00:00:12
So I would like to start by telling you
about one of my greatest friends,
00:00:17
Okoloma Maduewesi.
00:00:19
Okoloma lived on my street
00:00:21
and looked after me like a big brother.
00:00:23
If I liked a boy,
I would ask Okoloma's opinion.
00:00:27
Okoloma died in the notorious
Sosoliso plane crash
00:00:31
in Nigeria in December of 2005.
00:00:34
Almost exactly seven years ago.
00:00:37
Okoloma was a person I could argue with,
laugh with and truly talk to.
00:00:43
He was also the first person
to call me a feminist.
00:00:47
I was about fourteen,
we were at his house, arguing.
00:00:50
Both of us bristling
with half bit knowledge
00:00:53
from books that we had read.
00:00:55
I don't remember what this
particular argument was about,
00:00:59
but I remember
that as I argued and argued,
00:01:01
Okoloma looked at me and said,
"You know, you're a feminist."
00:01:05
It was not a compliment.
00:01:06
(Laughter)
00:01:08
I could tell from his tone,
00:01:09
the same tone that you would use
to say something like,
00:01:12
"You're a supporter of terrorism."
00:01:14
(Laughter)
00:01:17
I did not know exactly
what this word "feminist" meant,
00:01:20
and I did not want Okoloma
to know that I did not know.
00:01:24
So I brushed it aside,
and I continued to argue.
00:01:27
And the first thing
I planned to do when I got home
00:01:29
was to look up the word
"feminist" in the dictionary.
00:01:32
Now fast forward to some years later,
00:01:35
I wrote a novel about a man
who among other things beats his wife
00:01:39
and whose story doesn't end very well.
00:01:42
While I was promoting
the novel in Nigeria,
00:01:44
a journalist, a nice, well-meaning man,
00:01:47
told me he wanted to advise me.
00:01:51
And for the Nigerians here,
00:01:52
I'm sure we're all familiar
00:01:53
with how quick our people are
to give unsolicited advice.
00:02:01
He told me that people were saying
that my novel was feminist
00:02:05
and his advice to me --
00:02:06
and he was shaking his head
sadly as he spoke --
00:02:09
was that I should never
call myself a feminist
00:02:12
because feminists
are women who are unhappy
00:02:14
because they cannot find husbands.
00:02:16
(Laughter)
00:02:21
So I decided to call myself
"a happy feminist."
00:02:24
Then an academic, a Nigerian woman told me
00:02:27
that feminism was not our culture
00:02:29
and that feminism wasn't African,
00:02:30
and that I was calling myself a feminist
00:02:32
because I had been corrupted
by "Western books."
00:02:35
Which amused me,
00:02:37
because a lot of my early readings
were decidedly unfeminist.
00:02:40
I think I must have read every single
Mills & Boon romance published
00:02:43
before I was sixteen.
00:02:45
And each time I tried to read those books
00:02:47
called "the feminist classics,"
00:02:49
I'd get bored, and I really
struggled to finish them.
00:02:52
But anyway, since feminism was un-African,
00:02:55
I decided that I would now call myself
"a happy African feminist."
00:02:59
At some point I was a happy African
feminist who does not hate men
00:03:04
and who likes lip gloss
00:03:05
and who wears high heels
for herself but not for men.
00:03:07
(Laughter)
00:03:09
Of course a lot of this
was tongue-in-cheek,
00:03:11
but that word feminist is so heavy
with baggage, negative baggage.
00:03:16
You hate men, you hate bras,
00:03:18
you hate African culture,
that sort of thing.
00:03:22
Now here's a story from my childhood.
00:03:24
When I was in primary school,
00:03:26
my teacher said at the beginning of term
that she would give the class a test
00:03:31
and whoever got the highest score
would be the class monitor.
00:03:34
Now, class monitor was a big deal.
00:03:37
If you were a class monitor,
00:03:38
you got to write down
the names of noisemakers --
00:03:41
(Laughter)
00:03:42
which was having enough power of its own.
00:03:46
But my teacher would also give you
a cane to hold in your hand
00:03:51
while you walk around
and patrol the class for noisemakers.
00:03:55
Now, of course you were not
actually allowed to use the cane.
00:03:58
But it was an exciting prospect
for the nine-year-old me.
00:04:02
I very much wanted
to be the class monitor.
00:04:04
And I got the highest score on the test.
