Some men feel threatened by the idea of feminism. It is only fair that the solution to the problem should acknowledge that. For centuries, the world divided human beings into two groups and then proceeded to exclude and oppress one group. That the problem was not about being human, but specifically about being a female human. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general – but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. Some people ask, 'Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?' Because that would be dishonest. Because thinking of changing the status quo is always uncomfortable. Both men and women are resistant to talk about gender, or are quick to dismiss the problems of gender. It makes people uncomfortable, sometimes even irritable. Gender is not an easy conversation to have. A world of happier men and happier women who are truer to themselves. But it is time we should begin to dream about and plan for a different world. At some point I was a Happy African Feminist Who Does Not Hate Men And Who Likes To Wear Lip Gloss And High Heels For Herself And Not For Men. So I decided I would now be a Happy African Feminist Who Does Not Hate Men. Then a dear friend told me that calling myself a feminist meant that I hated men. And each time I try to read those books called 'classic feminist texts', I get bored, and I struggle to finish them.)Īnyway, since feminism was un-African, I decided I would now call myself a Happy African Feminist. (Which amused me, because much of my early reading was decidedly unfeminist: I must have read every single Mills & Boon romance published before I was 16. Then an academic, a Nigerian woman, told me that feminism was not our culture, that feminism was un-African and I was only calling myself a feminist because I had been influenced by western books.

We should all be a feminist