Those of you that have taken a course in the Women’s Studies department at DePauw have most likely read or been introduced to the book “We Should All Be Feminists” written by the Nigerian Author Chimamanda Adichie. Published just a few years ago, the book is small in size, approximately 50 pages in length, and overall unsuspecting.
Yet the argument Adichie makes is anything but small. She declares that “we should all be feminists.” And I agree.
The audience to which I am writing this opinion is of great importance. We, as DePauw University students, should all be feminists. Our cohort, from ages 18-22, have the ability to make significant impacts on our future society; therefore, we should do so as feminists.
It is of upmost importance that when we leave DePauw we leave as feminists. And when we go on in life either as teachers, managers, writers, and even parents, we must do a service to our students, employees, audiences, and even children. We must acknowledge gender inequality as an issue, live as examples to younger generations, and pass the torch onto them.
Our goal should not to simply make room for the roles of women within the patriarchy. Rather to create a society that denounces negative patriarchal values and promotes equality between the sexes.
To achieve this goal, we must first remove the stigma around the word ‘feminism.’ Education about the objectives of the feminist movement is critical. It should be made clear that equality for women would improve not only the lives of women but also the lives of all.
Keeping gender in the issue is also significant. Many people will argue that are not feminists but rather ‘humanists,’ dedicated to the equality of all humans not just women. The same dilemma occurs in the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement. People will argue: Don’t all lives matter? Well of course all lives matter, but that is fundamentally not what we are talking about.
By making this sweeping claim, you undermine the experiences people have had and are attempting to share, while also trying to bury the real issue at hand. In the case of feminism and humanism, of course equality of all humans should be sought after. But in this feminist movement, we’re talking specifically about gender, and sight should not be taken from that endeavor by grandiose statements seeking to undermine the cause.
Adichie makes the profound statement at the end of her book: “all of us, women and men, must do better.” I challenge DePauw’s campus to do the same.