The critical acclaimed Nigerian author responded to criticism by posting a message on her facebook page.

She wrote...

Dear Unnamed Person Who I Am Told Is On Social Media Saying I am Her Family and Telling Me to Shut Up:
Cynicism is ugly. It doesn’t flatter anyone. Yours doesn’t suit you at all.
I remember you vaguely; I think you were in my class in primary school. And now you claim to be my ‘family’ and you are asking me to shut up.
Did you watch the video of the conversation? Did you read a full transcript?
I am tired of Nigerians who read a headline and, without bothering to get details and context, jump on the outrage bandwagon and form lazy, shallow opinions.
I am tired of Nigerians cynically thinking of anybody in public life as a ‘brand.’ No, I am not a brand. I am a person who feels strongly about certain issues. I choose to talk honestly about them. I made the choice to talk about feminism knowing very well the kind of hostility it brings – but I think it’s important and I will continue to speak my truth and hope to bring about some change, no matter how small. Adirom agba egwu ka m data ego.
No, of course you don’t actually deserve a response, but I have some free time today. So I want to make you feel a little important because it sounds like you need it.
And I want to reflect on an absolutely lovely hour spent on stage with Hillary Clinton.
I was happy when I was told that Hillary Clinton had specifically requested to be in conversation with me at the PEN World Voices festival. I am an unapologetic fan of Ms. Clinton’s. I have been for many years.
I felt quite emotional when I met her. Having read and followed her for years, it was moving to see her: the warm, human, observant, present, thoughtful person (and looking wonderful, with her hair and makeup on point!).
She said she had read my books and I restrained myself from doing cartwheels.
“Is there anything you don’t want to talk about?” I asked backstage.
“Ask me anything,” she said.
Towards the end of our conversation, I told her how, having read her writing about her own life, I think she has a great love story with Bill Clinton. A wonderful friendship. I said I feel irritated and protective of her when people dissect her personal life, but I also confessed to having an interest myself, particularly about her public Twitter profile. (I first noticed it when I was researching a piece about her during the presidential campaign). I was upset that the first word used to describe her was ‘wife.’ Was it a choice she had made or was it something done for her campaign and, if it was a choice she had made, did she think my reaction to it was fair?
Her response was very thoughtful.
I was too excited, emotional, slightly nervous, to be on stage with this remarkable woman. Had I kept in mind how easily outrage-mongers would jump on a headline, I would have phrased my question better. I would not have made it about my being upset, because it can come across as navel-gazing.
But the truth is that we were supposed to be having a ‘conversation,’ the context of our conversation was personal and warm, I had made the decision to speak from the heart, and it would be dishonest to pretend that I had not reacted personally to so many issues around Ms. Clinton, whose life has become a kind of crucible of all the questions that affect women.
We all react personally to public figures. And I WAS upset that the Twitter bio of a woman who is the most accomplished person to run for President of the United States, would begin with ‘wife.’ And considering her personal history, it just didn’t seem to fit.
I felt that ‘wife’ was used as an attempt to placate all the men and women who will not vote for a woman unless they are able to see her FIRST in domestic terms.
Yes, it’s just Twitter. But it matters. It’s a public platform. It’s where people go to hear directly from her.
And there is context to consider.
In LIVING HISTORY, Ms.Clinton writes that the two most difficult decisions she has made in her life were staying married to Bill Clinton and running for the senate seat in New York.
Women, especially women in public life, face a lot of societal pressure about how to be, how to live, much more than men do. Women in public life are considered ‘cold’ and ‘un-relatable’ unless they define themselves in domestic terms. Women’s accomplishments are often considered incomplete unless they have also ticked the ‘marriage’ box. These things are not true of men, even though marriage can be a wonderful thing for both men and women.
Feminism is indeed about choice. But it is intellectually lazy to suggest that, since everything is about ‘choice,’ none of these choices can be interrogated. Choices are never made in a vacuum. And sometimes, for women, choices are not always real choices.
After she got married, Ms. Clinton kept her name, but she was so viciously criticized for this that she then took on her husband’s name. Was this a ‘choice?’ Would she have done so if she wasn’t being attacked and if she didn’t want to feel responsible for her husband’s potential losing of votes?
During the last presidential campaign, she was expected to account for the policies of her husband’s administration. She was labeled an enabler of sexual harassment. She was accused of cynically staying married because she wanted to benefit politically.
Much of Ms. Clinton’s public image is a caricature of a person who is untrustworthy, calculated, cold, dishonest. That caricature has its roots in her early public life when she was the First Lady of Arkansas.
Her crime was that she did not conform to the traditional role of First Lady. She had kept her name. She clearly considered herself to be her husband’s equal partner. She did not intend merely to be a Wife. She had her own dreams, her own ambition. She dared to say that she wasn’t planning on ‘staying home and baking cookies,’ which was not about denigrating stay-at-home mothers but simply about saying that that was not what she wanted to do.
A small comment about a small thing, but it was significant and revolutionary because she was consciously resisting the status quo.
But she was attacked for that. Horrendously. And those attacks were repeated so often that they stuck and they contributed to her being reduced to a caricature.
It was therefore upsetting to see her first descriptor as ‘wife.’ The question isn’t about including ‘wife’ in her Twitter bio. The question is about giving ‘wife’ a certain primacy as the first word that describes her, and it speaks to larger questions about the societal expectations placed on women.
Ms. Clinton wrote in her most recent book WHAT HAPPENED, that she ran for president because she thinks she would have been a ‘damned good president.’
She certainly would have been. And so I suggested, half-joking, that ‘Would have been a damned good president’ is a perfect Twitter bio start. And then mother and wife and grandma and Senator and hair icon etc could follow!
I completely stand by my question and by my conviction that it is a subject that matters.
I had a truly enlightening evening on that stage with Ms. Clinton, and was once again awed by her grit, her humanity, her sparkling intelligence.
After the conversation, Ms. Clinton told me, “It was like talking to a friend.” She is now my Aunty For Life.
Oh, as for YOU, Unnamed Person, saying that I am ‘family’ to you, mbakwa biko. The people I consider family don’t ‘do petty.’
Saying “shut up” to a woman who airs an opinion is so unoriginal. Try and be a bit more inventive.
Try reasoning. Try intelligent debate. Try understanding things in context before you reveal your ignorant misogyny to the world. Try reading more than a headline. Try reading a whole book. Or two. And please keep talking. Keep speaking. Don’t ever shut up.
~CNA