00:04:07
Then, to my surprise, my teacher said
that the monitor had to be a boy.
00:04:12
She had forgotten
to make that clear earlier
00:04:14
because she assumed it was ... obvious.
00:04:16
(Laughter)
00:04:18
A boy had the second highest
score on the test,
00:04:20
and he would be monitor.
00:04:23
Now, what was even more
interesting about this
00:04:25
is that the boy was a sweet, gentle soul
00:04:29
who had no interest
in patrolling the class with the cane,
00:04:33
while I was full of ambition to do so.
00:04:38
But I was female and he was male,
00:04:40
and so he became the class monitor.
00:04:43
And I've never forgotten that incident.
00:04:45
I often make the mistake of thinking
00:04:47
that something that is obvious to me
is just as obvious to everyone else.
00:04:51
Now, take my dear friend Louis
00:04:52
for example.
00:04:54
Louis is a brilliant, progressive man,
00:04:56
and we would have conversations
and he would tell me,
00:04:58
"I don't know what you mean by things
being different or harder for women.
00:05:02
Maybe in the past, but not now."
00:05:05
And I didn't understand how Louis
could not see what seems so self-evident.
00:05:09
Then one evening, in Lagos,
Louis and I went out with friends.
00:05:14
And for people here
who are not familiar with Lagos,
00:05:16
there's that wonderful Lagos' fixture,
00:05:18
the sprinkling of energetic men
who hang around outside establishments
00:05:23
and very dramatically
"help" you park your car.
00:05:27
I was impressed
with the particular theatrics
00:05:31
of the man who found us
a parking spot that evening.
00:05:34
And so as we were leaving,
I decided to leave him a tip.
00:05:38
I opened my bag,
00:05:40
put my hand inside my bag,
00:05:41
brought out my money
that I had earned from doing my work,
00:05:44
and I gave it to the man.
00:05:47
And he, this man who was
very grateful and very happy,
00:05:51
took the money from me,
00:05:53
looked across at Louis
00:05:55
and said, "Thank you, sir!"
00:05:56
(Laughter)
00:06:02
Louis looked at me, surprised,
00:06:06
and asked, "Why is he thanking me?
I didn't give him the money."
00:06:10
Then I saw realization
dawn on Louis' face.
00:06:14
The man believed that whatever money I had
00:06:17
had ultimately come from Louis.
00:06:21
Because Louis is a man.
00:06:24
Men and women are different.
00:06:26
We have different hormones,
we have different sexual organs,
00:06:29
we have different biological abilities.
00:06:31
Women can have babies, men can't.
00:06:34
At least not yet.
00:06:35
(Laughter)
00:06:37
Men have testosterone and are
in general physically stronger than women.
00:06:42
There's slightly more women
than men in the world,
00:06:45
about 52 percent of the world's
population is female.
00:06:48
But most of the positions of power
and prestige are occupied by men.
00:06:52
The late Kenyan Nobel Peace laureate,
00:06:55
Wangari Maathai,
00:06:56
put it simply and well when she said:
00:06:59
"The higher you go,
the fewer women there are."
00:07:03
In the recent US elections we kept hearing
of the Lilly Ledbetter law,
00:07:08
and if we go beyond the nicely
alliterative name of that law,
00:07:11
it was really about a man and a woman
00:07:13
doing the same job,
being equally qualified,
00:07:16
and the man being paid more
because he's a man.
00:07:19
So in the literal way, men rule the world,
00:07:23
and this made sense a thousand years ago
00:07:26
because human beings lived then in a world
00:07:29
in which physical strength was
the most important attribute for survival.
00:07:34
The physically stronger person
was more likely to lead,
00:07:39
and men, in general,
are physically stronger.
00:07:41
Of course there are many exceptions.
00:07:43
(Laughter)
00:07:45
But today we live
in a vastly different world.
00:07:49
The person more likely to lead
is not the physically stronger person;
00:07:53
it is the more creative person,
the more intelligent person,
00:07:57
the more innovative person,
00:07:59
and there are no hormones
for those attributes.
00:08:02
A man is as likely as a woman
to be intelligent,
00:08:04
to be creative, to be innovative.
00:08:07
We have evolved;
00:08:08
but it seems to me that our ideas
of gender had not evolved.
00:08:13
Some weeks ago, I walked into a lobby
of one of the best Nigerian hotels.
