 Test one-two, test one-two, test one-two, test one-two, test one-two, test one-two, test one-two, test one-two, test one-two, test one-two, test one-two, one-two. Hello, testing. Oh, very good. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the 2014 Moe Lecture in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies. My name is Jill Locke, and I have the pleasure of being on the faculty here at Gustavus Adolphus College, where I teach in political science and also direct the Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies program. I'd like to be the first to welcome you to our Moe Lecture. This lecture is a cornerstone of the GWS program. The Moe Lecture's mission is to serve the Gustavus community and the community beyond our campus borders by inviting feminist scholars, activists, and artists to present lectures and workshops. This lecture is made possible by an extraordinary gift from Karen and Robert Moe in honor of their daughter, Chris Moe, who graduated from Gustavus in 1984. Thanks to the Moe's generosity, we are able to host Chimamanda Adichie for tonight's lecture. Ms. Adichie will also be visiting with Professor Elizabeth Baer's post-colonial literature class tomorrow morning. I also want to thank all of the staff in marketing and communication, dining services, the physical plant, and especially Janine General and the administrative assistant in Old Main, the labors of whom really made this event possible. Ms. Adichie and her work are a natural fit with the mission of the Moe Lecture and the GWS program at Gustavus Adolphus College, and I know she will challenge and inspire us with her remarks tonight. Ms. Adichie will give her lecture, titled Performing Gender Sometimes I Do and Sometimes I Don't, which will be followed by a question-and-answer period, and then a book signing, and books are also for sale in the foyer. Professor Kate Keller, who is an assistant professor of history and one of the founding members of the African Studies faculty here at Gustavus, will introduce Ms. Adichie. In her teaching and scholarship, Professor Keller examines European colonialism and its legacies with special attention to the ways in which the colonial police identified and surveilled suspicious persons. She teaches courses on modern European imperialism, modern Africa, women's history, and the history of policing and surveillance. I'll turn things over to Professor Keller now. Thank you. Good evening and welcome again to the annual Moe Lecture and Gender Women and Sexuality Studies at Gustavus Adolphus College. I'm so incredibly honored to be introducing this evening's speaker, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and to have the opportunity to join you in hearing a talk by one of my favorite authors. I discovered Ms. Adichie's work in 2007 when I was preparing to teach a course on the history of modern Africa for the first time and began reading her book, Half of a Yellow Sun, a novel about the Biafran War in Nigeria in the late 1960s. As I read, I was immediately captivated by her writing, drawn in by her depiction of university professors, British expatriates, villagers, and servants, all of who become engulfed in a devastating civil war. The panorama of life and death that emerged in this novel provided me with a vivid, expansive, and new way to understand Nigeria's post-colonial history. Indeed, the book creates a vision of post-colonial Africa that reconciles rural beliefs in witchcraft with urban scholars debating the politics of independence into a seamless narrative. It was fiction, but a story that proved better than any history I knew about this era capturing the experiences of both ordinary and extraordinary lives. This book did for me what only great books can do. It made me think in a new way as a reader and historian. I've been sharing Ms. Adichie's work with my students ever since. Of course, I'm not alone in my high opinion of Tumamanda Ngozi Adichie. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Commonwealth Writers Prize for her first novel, Purple Hibiscus. The Orange Broadband Prize for Half of a Yellow Sun. And the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. In 2013, The New York Times named her novel, Americana, one of the ten best books of the year. Ms. Adichie has also become a prominent public voice on issues related to contemporary Africa, feminism, and sexuality. Indeed, many of you are already familiar with her wildly popular TED talks, The Danger of a Single Story, or We Should All Be Feminists. From Chinua Achebe to Beyoncé, she has earned wide praise and admiration. Gustavus, community, and guests, please join me in welcoming Tumamanda Ngozi Adichie. Thank you so much, love. Thank you. Thank you for the wonderful introduction. Thank you for the very warm welcome. And speaking of warm, I am very pleased about the weather. Because I came back from Lagos last week and I've had Minneapolis in my head and I've been thinking I'm going to Minneapolis. Minneapolis is very cold. And it's fairly nice today. So I'm particularly happy to be here on a day when the weather is nice. I'm really pleased to be here as well. I think of myself as a student of the world. And to be here in this college for me is an opportunity to learn from the two young men and the two lovely young women who brought me here give me a little lesson about the history of this college. So it's very nice to be here. And thank you for being here as well. So the title of my talk is Performing Gender. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. And the truth about that title is that it really, I made it up because I had to send a title. And I thought it sounded sufficiently mysterious. So really what I'm going to do is just tell you a few stories around the subject of gender which I'm very interested in. And then I'd love to have a more interactive session. So if you have questions, comments, I'd like to have a conversation. So I'd like to start by talking about Hillary Clinton. I don't know if anybody here is an admirer of Hillary Clinton. Sure fans, I am a huge admirer of Hillary Clinton. I admire her intelligence, her doggedness, her grace, her insides. And I hope she runs for president. I'm not a U.S. citizen so I can't vote, but if she runs I think I will find out if they let non-U.S. citizens volunteer in campaigns and I will campaign for her. I remember watching Hillary Clinton when she was campaigning for the Democratic nomination in 2008. And two people at the back stood up and held up a sign that said, iron my shirt. And I was struck by that because what I thought at the time is here is Hillary Clinton, who is an intelligent, accomplished woman who has immense class privilege. But yet at that moment her class did not save her. So here she was reduced by this comment, iron my shirt. And the only thing about that comment that we can say is that a man, a male candidate would never have been, a male candidate would never have had that sign raised up to him. Thinking about class and gender is particularly important because lately, I don't know if you know that I've been known for talking about feminism, and people have often said to me, well there's