You pick up We Should All Be Feminists: A Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions—or, as I like to call it, the Feminist Manifesto—and immediately you feel it. That electric, almost uncomfortable hum that runs through your chest when someone starts speaking truths you’ve always known but never fully let yourself confront. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie doesn’t tiptoe around ideas; she walks straight up to them, eyes wide open, and holds nothing back. And the first thing you notice is how conversational it feels, like she’s right there across from you, leaning forward, speaking directly to your doubts, your hesitations, your blind spots, your privileges. And suddenly, you’re uncomfortable, because yeah—you see yourself in this mirror, warts and all, and you can’t look away.
On the surface, the manifesto is misleadingly straightforward. It has fifteen tips, fifteen small, nearly informal pieces of advice. However, every one of them is as dense as a brick since it is coated with shades, life experience, and ethical clarity which does not tolerate compromises. Adichie is not preaching, she is asking you to think, asking you to become thoughtful and sometimes she will make you feel uncomfortable in your seat because you know you have swallowed the world’s gender discourse without even doubting it. One second you are nodding, thinking, yes, of course, women should be allowed to take up space, to talk, to be there, without apologizing, the next she is digging deeper: how many times do you ever whisper to yourself or someone, unawares? What percentage of times do you make sexualism slide, because it is convenient, because it is embarrassing to challenge it, because the world has conditioned you to choose your battles selectively?
The most painful thing is the intimacy in her writing. She does not simply give you abstract principles, but she weaves her experience into the text. It has a weak point: the times when you find her walk through the actual circumstances, when she points out social absurdity, when she confronts and challenges the world, as well as herself. It is a crude candor that makes you get attracted. It seems like you are a part of a confidential and a collective conversation with a friend who is not going to sugarcoat anything. And since it is conversational, the manifesto gets under your defenses. You begin to look at yourself, your actions, your complacencies, your comfort zones, and before you can even think about it you are facing the facts about yourself that you have been tip-toeing around all your life.
Adichie does it in such a way that personal and political are closely interconnected. She clarifies that feminism is neither a theory, nor an idea, but a reality, it is experienced, it is felt, it is ever-present in every encounter, expectation, decision. The manifesto takes you on a tour of the little and sometimes unseen ways in which patriarchy functions language, social norms, microaggressions and it is tenacious and kind. It is impossible to read a page without considering the multitude of minor tradeoffs that society requires women to make: lowering their tones, downsizing their goals, focusing on the comfort of others, rather than their own. And she does it almost amazingly: she transforms these discomforts into an appeal to awareness, thoughtfulness and action. The tension is palpable and you read, between the guilt and hope, recognition and inspiration, discomfort and empowerment.
The passages are there that make you punch you in the gut. As she discusses economic inequality, family expectations, or how girls and boys are socialized differently, one can not help but look back on his or her life, how one was raised, the choices she or he made. You begin listing the how many times you have unconsciously assimilated, how many times you have silently accepted injustice and how many ways you have probably even promoted inequality without intentionally even being aware of it. And it’s raw. It’s uncomfortable. But it’s also clarifying. You know the burden of responsibility, all right, but the strength of possibility. You know that even minimal acts like speaking out, challenging the status quo, fostering consciousness have the power to spread out.
One of the most striking things about the manifesto is how it balances critique with possibility. It doesn’t dwell in despair or finger-pointing; it’s a call to action, a guide to consciousness. Adichie pushes you to recognize the world’s faults without letting them paralyze you. You start to see that feminism isn’t just a movement—it’s a lens, a practice, a daily negotiation with the world and yourself. And the more you engage with it, the more you feel your awareness expand. You notice how language shapes behavior, how traditions enforce hierarchy, how cultural norms dictate expectations, and suddenly, you can’t unsee these patterns.
The tension is nearly electric near the middle of the manifesto. You are torn between pain and euphoria, between the feeling of guilt and hope, between reflexivity and action. And that is what makes it so transformative. You are not merely reading but you are being sucked into a reckoning, a struggle with your own mind and with the social structures that make up society. The words of Adichie are memorable since they do not require passive reading but reflection. You are also tested, antagonized and rather counterintuitive, emboldened.
And the loveliness of her voice: straightforward, clear, humorous, sympathetic. It is rather personal, as though your best friend was taking you through a social minefield of social anticipation and internalized prejudice. She does not ever dull down edges needlessly, and she does not estrange you either. Enough space to fall, to take a look back, to develop. When you get to the final suggestions, you are both drained and energized at once by the awareness of how deep in problems are, how complex in the individual the complicity, how possible it is in oneself to live another way, to act another way, to think another way.
Feminist Manifesto is crude, it is sharp, it is insistent, and it is electric. It does not offer easy solutions, it offers understanding, challenge and the hardest part of all, the challenge to grapple with yourself. You put the book back with the burden of responsibility and the fire of possibility. You are provoked to do, to speak, to watch, and not to remain silent. You are observed and disliked as you should be. And best of all you sense the palpable, breathing living presence of feminism, not as an abstract concept, but as a living, breathing, everyday, necessary, beautiful struggle with life, with choice and with justice.
It’s not just a manifesto. It’s a mirror. And like all the best mirrors, it leaves you raw, aware, and transformed.
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