00:08:18
I thought about naming the hotel,
but I thought I probably shouldn't.
00:08:21
And a guard at the entrance stopped me
and asked me annoying questions,
00:08:25
because their automatic assumption is
00:08:27
that a Nigerian female walking
into a hotel alone is a sex worker.
00:08:32
And by the way,
00:08:34
why do these hotels
focus on the ostensible supply
00:08:37
rather than the demand for sex workers?
00:08:41
In Lagos I cannot go alone
into many "reputable" bars and clubs.
00:08:46
They just don't let you in
if you're a woman alone,
00:08:49
you have to be accompanied by a man.
00:08:51
Each time I walk into
a Nigerian restaurant with a man,
00:08:54
the waiter greets the man and ignores me.
00:08:58
The waiters are products --
00:08:59
(Laughter)
00:09:00
At this some women
felt like, "Yes! I thought that!"
00:09:03
The waiters are products of a society
00:09:05
that has taught them that men
are more important than women.
00:09:10
And I know that waiters
don't intend any harm.
00:09:12
But it's one thing to know intellectually
and quite another to feel it emotionally.
00:09:17
Each time they ignore me,
I feel invisible.
00:09:19
I feel upset.
00:09:21
I want to tell them
that I am just as human as the man,
00:09:24
that I'm just as worthy of acknowledgment.
00:09:28
These are little things,
00:09:29
but sometimes it's the little things
that sting the most.
00:09:33
And not long ago, I wrote an article
00:09:34
about what it means
to be young and female in Lagos,
00:09:38
and the printers told me,
00:09:40
"It was so angry."
00:09:42
Of course it was angry!
00:09:44
(Laughter)
00:09:48
I am angry.
00:09:50
Gender as it functions today
is a grave injustice.
00:09:53
We should all be angry.
00:09:55
Anger has a long history
of bringing about positive change;
00:09:59
but, in addition to being angry,
I'm also hopeful.
00:10:02
Because I believe deeply
in the ability of human beings
00:10:05
to make and remake
themselves for the better.
00:10:08
Gender matters everywhere in the world,
00:10:10
but I want to focus on Nigeria
00:10:13
and on Africa in general,
00:10:14
because it is where I know,
and because it is where my heart is.
00:10:18
And I would like today to ask
00:10:20
that we begin to dream about
and plan for a different world,
00:10:24
a fairer world,
00:10:28
a world of happier men and happier women
who are truer to themselves.
00:10:32
And this is how to start:
00:10:33
we must raise our daughters differently.
00:10:36
We must also raise our sons differently.
00:10:39
We do a great disservice to boys
on how we raise them;
00:10:43
we stifle the humanity of boys.
00:10:46
We define masculinity
in a very narrow way,
00:10:48
masculinity becomes this hard, small cage
00:10:52
and we put boys inside the cage.
00:10:54
We teach boys to be afraid of fear.
00:10:57
We teach boys to be afraid
of weakness, of vulnerability.
00:11:02
We teach them to mask their true selves,
00:11:04
because they have to be,
in Nigerian speak, "hard man!"
00:11:10
In secondary school, a boy and a girl,
both of them teenagers,
00:11:14
both of them with the same amount
of pocket money, would go out
00:11:17
and then the boy
would be expected always to pay,
00:11:20
to prove his masculinity.
00:11:23
And yet we wonder why boys are more likely
to steal money from their parents.
00:11:29
What if both boys and girls were raised
00:11:32
not to link masculinity with money?
00:11:35
What if the attitude
was not "the boy has to pay"
00:11:38
but rather "whoever has more should pay?"
00:11:42
Now, of course because
of that historical advantage,
00:11:44
it is mostly men who will have more today,
00:11:47
but if we start
raising children differently,
00:11:49
then in fifty years, in a hundred years,
00:11:52
boys will no longer have the pressure
of having to prove this masculinity.
00:11:57
But by far the worst thing we do to males,
00:12:00
by making them feel
that they have to be hard,
00:12:02
is that we leave them
with very fragile egos.
00:12:06
The more "hard man"
the man feels compelled to be,
00:12:11
the weaker his ego is.
00:12:14
And then we do a much greater
disservice to girls
00:12:17
because we raise them
to cater to the fragile egos of men.
00:12:22
We teach girls to shrink themselves,
to make themselves smaller,
00:12:25
we say to girls,
00:12:27
"You can have ambition, but not too much."