a problem with feminism because the history is loaded with baggage, the feminist movement which started in the west did not often acknowledge race and class, and all of that is true. But it's made me think a lot more about class, how class can become conflated with other kinds of privileges, how sometimes class doesn't save you. It didn't save Hillary Clinton. It didn't save a friend of mine, Chioma, who lives in Lagos. Chioma is well educated, upper middle class, has a very good job in Lagos, drives a very nice car, and she was driving one morning to walk, and there was traffic, as there always is traffic in Lagos, if anybody knows that city. And Chioma mistakenly hit a car in front of hers, just a little scratch. And as often happens in Lagos when you hit a car, both people come out and have an argument and get back in their cars and drive away. So Chioma got out of her car, and it turned out that the man she had hit was a police man. And so she expected the usual spirited conversation which would end with both of them leaving, but instead he said to her, you prostitute, who bought this car for you? And then he slapped her. And this is a woman who is in her mid-thirties, who is accomplished in every way, and she said she was so shocked, and people around them were so shocked, and she said the only option left to me was to cry. And he made me think about the idea of class not saving you, her class did not save her, but also the idea of performing gender, that what's expected of a woman in distress is tears. And she knew very well that the only way to get the kind of public sympathy was to cry, because this stranger, this strange man, this police man, who by the way was sort of a regular policeman, if you will, had slapped her. If Chioma had been a man, and if everything had remained the same, the police man would not even have considered slapping. And here's another story about my cousin, Amaka. Now Amaka is a few years younger than I am. Amaka got married about two years ago, and shortly into the marriage, her husband started to beat her. And I remember once when she sent me a text and she said, my husband beats me, and I called her and I said, well, what happened? And she said, oh, he gets upset because he hasn't found a job and so he beats me. But what struck me about this was not just the accepting tone with which she told the story. It was that she then added, you know, I'm stronger than he is because he's quite skinny. But I won't because I have to respect him, he's my husband. And of course what I said to her was next time, beat him back. But this is what I found interesting about it, that Amaka, my cousin, as have so many other women in many parts of the world, had internalized these ideas of what it means, what it means to be female, what it means to be a wife. And so if he's violent to you, because you have to perform your role as wife, you don't beat back, you hold back and possibly you cry because this is what is expected of you. And a part of me, of course I wish violence didn't happen at all, but really a part of me wanted to say to her, well, beat him back. But instead I just said to her, you have to leave, you have to leave and save your life. And here's another little story. Now this one about my niece, I hope my family doesn't get to hear about how I use them in these talks. Now this is about my niece, Lisa. Lisa is a very bright, lovely girl. She is seven this year. And last year Lisa and her parents came to visit. They stayed with me. And we went out to the mall. And I don't know if you know those helicopter toys that people sell in the malls and you can sort of, it has a remote control. So Lisa walks past and sees that and she got very excited. And she said to her mother, I want one of those, I want that, I want that. And her mother turned and looked at her and said, of course you can't have it, let's go. And Lisa said, but I want it. And her mother said, Lisa, you have your dolls. That's for boys. And Lisa looked very disappointed. And I, watching, I remember thinking this is how we start. This is how we start to construct gender. So if you tell Lisa often enough that helicopters are not for her, she's going to start to internalize the idea that helicopters are not for her. She's going to start to internalize the idea that toys for girls are things that you sort of look at or dress up, not things that you do, not helicopters that you try to get to spin around or something. I bought her the helicopter. And for me, and for me it was important, it was an important way of saying this child is interested in helicopters. It shouldn't be about whether she's a boy or whether she's a girl. It should be about what she's interested in. And so for me, feminism and the idea of gender is really that we need to shrug off, we need to find ways to be aware, first of all, of how, really how insidiously these constructions become part of us. If you watch American television, it's very easy to not notice that most of the commercials about cleaning, about cooking all feature women. If you watched American television, you would think that only women in America clean the house, that only women in America cook, and that somehow it's a woman's role to cook for her family. So I just recently saw one that I have to say infuriated me, where a woman was talking about, oh, I don't like to cook dinner, now there's KFC, whatever, and then in the background there's sort of the children and the man, and they're all looking like, yeah, she's done her duty. And I remember thinking, what if we exchange that? What if we imagine that all of those roles assigned to women in public spaces were giving to men? It would start to look strange. It would start to look strange. And for me, in thinking and talking about gender, I think it's first that we have to become aware, and then the next thing is, let's switch things around and see how it works. So what if every commercial about cleaning featured men, and every commercial about cooking featured men? What if a man who was running for office had a sign raised up to him saying, I own my shirt? What if a man who accidentally running to somebody else's car in Lagos was immediately slapped, and not just slapped, but then expected to cry in response in order to garner public sympathy? What if in a marriage a man gets beaten often, and the expectation is that he sits back because he has to respect his spouse? I don't think it would be an okay world. So I was thinking about myself and my own times when I performed gender. I love my culture. I'm an Igbo woman. Igbo culture is very beautiful. There's so much about it that's lovely. Oh, do we have any? Okay, I think there's some. Any more people here? Any Nigerians? Any Africans? All right, and for the others, we love you. But Igbo culture is very beautiful. There's a lot of love about it, but it's also a deeply patriarchal culture. It's a culture that has taken on a certain kind of Victorian Christianity, has added that Victorian Christianity to its already patriarchal structure and become even more so. But there are times when I'm in my hometown, I'm spending time with my uncle, with relatives who I love, and to make them