Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The problem with looking in the mirror is th...

All over the world, girls are raised to be make themselves likeable, to twist themselves into shapes that suit other people. Please do not twist yourself into shapes to please. Don't do it. If someone likes that version of you, that version of you that is false and holds back, then they actually just like that twisted shape, and not you. And the world is such a gloriously multifaceted, diverse place that there are people in the world who will like you, the real you, as you are.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

girl real people

We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls: 'You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you will threaten the man.' Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices, always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now, marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support, but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don't teach boys the same?

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

women girl inspiring

Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower, and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

empowering broken people

There are people who dislike you because you do not dislike yourself.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

dislike like-you people

Never ever accept 'Because You Are A Woman' as a reason for doing or not doing anything.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

accepting reason

The idea that sex is something a woman gives a man, and she loses something when she does that, which again for me is nonsense. I want us to raise girls differently where boys and girls start to see sexuality as something that they own, rather than something that a boy takes from a girl.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

girl boys sex

The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

brilliant problem stories

If you start thinking about being likable you are not going to tell your story honestly.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

honestly stories thinking

If you don't understand, ask questions. If you're uncomfortable about asking questions, say you are uncomfortable about asking questions and then ask anyway. It's easy to tell when a question is coming from a good place. Then listen some more. Sometimes people just want to feel heard. Here's to possibilities of friendship and connection and understanding.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

asking-questions understanding people

We teach girls shame; close your legs, cover yourself, we make them feel as though by being born female they're already guilty of something.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

legs female girl

To choose to write is to reject silence.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

rejects silence writing

Of course I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

strong-women empowering motivational

Privilege blinds, because it's in its nature to blind. Don't let it blind you too often. Sometimes you will need to push it aside in order to see clearly.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

privilege order needs

Culture does not make people. People make culture.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

doe culture people

The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn't have the weight of gender expectations.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

self expectations would-be

I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femaleness and my femininity. And I want to be respected in all of my femaleness because I deserve to be.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

apologetic femininity want

When we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

paradise kind stories

Some people ask: "Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?" Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general-but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

women expression rights

Our society teaches a woman at a certain age who is unmarried to see it as a deep personal failure. While a man at a certain age who is unmarried has not quite come around to making his pick.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

our-society age men

I am a strong believer in the ability of human beings to change for the better. I am a strong believer in trying to change what we are dissatisfied with.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

change-for-the-better strong trying

The problem with looking in the mirror is that you never know how you will feel about what you see. Sometimes, when my hormones are out of sync, I have no interest in the mirror, and if I do look I think everything is all wrong. Other times, I am quite pleased with what I see.