I Was Here

****FLAWLESS

"We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you would threaten the man. Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same? We raise girls to see each other as competitors not for jobs or accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are."

Beyoncé helped the popular music world discover Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, by sampling the above quote from the author’s 2013 Tedx Talk in her feminist anthem “Flawless”. I was part of the crowd that heard the song, then heard the Ted Talk, then had to buy the book “We Should All Be Feminists”. I now consider Chimamanda to be one of the most inspired feminist voices of our time, and I’d like to focus on five leadership qualities that I feel she exemplifies.

1. She Is Highly Self-Aware

Chimimanda once wrote a personal essay for Elle Magazine called “Why Can’t A Smart Woman Love Fashion?”.  She speaks about her experiences in her home country of Nigeria and how even a casual outfit was ironed to a crisp, and how her American university experiences with fashion were startlingly different. After almost a decade of dressing down to fit the “serious successful women” mold, she had enough. She started wearing embroidered, brightly colored, beaded clothes with big earrings and high heels. Fashion has long been thought of as a frivolity, but just like my favorite pair of sweatpants, the literary -award-winning Chimimanda feels happiest in a cinched-waist skirt and 6-inch wedges, and she’s no longer ashamed.

2. She Is Humble

When she was interviewed in Oprah’s “20 Questions” she answered several questions regarding her awards and accomplishments. Never once did she say she deserved the awards or takes credit on her own. Instead, Chimimanda expresses how unexpected her fame is and how her parents have contributed to her success and abilities. When asked “Have you ever read or written a perfect sentence? What was it?” she replied simply, "No. I am suspicious of the idea of perfection."

3. She Allows Herself To Adapt

Chimimanda was the fifth of six children born to her parents. She often talks of how she was born into privilege. Her father was Nigeria's first professor of statistics, and her mother was the first female registrar at the same institution.  Chimimanda and her siblings were urged to be educated, and she enrolled at the University of Nigeria at the age of 17 to study medicine and pharmacy.  She had been writing for years, but she soon realized that in order to make it a focus she would have to make a change. It was then that she moved to the United States at 19 and enrolled in Drexel University to study communication. She later went on to Eastern Connecticut State University, Johns Hopkins University and Yale University. The rest, she says, is “her”story.

4. She Focuses On Other’s Strengths

In her essay “We Should All Be Feminists”, Chimimanda talks about masculinity and how it can hurt men. She says "Masculinity is a hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage." She encourages men to be who they are, not who they are expected to be.  She encourages women to do the same and not to act weak because this can break the man’s ego even further. This way, each gender can come closer together.

5. She Inspires Society

Beyoncé didn’t choose a name out of a hat when she decided to sample Chimimanda’s Ted Talk. She wanted to show the world that feminism isn’t a dirty word and that we can all participate together. Of course, a pop song doesn’t reach all ears. Chimimanda  has long been involved in charity work and most recently she and a former classmate started the Farafina Trust, a non-profit organization inspiring young writers to get involved and learn skills that hosts writing workshops in both Nigeria and the United States.