Reading Dear Ijeawele you nearly feel like you are entering a room where Adichie is sitting in her seat, sipping a cup of tea, and talking to you and to the world she is creating. Even in the first lines you are hit with that stinging familiarity the letter is addressed to a friend, but it goes much further than that, and you are dragged into the immediacy, the tenderness and the earnestness of what she is saying. She is not lecturing, but revealing, instructing, thought-provoking, questioning beliefs and, sometimes, making you laugh or cringe at her uninhibited frankness.
It is a misleadingly simple book, in that it is fifteen tips toward raising a feminist child, but every tip has its weight, history, lived experience, and emotion. Adichie is ever-present in each and every line, her voice is plain, straightforward, yet very thought-provoking.
When she discusses how she and her team should educate girls on the fact that their value does not depend on their looks or how they obeyed, it comes like a silent kick in the stomach. You start to realize how the society influences children into a certain perception of power, gender, and ambition, and you cannot help but start contemplating how you were shaped by these forces and maybe even limited by them.
The beauty of this book is the personal nature of it. She tells her stories about her life, her thoughts on her childhood and her impressions about friends, lovers, and children she has known. You are experiencing the stakes, it is not some abstract thought about the concept of feminism, but a survival strategy, self-respect structure and comprehension in a world that tends to devalue both.
You begin to feel the strain between the expectations placed upon society and the wish of a person to live in genuine way and she does not hesitate to give the names to the threats, the hypocrisies and the traps. There’s vulnerability here, a willingness to say, “I have tried, I have failed, I have learned,” and it makes you want to lean in closer.
You almost hear her say it aloud as you read it. The prose rhythm is conversational and crisp, with every suggestion sounding like it was thrown across with force. It is both radical and personal when she talks about how to teach a girl not to yield to the demands of society, to accept the anger inside her heart, to fall in love without losing herself. You can experience the hardness under the sensitivity, the love of Adichie towards her friend, towards the child, towards the truth itself. It is a fine line: brutal direction, but full of compassion.
What saddens most, however, is how the book goes beyond gender. Feminist, yes, raising daughters in a patriarchal world, yes, but also humanity, morals, bravery, and self-consciousness. You get to be thinking of your own actions, your own prejudices, how we all all contribute in some small way to systems of restriction, and how we can all urgently undo them. Through a slow realization the awareness that this is not just a piece of advice to one child but a roadmap to making any human being be aware, just and strong.
It is unceasing emotional resonance. You feel the contrast of hope and fear, the fear that the world is hard and harsh, the hope that it can be changed. It is morally clear in a way that is hard to find: Adichie does not attempt to hedge her argument, does not make it more comfortable. But there is warmth, humour, and a sort of deep generosity. You are directed, pushed and guarded simultaneously. Every anecdote, every suggestion is a small prism of culture, politics, family, and personal responsibility and the overall impact is mind-blowing.
You are both breathless and thoughtful by the end. You have the feeling of empowerment yet the burden of responsibility. It is a reading that requires being listened to, feeling, and acting. You are different--not very briefly, but in the very essence of the way you consider yourself and others and the children that we all are making, or making, or making, either literally or figuratively.
Dear Ijeawele is unpolished, personal and sharp. It is brutal, delicate, intimate, and intimate, at the same time, and is very human. You can easily feel seen, challenged and inspired at the same time when Adichie writes in a way that resonates with you directly. You close the book with your head swirling, your heart overflowing and an enhanced understanding of the little, retrenchant, and imperative gestures that can fashion cognizance, equality and personality.
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