happy, I perform gender. But it's not who I am. So we're having a conversation, and my aunts and my cousins say, oh, the only thing a woman is supposed to do in life is have children. Now I deeply disagree with this. But sitting there with them, I smiled and I said, yes, because it would make them happy. And so I suppose this is a way of acknowledging that even fierce feminists such as myself have moments in which we perform gender. If it's shallow and if it doesn't really have consequences. I mean, the other option, of course, would be to launch into a debate with my cousins and somehow ruin everybody's holiday. So instead, I just sit there and I say, yes, that's really all a woman is supposed to do in life. She's supposed to be a reproductive machine. And finally, I want to talk about speaking of reproductive machines and about reproductive rights. I find it, particularly because I'm Nigerian and that's where I spend most of my time and that's where my heart is, the questions of gender that I ask are mostly particular to Nigeria. But America is a country I like very much. America is a country that has been very kind to me. I like to say that America is like my rich uncle who gives me pocket money, but doesn't always remember my name. So I'm quite keen on this uncle of mine. And it's shocking to me that in this country, this uncle country of mine, in 2014, the idea of a woman's reproductive rights is still open to debate. It's incredible to me. It's incredible to me that it's even a political issue. Following American politics, I sometimes think, what century are we in? And I think also just the idea that people who oppose this, and I'm going to sound like a politician, people of good conscience who feel this way, somehow assume that maybe abortions are things women enjoy getting once a month or something. But I don't know anybody who... I don't know anybody. I don't know of anybody who enjoys the idea of an abortion. But the point is that abortion and the ability to have one should be a choice open to every adult woman. And that in this country, it's still something that's debated, something that people talk about, oh, reversing Roe v. Wade, I think it's an atrocity. And I say this as the very grateful niece. All right, let's have a conversation. I would particularly be interested to hear from anybody who wants to ask a question but also tell a story about performing gender, particularly if you have a personal story about how they perform gender, or didn't. By the way, men, it's okay. You can join the party. It's not just for women. I was dating this guy. And then he was kind of like, he had a lot of money. And I was like, I want to go to school, tell him about my career and everything. I was just like, not having it. I'm like, what? Who do you mean? He wanted me to be a housewife. And I was just not okay with that because just the way I grew up, I've always been independent. I don't need anyone type thing. But he really expected me to just kind of like, not do these things. No, it's not okay. What happened to the relationship? I'm not with that guy anymore, but it's like, you know, yeah, I'm here. So... Well, I'm glad you're here. Okay. Do you have a question? No. I did want to say, just to add to what she said about not needing anyone. I think we all need. We're human. I think to be human is to love and to be loved. I think the problem with a boyfriend, and I have to say I'm very pleased that you're here, not with him, is that... But also, it's very sad because he's been raised to think that somehow this is what a woman's role is. He's been raised to think that... And it's not so much about you, it's about him. I suppose that for you to be at home and be the housewife is a reflection of something in him. His success, it's about him. And often when I talk about gender, he's saying it might be too late for us now, but it's not too late for the children who are being born because we need to start raising the girls and the boys differently. We need to start raising boys who do not have that kind of expectation that your boyfriend has. Because it's not that he's a monster, it's just that this is what he was taught and he happens to live in a world that makes it okay for him to think that. But here is... That's why we need to change it. If you have children, if you do, you will keep that boyfriend in mind as you raise your son. Hello, my name is Shakita. I guess I find it particularly interesting how a lot of times when a woman is in this... the role that a man supposedly is to have. How shocking and baffled it is. I hear comments like, wow, she must have a problem. She must be lonely, that's why she's so independent. That's why she works hard. She must have a problem. I guess my question is... You touched on it a little bit, but how as a society do we break these roles that are constructed within our society? Because it seems as if, yeah, you can raise your son, you can raise your daughter up to teach them that's not just for girls, that's not just for boys, but how as a society do we get to the action piece and break that? That makes sense. That's a loaded question. Sorry. Well, I have concocted a potion which I'm marketing and selling and if everybody drinks it, we will get rid of this gender injustice. I'm just being silly. I really do think the way we raise... I'm sorry, I think it's a little late for many adults, but I do think that there is... Here's a story. I teach writing workshops in Lagos every year and about two years ago and I tried very hard to have a balance of men, women, people from the north, people from the south. I just want to have a really diverse mix of Nigerians and also Africans and actually last year we had an American, so we are. We had a conversation about gender and one of the young men said I don't see what the problem is. Why are women so angry? Everything is fine. And the women, the few women who were in fact sort of fierce about gender injustice because also we shouldn't assume that all women are because there are many women who are decidedly not interested or supportive of gender equality. Just as there are men who are very much interested in gender equality they are not very upset with him and they shot him down. And I intervened and I said, no, let's explain to him because really I think that trying to open ways for communication is important. Now this young man he's been raised in, he's probably all his life has just been told that women are troublemakers, they complain for no reason and he looks around and he says well I don't see anybody, it's a sort of thing. So what I did was I had three of the young women in the workshop talk about talk about why it was important to talk about gender, why they felt that Nigeria was a very gender unequal place. And I saw something change in him and it's not that he immediately became a feminist but he listened and he heard and in many ways it hadn't occurred to him to think about some of these things. So I think that finding ways to open communication is important. And it's not so much that you have to and it's not somehow that you have to somehow campaign for women's rights it's not that you have to dress it up nicely. No, I