00:12:29
(Laughter)
00:12:31
"You should aim to be successful,
but not too successful,
00:12:33
otherwise you would threaten the man."
00:12:36
If you are the breadwinner
in your relationship with a man,
00:12:39
you have to pretend that you're not,
00:12:41
especially in public,
00:12:43
otherwise you will emasculate him.
00:12:46
But what if we question
the premise itself?
00:12:48
Why should a woman's success
be a threat to a man?
00:12:53
What if we decide
to simply dispose of that word,
00:12:56
and I don't think there's an English word
I dislike more than "emasculation."
00:13:02
A Nigerian acquaintance once asked me
00:13:04
if I was worried that men
would be intimidated by me.
00:13:08
I was not worried at all.
00:13:10
In fact, it had not occurred
to me to be worried
00:13:12
because a man who would
be intimidated by me
00:13:14
is exactly the kind of man
I would have no interest in.
00:13:17
(Laughter)
00:13:18
(Applause)
00:13:25
But still I was really struck by this.
00:13:29
Because I'm female,
I'm expected to aspire to marriage;
00:13:33
I'm expected to make my life choices
00:13:35
always keeping in mind
that marriage is the most important.
00:13:39
A marriage can be a good thing;
00:13:41
it can be a source of joy
and love and mutual support.
00:13:46
But why do we teach girls
to aspire to marriage
00:13:48
and we don't teach boys the same?
00:13:52
I know a woman
who decided to sell her house
00:13:54
because she didn't want
to intimidate a man who might marry her.
00:13:59
I know an unmarried woman in Nigeria
who, when she goes to conferences,
00:14:04
wears a wedding ring
00:14:05
because according to her,
00:14:06
she wants the other participants
in the conference to "give her respect."
00:14:11
I know young women
who are under so much pressure
00:14:14
from family, from friends,
even from work to get married,
00:14:18
and they're pushed
to make terrible choices.
00:14:21
A woman at a certain age who is unmarried,
00:14:23
our society teaches her
to see it as a deep, personal failure.
00:14:28
And a man at a certain age
who is unmarried,
00:14:31
we just think he hasn't come around
to making his pick.
00:14:34
(Laughter)
00:14:36
It's easy for us to say,
00:14:37
"Oh, but women can
just say no to all of this."
00:14:40
But the reality is more difficult
and more complex.
00:14:43
We're all social beings.
00:14:44
We internalize ideas
from our socialization.
00:14:47
Even the language we use
00:14:49
in talking about marriage
and relationships illustrates this.
00:14:52
The language of marriage
is often the language of ownership
00:14:55
rather than the language of partnership.
00:14:58
We use the word "respect"
00:15:01
to mean something a woman shows a man
00:15:04
but often not something
a man shows a woman.
00:15:07
Both men and women in Nigeria will say --
00:15:10
this is an expression
I'm very amused by --
00:15:12
"I did it for peace in my marriage."
00:15:16
Now, when men say it,
00:15:17
it is usually about something
that they should not be doing anyway.
00:15:21
(Laughter)
00:15:22
Sometimes they say it to their friends,
00:15:25
it's something to say to their friends
in a kind of fondly exasperated way,
00:15:29
you know, something that ultimately
proves how masculine they are,
00:15:32
how needed, how loved.
00:15:34
"Oh, my wife said
I can't go to the club every night,
00:15:36
so for peace in my marriage,
I do it only on weekends."
00:15:39
(Laughter)
00:15:41
Now, when a woman says,
"I did it for peace in my marriage,"
00:15:45
she's usually talking
about giving up a job,
00:15:49
a dream,
00:15:50
a career.
00:15:52
We teach females that in relationships,
00:15:55
compromise is what women do.
00:15:58
We raise girls to see
each other as competitors --
00:16:01
not for jobs or for accomplishments,
which I think can be a good thing,
00:16:04
but for attention of men.
00:16:07
We teach girls that they
cannot be sexual beings
00:16:10
in the way that boys are.
00:16:12
If we have sons, we don't mind
knowing about our sons' girlfriends.
00:16:16
But our daughters' boyfriends? God forbid.
00:16:18
(Laughter)
00:16:20
But of course when the time is right,
00:16:22
we expect those girls to bring back
the perfect man to be their husbands.
