Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s prose is poignant and honest. It is reflective- autobiographical without being isolating to an outsider. Most of all, it is a narrative that can relate to and fit with any woman of the world’s global experience. We are separate from men, perhaps unequal in experience, but never in spirit.

Adichie makes a point to mention that female inequality is perpetuated by cultural normative. “Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture,” she says.

This is inarguable. Centuries of oppression and female victimization has been a result of societies not asking the most important question in birthing reformation: “Does it really have to be this way? Is there a reason it is?”And this is how culture shifts. Adichie is right to hold her audience accountable for asking this question. It is a point that goes forgotten too often because people become comfortable and forget they have the power to change.

As a woman, it is impossible to disagree with any of the things that Adichie says. She mentions that at times she still struggles not to internalize the gender expectations she has been taught in her life. Her identity is compromised by what the world wants of her. And so many of ours have.

Everyone should read ‘We Should All Be Feminists’ because as a woman, it wakes us up. It reminds us of the responsibility we have to change the future for female generations to come and honor the women who have struggled to do so. For a man, it teaches, and dissolves the preconception that women are feminists just to stand alone.

Adichie reminds that we should be feminists to stand together.