just think just having a conversation having a conversation starting off as equal saying to him, just listen and you're going to lose some and you're going to win some but I do think it's important that we have these conversations and that men and women have them. Hello, my name is Dan Sorry, Nikki. My name is Deb and so both of my parents have worked in huge corporate environments and it's not necessarily a place that I see myself but how do you explain to young women how they present themselves in arenas where there is a glass ceiling and they're going to come up against a lot of obstacles with what they want to do. Hmm I don't think I understand that. Like how do you explain how I would approach a meeting with some top corporate executives on trying to get a job that of like a CEO or what not and then present myself even if something offensive is said to me during that meeting, how would you present your opinion without being rude but also being able to take a stand on what you believe. Alright, because you mean apart from just getting up and smacking whoever says something offensive. You know I was going to say the first thing would be well I suppose I can talk about my experience and there are things that have happened to me things have been said to me that I know have been about being a woman and and sometimes I get angry sometimes I'm amused sometimes I'm just irritated but most of the time I think what I keep in mind is they're wrong they're wrong right the idea that that if you're female therefore you shouldn't have this position or do you really think you're smart or you say something and it's ignored and if somebody who's not female says exactly the same thing it's it's applauded. You know I wish I had the answer again I wish I had that potion that I could have everybody drink but but really it's sad that we live in a world where in many ways a certain kind of confidence is required much more women than men and it's sad and it's a reality but really what I would say is walking there since there is no glass ceiling and walking there knowing that they're wrong I mean that idea that somehow a woman by being born a woman is incapable of certain things it's not true they're wrong and I think and then in some ways that might sort of give you put you in a position where you look at them with slight pity which is always a good way to I was just wondering do you have any opinions on the term bachelor versus spinster and like the connotations that come with those words I dislike that word spinster I really dislike spinster but again in Nigeria spinster is often used again by people who don't necessarily think that there is much baggage to it but bachelor you know I don't even think I use I don't think those words are in my vocabulary and I think to start off with those words is somehow to privilege marriage and the state of being married which is something that I personally object to very much I think that marriage can be a good thing if it happens to people and all of that but we there's a kind of privilege we give to it in our society and so that when we say spinster it's not merely a woman who's married it's a woman who's failed that she's failed I remember once having a conversation with a journalist in Nigeria and I had said to him that it was important to address me as miss and he said but isn't that what women who can't find husbands call themselves and he was very well meaning and you know the idea that somehow a woman has failed if she's not married is by the way something that I think exists everywhere in the world I don't think it's it's Nigeria does not have the monopoly on it Africa does not have the monopoly on it even in this country and even in the way that celebrity news is covered right I'm sure people are thinking celebrity news right so I will ask you to read the latest issue of us weekly for example and you notice that when they talk about couples that are whose relationships are broken up or whose marriages are over that often the assumption is that the woman is the one who's at a loss it's hardly ever the man and so somehow there's a kind of this idea that when you have a couple male and female that to be in a relationship is somehow more important to the female and which is why that what Spinster certainly has much more baggage than bachelor but I like that interests me very much that they're just not words I'm very interested in also Spinster makes me think of Victorian novels so in America the term feminist has a really negative connotation people think you don't wear a bra or that you don't shave your legs so how do we empower both men and women to call themselves feminists there's laughter in the back um I mean I don't see why people don't want to wear bras why should they wear bras I mean this idea really it's interesting because and this is something I hear very often where people say feminists don't and I just think why is that even a legitimate insult that you don't wear bras you don't have to do right some people don't need to uh but you know it does have that feminism and the history of feminism in the west is very loaded with baggage and I think understandably so so if you read about um about the history of women not just in the US but in the UK as well and the movement not only to get the votes actually to start off from not being considered property which is really what they were for a long time um and then to get the vote and then and it's an ongoing struggle I think but because I think that there's a tendency in talking about feminism particularly by people who are already somehow predisposed to objects into feminism there's a tendency to conflate the movement with the extreme bits in the movement so people will say oh feminist hate men and you know feminist think marriage is rape feminist and maybe some women who are feminist think that and but that's not what the core feminism is about every movement has extreme the extreme parts of it um and I think the way to start as I said earlier as communication is important right but it has to be it has to come from a place of honesty there are people who just say that because they want they want to close the conversation there are people who say feminists don't shave their legs and really I think the response should be well why should they shave their legs the whole idea I think of gender equality is choice choice is central to it it's about choice it's about women being in positions where they can choose because choice for choice to exist it has to come from a place of a certain kind of equality so you can't say about a woman for example who has no income no way of making a living and who starts to walk as a sex walker we can't say it's her choice because she doesn't have choices and so I think the idea you know women should be allowed to shave or not shave their legs the whole leg shaving thing is very amusing to me but you know also you should be clear that leg shaving is a particularly western phenomenon it is and even the idea of bodily hair something gross it's very cultural not all cultures accept that and even though we're all now supposed to sort of we're all becoming westernized and we're all you know