00:16:26
We police girls,
we praise girls for virginity,
00:16:29
but we don't praise boys for virginity,
00:16:31
and it's always made me wonder how exactly
this is supposed to work out because ...
00:16:35
(Laughter)
00:16:37
(Applause)
00:16:45
I mean, the loss of virginity
is usually a process that involves ...
00:16:50
Recently a young woman
was gang raped in a university in Nigeria,
00:16:54
I think some of us know about that.
00:16:56
And the response of many young Nigerians,
both male and female,
00:16:59
was something along the lines of this:
00:17:02
"Yes, rape is wrong.
00:17:04
But what is a girl doing
in a room with four boys?"
00:17:08
Now, if we can forget
the horrible inhumanity of that response,
00:17:13
these Nigerians have been raised
to think of women as inherently guilty,
00:17:19
and they have been raised
to expect so little of men
00:17:22
that the idea of men as savage beings
without any control
00:17:26
is somehow acceptable.
00:17:28
We teach girls shame.
00:17:30
"Close your legs." "Cover yourself."
00:17:33
We make them feel
as though by being born female
00:17:35
they're already guilty of something.
00:17:37
And so, girls grow up to be women
00:17:40
who cannot see they have desire.
00:17:42
They grow up to be women
who silence themselves.
00:17:46
They grow up to be women
who cannot say what they truly think,
00:17:50
and they grow up --
00:17:51
and this is the worst thing
we did to girls --
00:17:53
they grow up to be women
who have turned pretense into an art form.
00:17:58
(Applause)
00:18:04
I know a woman who hates domestic work,
00:18:07
she just hates it,
00:18:09
but she pretends that she likes it,
00:18:12
because she's been taught
that to be "good wife material"
00:18:16
she has to be --
to use that Nigerian word --
00:18:18
very "homely."
00:18:21
And then she got married,
00:18:22
and after a while her husband's family
began to complain that she had changed.
00:18:26
(Laughter)
00:18:28
Actually, she had not changed,
00:18:29
she just got tired of pretending.
00:18:32
The problem with gender,
00:18:35
is that it prescribes how we should be
00:18:38
rather than recognizing how we are.
00:18:41
Now imagine how much happier we would be,
00:18:43
how much freer to be
our true individual selves,
00:18:47
if we didn't have the weight
of gender expectations.
00:18:51
Boys and girls are
undeniably different biologically,
00:18:55
but socialization
exaggerates the differences
00:18:58
and then it becomes
a self-fulfilling process.
00:19:01
Now, take cooking for example.
00:19:04
Today women in general are more likely
to do the housework than men,
00:19:07
the cooking and cleaning.
00:19:08
But why is that?
00:19:10
Is it because women
are born with a cooking gene?
00:19:13
(Laughter)
00:19:14
Or because over years they have been
socialized to see cooking as their role?
00:19:19
Actually, I was going to say that maybe
women are born with a cooking gene,
00:19:22
until I remember that the majority
of the famous cooks in the world,
00:19:26
whom we give the fancy title of "chefs,"
00:19:28
are men.
00:19:30
I used to look up to my grandmother
00:19:32
who was a brilliant, brilliant woman,
00:19:34
and wonder how she would have been
00:19:36
if she had the same opportunities
as men when she was growing up.
00:19:40
Now today, there are
many more opportunities for women
00:19:43
than there were
during my grandmother's time
00:19:45
because of changes in policy,
changes in law,
00:19:48
all of which are very important.
00:19:49
But what matters even more
is our attitude, our mindset,
00:19:54
what we believe
and what we value about gender.
00:19:57
What if in raising children
00:20:00
we focus on ability instead of gender?
00:20:03
What if in raising children
we focus on interest instead of gender?
00:20:08
I know a family
who have a son and a daughter,
00:20:11
both of whom are brilliant at school,
00:20:12
who are wonderful, lovely children.
00:20:14
When the boy is hungry,
the parents say to the girl,
00:20:17
"Go and cook Indomie noodles
for your brother."
00:20:19
(Laughter)
00:20:20
Now, the daughter doesn't
particularly like to cook Indomie noodles,
00:20:24
but she's a girl, and so she has to.
00:20:27
Now, what if the parents,
00:20:29
from the beginning,
00:20:30
taught both the boy and the girl
to cook Indomie?
00:20:35
Cooking, by the way,
is a very useful skill for boys to have.