Learn to mind your business biko. I love reading your books but you messed up here.

How can you be upset with a decision she made? You're talking like "wife" is a derogatory word. Is your brand of. feminism stemmed from man hating?
This is what happens when you don't mind your business. Her bio, her business. Mind yours.

Follow @9ja_sarcastic for hilarious memes

If there are any other words that can perfectly describe stupidity, foolishness, man hater and devilish bitter souls.

A Nigerian wannabe feminist will be the perfect words.

Because that's what they are.

And that long epistle?
Short and precise should be the response intended for a fool, but this your 'long journey' is too long I can hardly walk on.

And I'm sure Na rubbish she dey say

Someone should help me with a summary abeg

makydebbie:
Learn to mind your business biko. I love reading your books but you messed up here.

How can you be upset with a decision she made? You're talking like "wife" is a derogatory word. Is your feminism stemmed from man hating?
This is what happens when you don't mind your business. Her bio, her business. Mind yours.

Why are you guys like this? Didn't you read where she said she asked Hillary at the PEN Festival why her bio reads wife? I'm very sure that if most of you were Hillary, you would've asked her to mind her business. Like she stated, Hillary is such a great woman to be described with "Wife" as the initials on her bio.

kimbraa:
Why are you guys like this? Didn't you read where she said she asked Hillary at the PEN Festival why her bio reads wife? I'm very sure that if most of you were Hillary, you would've asked her to mind her business. Like she stated, Hillary is such a great woman to be described with "Wife" as the initials on her bio.

Why are which guys like what? What's her business with someone's decision concerning her bio. She's such a great woman to be called "wife," so wife is for people that are-not-so-great? So "wife" is now for low lives.
I didn't know being a "wife" belittles you, and your achievements and also makes you a low life.
Please argue with someone else or you can ask others such rhetorical question.

kimbraa:
Why are you guys like this? Didn't you read where she said she asked Hillary at the PEN Festival why her bio reads wife? I'm very sure that if most of you were Hillary, you would've asked her to mind her business. Like she stated, Hillary is such a great woman to be described with "Wife" as the initials on her bio.

Why will she ask that? Is it her bio?

And you just ended up disgracing and exposing your whack opinion, so being a wife belittles a woman?

Being a wife stops a woman from being great?
So ones marital status equates greatness?

Like, who are these girls for God sake? What sort of stupid mentality and manner of men hating is this in the name of feminism?