watching the e-news channel or whatever still leg shaving and brow wearing but we can't talk about other things such as the idea of women the place of a woman is in the home the idea that a woman's biological role is the ultimate role for her things of that sort right which feminists don't agree with and which I think reasonable men who are feminists also don't agree with and in the end it's about choice so a woman can choose to stay home and not walk but she has to have the choice of walk walk has to be on the table and sort of staying home has to be on the table and they have to sort of be equalish before we can say she's made the choice and some friends who say that feminists don't shave their legs you could tell them you shave your legs it doesn't matter whether or not you do by the way just say you do and that way and when you say you do you take that out so you can actually talk about what matters so when they say all feminists don't wear bras say alright I worry brah now let's talk about gender inequality and that's really I think the way to do it some people are trying to reclaim the word bitch and it trying to change the meaning of it and it has a very long deep history and it's used by someone including Beyonce in her song Fearless which quotes your TED talk and I was wondering if you could just talk about the little bit and what you feel about that and your thoughts on it it's not a word I use it's not I mean look the whole idea of reclaiming the word bitch and I have friends who and and there's something to be said about reclaiming words taking the power from them because in some ways I think that you know you can make a case for giving power to somebody else if you allow them to but I don't like that word at all and I don't use it there's a there's a man there's a man in the back a man so I've got a nice question on when you think it's appropriate to stop performing gender for those that you care about at one point at what point you should quit because I'm graduating in a few months and when I'm at school I certainly perform gender as male when I'm at home I'm expected to perform my gender as female and I have relatives that want to come for graduation and they expect to hear one name when I walk across the stage but I expect to hear another one and it's been really conflicting because my grandparents want to fly out and like spend money on tickets and staying out here at what point do you think it's important to stop performing gender and do it for yourself and not for others if you didn't do it for them would you feel bad that's why I'm so conflicted because this is my last big like I want them to come and like be happy about it because I know that it's been a big deal for them I'm like one of their first grandkids graduating college and my grandparents are both alums from this college so it's huge but it's my graduation yes it's your graduation however you know I don't know I'm going to go back home and think about this potion that will solve all the world's problems and all of us will be happy and sort of individuals but you know I think it's one of those things where you have to think about it but what I would say is think about your young you have your life ahead of you and I'm also very happy that you seem to have a sense of who you are which is fantastic right and so I think what if you did this for them what if they heard the name they wanted to hear how bad would you feel for myself yes pretty bad you know and the reason I say this and for example I have you know here's the stock you'll be upset that I told his story so I won't I yeah but how bad I'd probably cry you know what I mean it's the question to your question really which is when should we stop in my case I wouldn't perform gender if there were serious consequences at stake I will perform gender as I do for example in my ancestral hometown because there are really no consequences I my aunts and my cousins laugh and we move on when there are real consequences I will not perform gender because I think that for me my only the only real the only thing that I'm supposed to be and I think the only thing that we're all supposed to be is our real and authentic selves and so when that self starts to get in the way of somebody else's gender expectations there are consequences to it I won't do it so I guess the question is it's about weighing it I could agree with them about oh you know a woman was brought to earth to produce babies because there are really no consequences but many other situations in which I would stand up and say no this is not it because there will be consequences so it's never easy sadly can we get the question from the man man to join the party hi I was curious you mentioned earlier you had a story about the woman who was hit by the police officer and you kind of gave this myth that like class like protects the idea of gender from falling into like certain stereotypes but I'm curious like in western societies and capitalist societies and stuff like that to be successful in a business or in a political scene you almost need to fall under the guidelines of being white, male and old so I'm wondering if I'm wondering I'm wondering what your perspective is on the idea that class doesn't actually protect people from being subjected to their gender but rather enforces one to be subjected to their gender and that the idea of being valued as a powerful individual in society must you know be white male and old so I'm asking what your perspective of that is no tell me I'm not quite sure I understand so tell me about the class the idea is like do you think class enforces gender stereotypes or protects it so I'm yeah still not entirely sure I understand but I mean we can start off with the white male and old as the definition of success in western societies and in societies that are not full of white people the definition of success would still be male and often old but how does I'm not quite sure what class in that I really don't think I understand the question it's like do you mean my own personal experience I'm just asking your perspective of it your experience with American culture what do you think that class enforces gender roles and stereotypes does anybody have the answer do I think it I mean I think that class and gender and of course race are often intertwined and that are experiences of each that we want experiences race or class or gender is often sometimes determined sometimes shaped sometimes influence about how we experience the others I can't I don't know I can't speak for white old men because it's not a category to which I belong but I can speak about I mean I think the reason that I wanted to talk about class today in particular is because it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately particularly because many of the responses people have to the idea of feminism and to calling one self feminist are often class based where they'll say upper middle class women don't have the same concerns as poor women that sort of thing which is true but and this is a reason I wanted to use the Hillary Clinton example class doesn't always save you there are experiences that are really about gender