00:20:38
I've never thought it made sense
to leave such a crucial thing,
00:20:43
the ability to nourish oneself --
00:20:45
(Laughter)
00:20:46
in the hands of others.
00:20:48
(Applause)
00:20:53
I know a woman who has the same degree
and the same job as her husband.
00:20:57
When they get back from work,
she does most of the housework,
00:21:00
which I think is true for many marriages.
00:21:02
But what struck me about them
00:21:04
was that whenever her husband
changed the baby's diaper,
00:21:07
she said "thank you" to him.
00:21:10
Now, what if she saw this
as perfectly normal and natural
00:21:15
that he should, in fact,
care for his child?
00:21:18
(Laughter)
00:21:21
I'm trying to unlearn
many of the lessons of gender
00:21:25
that I internalized when I was growing up.
00:21:27
But I sometimes still feel very vulnerable
in the face of gender expectations.
00:21:32
The first time I taught
a writing class in graduate school,
00:21:36
I was worried.
00:21:37
I wasn't worried
about the material I would teach
00:21:39
because I was well-prepared,
00:21:41
and I was going to teach
what I enjoy teaching.
00:21:43
Instead, I was worried about what to wear.
00:21:46
I wanted to be taken seriously.
00:21:49
I knew that because I was female
00:21:50
I will automatically
have to prove my worth.
00:21:55
And I was worried
that if I looked too feminine,
00:21:57
I would not be taken seriously.
00:21:59
I really wanted to wear
my shiny lip gloss and my girly skirt,
00:22:03
but I decided not to.
00:22:05
Instead, I wore a very serious,
00:22:07
very manly and very ugly suit.
00:22:10
(Laughter)
00:22:11
Because the sad truth is
that when it comes to appearance
00:22:14
we start off with men
as the standard, as the norm.
00:22:17
If a man is getting ready
for a business meeting,
00:22:20
he doesn't worry
about looking too masculine
00:22:22
and therefore not being taken for granted.
00:22:24
If a woman has to get ready
for business meeting,
00:22:27
she has to worry
about looking too feminine
00:22:30
and what it says and whether or not
she will be taken seriously.
00:22:35
I wish I had not worn
that ugly suit that day.
00:22:39
I've actually banished it
from my closet, by the way.
00:22:42
Had I then the confidence
that I have now to be myself,
00:22:47
my students would have benefited
even more from my teaching,
00:22:50
because I would have been more comfortable
00:22:52
and more fully and more truly myself.
00:22:55
I have chosen to no longer
be apologetic for my femaleness
00:22:59
and for my femininity.
00:23:01
(Applause)
00:23:07
And I want to be respected
in all of my femaleness
00:23:10
because I deserve to be.
00:23:13
Gender is not an easy
conversation to have.
00:23:16
For both men and women,
00:23:18
to bring up gender is sometimes
to encounter almost immediate resistance.
00:23:22
I can imagine some people here
are actually thinking,
00:23:25
"Women too do sef."
00:23:29
Some of the men here might be thinking,
00:23:31
"OK, all of this is interesting,
00:23:33
but I don't think like that."
00:23:35
And that is part of the problem.
00:23:38
That many men do not
actively think about gender
00:23:41
or notice gender
00:23:42
is part of the problem of gender.
00:23:44
That many men, say, like my friend Louis,
00:23:47
that everything is fine now.
00:23:49
And that many men do nothing to change it.
00:23:52
If you are a man and you walk
into a restaurant with a woman
00:23:55
and the waiter greets only you,
00:23:58
does it occur to you to ask the waiter,
00:24:00
"Why haven't you greeted her?"
00:24:05
Because gender can be --
00:24:06
(Laughter)
00:24:16
Actually, we may repose
part of a longer version of this talk.
00:24:21
So, because gender can be
a very uncomfortable conversation to have,
00:24:24
there are very easy ways to close it,
to close the conversation.
00:24:27
So some people will bring up
evolutionary biology and apes,
00:24:32
how, you know, female apes
bow down to male apes
00:24:35
and that sort of thing.
00:24:37
But the point is we're not apes.
00:24:39
(Laughter)
00:24:41
(Applause)
00:24:45
Apes also live on trees
and have earthworms for breakfast,
00:24:50
and we don't.
00:24:53
Some people will say,
"Well, poor men also have a hard time."
00:24:57
And this is true.