Why are you all embarrassing Nigeria with your whack and poor feminism mentality on a public forum?

Ahn ahn aunty Amanda, I don't understand you anymore o. She used wife on her bio. So what please? Was she forced to use it? You know I always support you. But in this case, I'll pass.

makydebbie:


Why are which guys like what? What's her business with someone's decision concerning her bio. She's such a great woman to be called wife, so wife is for people that are not so great? So wife is now for low lives. Please argue with someone else or you can ask others such rhetorical question.

It's not in your place to ask that question @embolden. She's got every right to ask anyone on her playing field whatever question she desires. Funny enough, this was a conversation she had with Hillary, and Hillary didn't ask her what her business was. Like she said, she didn't in anyway look down on the class of women called "Wife" but that the word "Wife" was too common to describe such a lady as. This is what I could infer from her write-up, sentiments aside, and she's got a point.

donstan18:


Why will she ask that? Is it her bio?

And you just ended up disgracing and exposing your whack opinion, so being a wife belittles a woman?

Being a wife stops a woman from being great?
So ones marital status equates greatness?

Like, who are these girls for God sake? What sort of stupid mentality and manner of men hating is this in the name of feminism?

Why are you all embarrassing Nigeria with your whack and poor feminism mentality on a public forum?

If you were not so much in a hurry to quote me for your cheap nairaland "Likes" that's as worthless as the letter p in psychology, you would've taken time to read what the lady wrote before jumping on the bandwagon. You Nigerians or better still, Africans stink of hypocrisy. Last time I checked, I can't count the number of ladies with "wife" as their bio on social media.

kimbraa:
[s] If you were not so much in a hurry to quote me for your cheap nairaland "Likes" that's as worthless as the letter p in psychology, you would've taken time to read what the lady wrote before jumping on the bandwagon. You Nigerians or better still, Africans stink of hypocrisy. Last time I checked, I can't count the number of ladies with "wife" as their bio on social media. [/s]

Will you shut up!

Answer my question and stop running around like a lost ancestral goat.

How does being a wife belittle greatness in a woman? Tell us, how?

What on earth gave you such bitter inclined mentality that a great woman shouldn't start her bio with "Wife" ?

Is she not a wife?

Hillary Clinton didn't use to identify herself as the traditional 'wife' to Bill. So Adichie was just checking to see if it was a campaign strategy. That is, if her campaign managers thought 'wife' will be a more appealing word for her to get the support of voters.

Adichie never said "Hillary, Don't ever call your self a wife before presidential candidate '16.." She was just trying to understand someone she has admired. It was a conversation. For lack of a better word, a gist session. And like Clinton said, anything goes.

I don't understand the whole fuss on this issue.

donstan18:


Will you shut up!

Answer my question and stop running around like a lost ancestral goat.

How does being a wife belittle greatness in a woman? Tell us, how?

What on earth gave you such bitter inclined mentality that a great woman shouldn't start her bio with "Wife" ?

Is she not a wife?

Did Hillary complain? You see why most of you ranting over this issue are a bunch of jobless youths as Buhari described you all.

Don't assume I've got the time to waste on this issue.

Read, you won't.

kimbraa:
[s] Did Hillary complain? You see why most of you ranting over this issue are a bunch of jobless youths as Buhari described you all.

Don't assume I've got the time to waste on this issue.

Read, you won't. [/s]

Oh Awesome! What a poor way to run out from answering and backing your "Wife-Greatness" point.

You deserve a slap as an accolade to erase such mentality from you, look at you running around and finding it difficult to answer a simple question raised from your comment that Hillary Clinton is too great to be described as a wife.

Shame! A big one!

Learn how to comment what you can defend, don't comment for the sake of commenting, think!

I keep thanking God that Hillary Rodham Clinton didn't win that election...

and to Chimamanda
She's Mrs not Ms...

Come back to Africa and start campaigning against the payment of bride price because I don't see any reason why I should pay money before marrying you and won't see you as a "lesser" human. I'd surely take you for a commodity.

To the monkeys that will/may quote me out of context, ;I'm a stunch feminist.




Other foods for thought;

Because a lady is ruling the UK, females are treated like gods there.

As a lady you slap a man in his ass without his consent and you'd be praised for it. You won't be jailed because of useless excuses like; oh she was only playing with him, it's a lie, oh she's pregnant, oh she has kids.
As a man you slap a lady in her ass without her and you'd be imprisoned or sued.
That's exactly what's happening in places like Britain, Germany and USA right now.

