976 --> 00:29:16,733
but it doesn't mean that she wasn't one.

571
00:29:17,194 --> 00:29:19,859
More of us should reclaim that word.

572
00:29:20,628 --> 00:29:23,534
My own definition of feminist is:

573
00:29:24,041 --> 00:29:26,305
a feminist is a man or a woman

574
00:29:26,305 --> 00:29:28,019
who says -

575
00:29:28,019 --> 00:29:37,666
(Laughter)
(Applause)

576
00:29:37,666 --> 00:29:40,673
a feminist is a man or a woman who says

577
00:29:40,673 --> 00:29:44,162
"Yes, there's a problem
with gender as it is today,

578
00:29:44,162 --> 00:29:45,618
and we must fix it.

579
00:29:45,618 --> 00:29:48,037
We must do better."

580
00:29:48,867 --> 00:29:50,493
The best feminist I know

581
00:29:50,493 --> 00:29:52,991
is my brother Kenny.

582
00:29:53,555 --> 00:29:57,709
He's also a kind, good-looking,
lovely man,

583
00:29:57,709 --> 00:30:00,175
and he's very masculine.

584
00:30:00,175 --> 00:30:01,651
Thank you.

585
00:30:01,690 --> 00:30:06,735
(Applause)