observing western culture I mean and the old white male troop I think still very much exists but it's changing slowly hopefully and maybe this so usually when I'll do events or some people are kind enough to ask me somewhere such as such as you and some other people are kind enough to send a fancy car from you with a driver I'm always watching the driver's expression when I emerge and because they'll come pick me up and I think they always expect a man and if it is a woman they expect an older woman and perhaps one paler than I am and so when I appear there's just always a very funny expression on their faces sometimes it's just shock other times it's disappointment other times it's surprise for me it's quite a lovely game to watch and I make notes on my phone about each of them so I think that says something about white male men being the definition of success I can tell you for sure that in the US youngish black females does not equal success Hi my name is Christine and I consider myself a fierce feminist but I do shave my legs and I have a friend back home or else I wouldn't be talking about her here who is always talking about how excited she is to grow up with her boyfriend become his wife serve him, do his laundry, cook for him like this is all I hear from her how do I share my feminist viewpoint on what I think of her idea for her future of how excited she is to serve her boyfriend future husband do you want me to say the honest answer or the polite because we are in public answer my thing is what the F alright what does she you know what I would I think the first step is to recognize that she wants to live her life the way she wants to live her life it's her thing but I suppose the question I would want to ask her so she's looking forward to serving him and doing his laundry what's he looking forward to doing receiving that I was best friends with her before she met this boyfriend there's something very problematic about does she there's just something very problematic about it seems to me that we can only talk about many partnerships and many marriages if we start off with the premise that it's more important to one person and it's very troubling to me so she's happy to talk about how she's just looking forward to serving but what's he looking forward to you know what you should ask her ask her what she thinks he's looking forward to Melisa I really loved your book Americana and I was interested in the protagonist and how she starts a blog and she kind of finds this community online and I was wondering what you think about the gendered space of the internet and the possibilities of the internet for feminism hmm really good question thank you for that question oh and thank you for liking Americana I kind of like it too sometimes you know I think I mean I really one of the wonderful things I think it's happening the technology has its has its negative sides of course one of which is that many writers don't actually get any work done because you're looking up some nonsense but I think the internet is a wonderful thing because of its ability to make information available it increases a certain kind of access there are lots of people in Nigeria for example who are because of cell phones and really I think the cell phone is probably the most the most not just common if you asked me to tell you one thing that defined life in Nigeria today I would say the cell phone because people all over the country everybody has a cell phone and there's something about having that cell phone and increasingly getting internet access is less and less expensive and so it means that people have more access so people can look things up and with Ifemelo in Americana I wanted to I've never blogged although I'm now actually thinking about Ifemelo's blog in her voice I don't know if I will but I'm thinking about it I've never blogged but there's something about blogs but I read blogs and when I was walking on Americana before I started walking on Americana I read many blogs I read blogs about gender I read blogs about race I read blogs about fashion I read blogs about hair and there's something about the format of the blogs and immediate suits of blogs I think lends itself to a certain kind of almost an activist kind of information spreading if you write a newspaper column it seems to me that that by its very nature it just has to be a bit proper and that it's hard to advocate and be and step outside the defined boundaries when you're writing a newspaper column but blogs I immediate fashion knew and there's I think that for Ifemelo as well that the blog was a very free in format that she became this version of herself that she in some ways wasn't in her real life but a version of herself that could say things that were important in ways that and to say those things I think in a way that was much more effective than if she had I don't know given a lecture for example so I'm and I think in general technology is a wonderful thing for many movements feminism being one of them hi I just had a question pertaining to the issues that Shakita brought up but I just jotted down two questions and one question was how do you believe that cultural context plays a role in the construction of these social norms of society and must we ethnographically deconstructs cultural context in order to tackle these issues this is how you know you're in a college campus must we ethnographically deconstruct indeed we must but you know it's very I think the question of culture is very interesting because culture is often used as as a reason as an excuse as explanation for many things that are simply unjust culture is very often used and so here's a bit about Ibo culture which is what I know best and what I talked about the kind of Victorian Christianity that's been taken on 200 years ago in Ibo land gender roles were very different from what they are today when Christianity came to Ibo land gender roles shifted and they shifted because they had to conform to the Victorian Christian ideas of what gender was and gender roles and not to say somehow that before the Christians came it was a kind of gender utopia it wasn't but just to say that I think it became even more codified it became so before for example before Christianity what is now the largest market in West Africa in Onitsha only women treated this was the way it was done but Christianity came the missionaries came capitalism of the western saw it came and suddenly it was men who treated with other men and now it's norm and if you if you went back to Onitsha and said to somebody there do you know that 150 years ago only women could treat they would say no of course not I think the idea of culture as something dynamic and something that changes is often not considered when people use cultures as an excuse and as an explanation and so the idea of deconstructing cultural expectations you know they don't I suppose it's important to do that but part of the reason I'm not that I'm not as interested is because to do that we have to think of culture as something real and solid and it isn't in Nigeria people will say to me that it's our culture for example for a man to be the head of the family and the