Famed Nigeria author Chimamanda Adichie has said that women are the same as men and not special.
She said this on Thursday, June 21, 2018, at the Chatham House London Conference 2018 on storytelling.
The Chatham House formally is known as the Royal Institute of International Affair. The 99-year-old establishment has hosted world leaders and thinkers focused on proposing policy on global affairs. In 2015, President Buhari spoke at the Chatham House.
Women are the same as men and not special
In her address, Adichie said that women should not be treated as special but as human beings. “Women are not special, they are just human. Women are as human as men. women are not little gods that have to be worshipped. The danger of this thinking that women are somehow special, are somehow morally better is that if this is true there is a certain level of autonomy they can never truly have” she said.
She also broke down how the world treats women differently from men based off sex.
Different perception of both sexes
“In our world a man is confident but a woman is arrogant. In our world a man is uncompromising but a woman is a ball breaker. A man is assertive, a woman is aggressive. A man is strategic, a woman is manipulative. A man is a leader, a woman is controlling. A man is authoritative, a woman is annoying” she highlighted.
In her address, she has concerns with how the American media portrays the #MeToo movement because “it aligns with that idea that for a woman to be deserving of sympathy she has to be as non-threatening as possible.”
Men should read more books by women
According to Adichie, men should read books written by women as a way of understanding them more.
“I think men should read more stories by and about women, We know from studies that men read men, and women read men and women. Perhaps if men read more women’s stories, they would be more likely to see them as fully human and less likely to see them as objects that exist for the needs of men” she said at the annual conference.
In June, the award-winning author caused a bit of controversy when she expressed her opinion on chivalry.
