We Should All Be Feminists - Chimamanda Gnozi TED Talk Extract

Chimamanda was born in Enugu, Nigeria in 1977. She grew up on the campus of the

University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where her father was a professor and her mother was the first

female Registrar. She studied medicine for a year at Nsukka and then left for the US at the

age of 19 to continue her education on a different path. She graduated from Eastern

Connecticut State University with a degree in Communication and Political Science. She is

the author of award-winning and best-selling novels, including Americanah and Half of a

Yellow Sun; the short-story collection The Thing Around Your Neck; and the essays We

Should All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions.

● Watch the extract from her TED talk called ‘We Should All Be Feminists’ and answer

the following questions:

1. Who was the first person to call her a feminist?

2. Did she know what being a feminist exactly meant?

3. What advice did the Nigerian journalist give Chimamanda?

4. What did the academic Nigerian woman say to her?

5. What happened when she tipped the waiter?

6. ‘The higher you go the fewer women there are’. What does this quote tell you about

gender inequality?

7. What does she suggest we should focus on when raising children?

KEY

1. Her neighbour but also one of her greatest friends.

2. No she didn’t.

3. He advised her not to call herself a feminist because feminists are women who are

unhappy because they can’t find a husband.

4. She told her that feminism was not a culture, feminism was not Africa and that she

was calling herself a feminist because she had been corrupted by western books.

5. The waiter thought that the tip came from the man who was with her despite the fact

that he saw her taking the money out of her own purse.

6. This quote shows how gender inequality between men and women is still an issue

and that although this inequality has improved over the past years, positions of power

are still a place for men rather than women.

7. She says that when raising children we should focus on ability and interest instead of

gender.

Shared by Marta Díez - Alumna Máster UC