“Dear Ijeawele is powerful because it’s short and sweet—the perfect disguise for a collection of ideas that attempt to set the world on fire. Some may wonder (yes, even after Trump) why setting the world as we know it on fire is a desirable action. Adichie’s work encourages you to look around and inward to see where gender binaries—pink vs. blue, doll vs. truck, mother vs. earner, giver vs. taker—have gotten us … we cannot have a feminist movement in 2017 without Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie … For Adichie, gender roles rob us of our individuality, and it’s a robbery that happens well before we even know it’s happening … We do ourselves and our feminist future a disservice if we look at Dear Ijeawele as the beginning and end of a conversation. It’s an invitation, a call to arms. Adichie cannot light these fires alone. This particular love letter begs a response from those readers and writers who needed a jumping off point for their own manifestos. We feminists are not done with becoming feminists. And for those of us enjoying this ride, that’s certainly not a bad thing.”
–Shannon Houston, Paste, March 8, 2017