00:24:59
But that is not what this --
00:25:01
(Laughter)
00:25:02
But this is not
what this conversation is about.
00:25:06
Gender and class
are different forms of oppression.
00:25:10
I actually learned quite a bit
about systems of oppression
00:25:13
and how they can be blind to one another
00:25:16
by talking to black men.
00:25:19
I was once talking
to a black man about gender
00:25:22
and he said to me,
00:25:23
"Why do you have to say
'my experience as a woman'?
00:25:27
Why can't it be
00:25:28
'your experience as a human being'?"
00:25:31
Now, this was the same man
00:25:32
who would often talk
about his experience as a black man.
00:25:39
Gender matters.
00:25:40
Men and women
experience the world differently.
00:25:42
Gender colors the way
we experience the world.
00:25:45
But we can change that.
00:25:48
Some people will say,
00:25:50
"Oh, but women have the real power,
00:25:52
bottom power."
00:25:54
And for non-Nigerians,
bottom power is an expression
00:25:57
which I suppose means
something like a woman
00:25:59
who uses her sexuality
to get favors from men.
00:26:03
But bottom power is not power at all.
00:26:08
Bottom power means that a woman
00:26:11
simply has a good root to tap into,
from time to time --
00:26:13
somebody else's power.
00:26:16
And then, of course, we have to wonder
00:26:18
what happens when
that somebody else is in a bad mood,
00:26:21
or sick
00:26:22
or impotent.
00:26:24
(Laughter)
00:26:27
Some people will say that a woman
being subordinate to a man is our culture.
00:26:34
But culture is constantly changing.
00:26:36
I have beautiful twin nieces
who are fifteen and live in Lagos.
00:26:41
If they had been born a hundred years ago
00:26:43
they would have been
taken away and killed.
00:26:45
Because it was our culture,
it was our culture to kill twins.
00:26:50
So what is the point of culture?
00:26:53
I mean there's the decorative,
00:26:54
the dancing ...
00:26:56
but also, culture really is about
preservation and continuity of a people.
00:27:01
In my family,
00:27:02
I am the child who is most interested
in the story of who we are,
00:27:05
in our traditions,
00:27:06
in the knowledge about ancestral lands.
00:27:09
My brothers are not as interested as I am.
00:27:11
But I cannot participate,
00:27:14
I cannot go to umunna meetings,
00:27:16
I cannot have a say.
00:27:17
Because I'm female.
00:27:19
Culture does not make people,
00:27:22
people make culture.
00:27:24
So if it is in fact true --
00:27:26
(Applause)
00:27:30
So if it is in fact true
00:27:31
that the full humanity of women
is not our culture,
00:27:34
then we must make it our culture.
00:27:37
I think very often of my dear friend,
Okoloma Maduewesi.
00:27:43
May he and all the others
who passed away in that Sosoliso crash
00:27:47
continue to rest in peace.
00:27:50
He will always be remembered
by those of us who loved him.
00:27:54
And he was right that day many years ago
when he called me a feminist.
00:27:59
I am a feminist.
00:28:01
And when I looked up the word
in the dictionary that day,
00:28:03
this is what it said:
00:28:05
"Feminist: a person
who believes in the social, political
00:28:08
and economic equality of the sexes."
00:28:12
My great grandmother,
from the stories I've heard,
00:28:15
was a feminist.
00:28:16
She ran away from the house of the man
she did not want to marry
00:28:20
and ended up marrying
the man of her choice.
00:28:22
She refused, she protested, she spoke up
00:28:25
whenever she felt she was being deprived
of access, of land, that sort of thing.
00:28:31
My great grandmother
did not know that word "feminist,"
00:28:34
but it doesn't mean that she wasn't one.
00:28:37
More of us should reclaim that word.
00:28:41
My own definition of feminist is:
00:28:45
"A feminist is a man or a woman
00:28:47
who says --
00:28:49
(Laughter)
00:28:52
(Applause)
00:28:58
A feminist is a man or a woman who says,
00:29:01
"Yes, there's a problem
with gender as it is today,
00:29:05
and we must fix it.
00:29:06
We must do better."
00:29:09
The best feminist I know
00:29:11
is my brother Kene.
00:29:14
He's also a kind,
good-looking, lovely man,
00:29:18
and he's very masculine.
00:29:21
Thank you.
00:29:22
(Applause)