What's gonna happen if a lady is allowed to rule Nigeria today
Men will be treated like dogs.

I pray I never become a President some day, because if I do, any lady that falsely accuses someone of rape, sexual harrasment and molestation will spend their entire lives in jail.


Why should a man be the one to lose more in a case of divorce?
We are in a world where women can't build homes, only men build homes and women move in freely.
Women are always awarded custody of children.


Women are more favoured than men in very very many things yet I pity the men don't complain, even if they do some people still call them "weak".



Like I said earlier I pray I don't become a President... that's all I got to say..


Quote me and answer yourself

ReinaFarine:
Hillary Clinton didn't use to identify herself as the traditional 'wife' to Bill. So Adichie was just checking to see if it was a campaign strategy. That is, if her campaign managers thought 'wife' will be a more appealing word for her to get the support of voters.

Adichie never said "Hillary, Don't ever call your self a wife before presidential candidate '16.." She was just trying to understand someone she has admired. It was a conversation. For lack of a better word, a gist session. And like Clinton said, anything goes.

I don't understand the whole fuss on this issue.

Hillary has never been a true feminist. fake from day one•
She was only playing feminist to gain sympathy from women and to gain cheap votes.
She's a monumental disaster.

I get she was trying to point out HRC'S hypocrisy but she was outsmarted by HRC.

kimbraa:
It's not in your place to ask that question @embolden. She's got every right to ask anyone on her playing field whatever question she desires. Funny enough, this was a conversation she had with Hillary, and Hillary didn't ask her what her business was. Like she said, she didn't in anyway look down on the class of women called "Wife" but that the word "Wife" was too common to describe such a lady as. This is what I could infer from her write-up, sentiments aside, and she's got a point.

It's not your place to ask me "why am I like this", since my comment is my opinion and it's my opinion that she was concerned in an issue that doesn't concern her. She doesn't have the right to question people's decisions and tell them how to live their lives, what terms and titles makes them great or whatever.
Hillary went with wife because it was cool for her and that's what she wants. If she wanted, she would've written, The great Hillary.

Last reply.

Intelligent response from her. I may not completely support her view, but the brain with which she explained it already closed this argument.

donstan18:


Oh Awesome! What a poor way to run out from answering and backing your "Wife-Greatness" point.

You deserve a slap as an accolade to erase such mentality from you, look at you running around and finding it difficult to answer a simple question raised from your comment that Hillary Clinton is too great to be described as a wife.

Shame! A big one!

Learn how to comment what you can defend, don't comment for the sake of commenting, think!

Don't mind that goat. Low IQ dung filled brain carry her own mo*ronic interpretation of man hate as feminism enter America.

prechbills1:


Hillary has never been a true feminist. fake from day one•
She was only playing feminist to gain sympathy from women and to gain cheap votes.
She's a monumental disaster.

I get she was trying to point out HRC'S hypocrisy but she was outsmarted by HRC.

Hillary was just playing along all the while maybe thinking "who is this illiterate that does not understand what feminism entails and not?"

I was upset that the first word used to describe her was ‘wife.’ Was it a choice she had made or was it something done for her campaign

I WAS upset that the Twitter bio of a woman who is the most accomplished person to run for President of the United States, would begin with ‘wife.’ And considering her personal history, it just didn’t seem to fit.

It was therefore upsetting to see her first descriptor as ‘wife.’ The question isn’t about including ‘wife’ in her Twitter bio. The question is about giving ‘wife’ a certain primacy as the first word that describes her, and it speaks to larger questions about the societal expectations placed on women.

@kimbraa

Wife was not the only description used....and the first word isn't the only word that defines a person. You should know better

Feminism is indeed about choice.

After she got married, Ms. Clinton kept her name, but she was so viciously criticized for this that she then took on her husband’s name. Was this a ‘choice?’ Would she have done so if she wasn’t being attacked

Now Chimamanda is the one criticizing Hillary. If feminism is about choice, why question her choice of what to write first?

Live and Let Live....Chimamanda should understand that anyone should be able to live their lives in the manner they want to, regardless of what others may think of them.

princfred:
Hillary was just playing along all the while maybe thinking "who is this illiterate that does not understand what feminism entails and not?"

what do you know about feminism??
how many seminars have you organized for women to educate them about the importance of feminism?

Young man if you're so jobless, go find a job and don't fvcking quote me next time.