woman to be subservient and by the way people often conflict culture and religion because there's a lot about what we call culture that's actually religious and deconstructing it would be to my side a little bit unkind but to give it a certain legitimacy which I don't even want to give it I suppose my point is maybe it's the culture that these things happen but then we need to change that culture you know we need to because it wasn't the culture 100 years ago it wasn't 500 years ago it's not going to be in 100 years and the whole idea of culture as a making and remaking process is very important and so if we are going to deconstruct it ethnographically we have to do so always bearing in mind that culture is not static it's changing every day and the idea of of a woman subservience being that we should accept it because it's our culture no I think that the crowd could keep you busy for a week with more questions but we sadly have time for just one more that's a shame we're having fun 10 more minutes this is my question I'm taking the last question sorry everyone my name is Tori and first of all I want to thank you for all of the dialogues and conversations you have worked recently on campus because everyone is talking about gender and your books and literature and women and it's awesome so thank you for that you mentioned choice earlier and I think one of the biggest conversations debates that I've gotten into you know since we've been talking about you know you coming to campus and talking about gender and everything is you know what is choice and what does choice look like because I feel that it's often a false choice that women are given but at the same time I mean you could use the example of wearing makeup or dressing the way you do okay so in one way it's performance and in another way you can choose to do that so my question is what is real choice for in gender what is real choice what does it look like what does it feel like you know what are those things and what does it look like for you and maybe what should it be what should those what should choice real feelings of choice look like and feel like choice choice is tall dark and handsome kidding kidding I think that's a very good question right I think that even the idea of choice you know I'd like to step back a bit and talk about feminism as a movement with the history and there are lots of people who will say things like a woman who wears makeup or dresses in a certain way can't possibly be feminist so it's feminism as a kind of exclusive party and not everybody gets to be invited I don't think of feminism in that way but feminism more as an idea that one believes in and that we negotiate it individually I have feminist friends with whom I disagree on certain small details we don't have to agree on everything but what's important is that we agree on the larger idea that men and women are equal and that we have to make a world that recognizes that and so I'd like to talk about the idea of makeup and dressing and did you say dressing the way you do did you mean me or one oh ok so I was a bit worried I was like dressing the way I do I've always quarreled with the idea and I think it's a particularly and I have to say I think it's a lot more western than not so in western society we now say that women there's such a thing as female sexuality but it's still sexuality that we judge based on men and the expectations of men and we still use sort of maleness as the yardstick and I really quarrel with that so when people say high heels for example I wear high heels because I like them and I really didn't really often occur to me what men think of my high heels sometimes I care what women think to be honest but in general it's not about so this idea somehow there's something about it I think that's also very on feminist the idea that a woman's femininity has to be that it has to be subsumed that to prove your membership of the secret society of feminists you have to look like a man I mean I don't know if this makes sense the idea that you know sort of talking about not shaving your legs oh you shouldn't wear makeup and there's something about this I find myself very resentful of that idea because I think that what I want is a world in which people we shouldn't it shouldn't be about how we look we shouldn't say to women the less because biologically a woman who's dressed and you have ovaries and you have your body shape is going to be different from a man's and we can't say to a woman you somehow have to shield that and hide that before the world will show you respect so I find myself very resentful of so in talking about dressing and makeup for me it's less about and by the way the other thing often that's missed is most men don't actually even get it you know the whole sort of wearing makeup men do they don't even get it at all I don't know if anybody wants to speak for the men I don't even think men care I don't think a man can tell when you're wearing foundation can you can men they can't and you know but really I think fundamentally for me this goes back to the idea of starting with men as the starting point so if we start off with men then we can talk about oh high heels are for men if we start off with men then we can say oh because you want to appeal to men I don't even know what the quarrel with that is and I just really find myself deeply resistant to ideas of that sort because I also think that part of feminism should be a woman I suppose I have an answer because I don't know the answer I don't know what choice looks like but I can tell you about individual circumstances and whether or not I think there are products of real choice or not and you're right there are often many false choices and when we talk about women who choose not to walk or women who choose to stay home and I sometimes wonder whether the man also had the option of choosing to stay home because I think that even that idea is still very much shaped by what society tells us gender is which is also why we ask women how do you handle walk and having children and we never ask men who have children how do they handle walk and children because we internalize the idea that childcare is exclusively a woman's job which I think is a shame because it shouldn't be children need their fathers as well as their mothers but I really don't know what choice is but I do think it's important in talking about the idea of choice that we don't we can't say that everything is a false choice I don't know if that makes sense because I do sometimes think that it's also a worth closing conversation where so for example sex walk I think most cases of sex walk does not involve choice that's what I think from reading and learning and listening but we can't say that all cases of sex walk don't involve choice I don't know if that makes sense can I just ask so I'm very interested in learning from people so can I can I ask you a question what do you think so the question of make up for example do you have a personal story is there a reason that you use that example or no I think that I use that example because it comes up frequently and it comes up every time I put make up on in the morning for me but I still do it and I enjoy it it's part of my routine and I enjoy that and the reason that you question it is that you think that to be feminist means you shouldn't care how you look because somehow you're doing that for a man I don't know why I question it I'm not sure why I think that that's part of my part of my own individual journey I think with femininity I'm trying to see what is for me because it brings me joy is it because I'm not thinking I love that you said that maybe real choice is when you're really not thinking and you're not considering you're just doing it out of some kind of pure place but even then I don't know what the answer is I think that's why I keep having the conversations with women that I do I think that's what's important we need to keep having conversations we need to keep having the conversations oh maybe the last question does that sound good for you I will have two questions and you can answer both of them together I was going to ask you what is your opinion on should men play an equal role in not playing gender because for example I have an ear piercing and I often lately have chosen to wear dangly earrings usually worn by women some people like it but some people look at me well this dude is weird or are you gay should we as men play an equal part in that or should we step aside and let women redefine gender we're on the table and then we'll wrap it up what is the earring sounds very cool my question is often when feminism comes up it's discussed in terms of what women are going to get out of it and I wanted you to talk about what men benefit from being feminists so this is a hilarious crowd these people so the questions are kind of related right I love the idea of the dangly earring I have to say I'm collecting material for my next novel so I might have a character who wears the dangly earring but don't worry I'll change your name but you know I do think the question of stepping aside I don't think is an option the gender injustice which exists everywhere in the world is something that both men and women have to be involved in not just women it's always amazed me when there's talk of rape and sexual violence often it's women who march and I keep thinking but where are the men men should be marching because when we turn sexual violence into something that women have to say no to it's very troubling because basically are we saying that men are saying yes to it is it okay you have to you have to perform the expectations of what it means to be male I don't think so at all because I also think that gender constructions of maleness and this is what it means to be a man are dangerous for men so here's an example of a friend of mine who's a man and who once said to me I wanted to it's a long story I won't go into the family issues and he said to me I wanted to cry but I couldn't because I had to be strong for my mother and what would she say if she saw me crying and I've had that in my head for a long time and I often say I'm sure the world is full of men who want to cry but they have to do the I can't cry they have to do the men I'm sure who want to wear earrings but they think because in the end my point is that it should be about the individual it should be that people are people and that if we stop the kind of constraining of people into gender expectations I think the world would be much more productive much happier more emotionally healthy so yes I think that you should come to the party you should come to the feminist party one of the best feminists I know is a man I keep saying this my brother he might be watching he's he's just sort of fiercely feminist he just thinks that men and women are equal and doesn't think and things that rules should be assigned based on ability of the reproductive organ you're born with or not so your question about what men will gain there's a part of me that's already resistant to that because I'm thinking well why should men gain anything but I know what you mean it's very hard when you're in a position of power to give up power and I see this because the position of power that I occupy that I'm not comfortable sorry that I occupy and that I acknowledge is class and there to be a person who's educated who has a certain income is to have many privileges that you know you haven't really earned but the world just gives you more respect the world sometimes is kinder to you there are places I can go into in Nigeria or really anywhere in the world and people don't look shocked that you're there because you somehow fit and it's a kind of privilege and but I'm also very much aware of the privilege and I'm also I feel quite guilty about that privilege I have a lot of class guilt but at the same time I enjoy those privileges and so I think that to be male in the world today of course I'm generalizing because there are many individual men who don't have any power is often to be in a certain position of power to a job interview and not imagine that somebody's thinking oh because of your gender maybe you're not that smart all of these sort of things that you I suppose men would take for granted and so to say it on a shallow level what are men gaining by giving up power doesn't seem to make sense but here's what I think I think that because gender is constructed in a way and it's historical and it has its roots in religion and whatnot but it's constructed in a way that is often leads into men I know many men who the world describes as successful but they're emotionally stunted and they're emotionally stunted not because they're bad people or their failures but because the way that gender has been constructed just wasn't kind to them you start off when you're four and they tell you you can't cry and they tell you you have to you're seven and your mother tells you you have to take care of the family and really all you want to do is just sort of crawl into bed and maybe play with your toys or something but already there's the sense that you have to be a certain thing and I imagine men growing up with all of those things and then of course also the idea that strength somehow is synonymous with being the silent strong type you're so strength means you can't talk about things strength means you can't admit to any kind of vulnerability but you're human and to be human is to be vulnerable and so I think about all of these men who somehow can't reach their own vulnerabilities but what if we suddenly said forget all of that nonsense about gender and let people be people I think many relationships would be much happier if gender constructions are not there so what would men gain so for the people who are sort of thinking about going out there and becoming and proselytizing for the movement of feminism they will be happier tell them to trust you you know you're giving up a bit of your power but you'll be happier yeah thank you also for listening this one could just sort of stay put while Miss Aditya makes her way back to the book signing table that would be wonderful and as soon as she's settled in here she's on her way then then you'll be free to exit in about 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5 you're free to go thank you so much everyone