Nigerian-born author and feminist, Chimamanda Adichie has condemned what she calls “making a fetish of evil when it manifests in the female form.”
Speaking at the University of Edinburgh where she was awarded an honorary PhD on Thursday, the globally rated, multiple award-winning writer notes that female evil should be as normal as the male evil.
“We shouldn’t have highest standards for women; we shouldn’t assume that because a person is born of a woman, that person is somehow just a step lower than angel.
“I find it highly dehumanising for women because what it means is that women cannot be judged on the same terms as men,” she argues.
In her speech, she used the example of ex-Petroleum Minister, Mrs. Diezani Allison-Maduekwe, to buttress her argument, saying she recalls a journalist exclaiming, “And she’s (Diezani) a woman!”
“Somehow, the assumption is that it would be better if she were a man because then, we wouldn’t judge her so harshly because we expect men to steal.
“And so, the idea of women being a species of angels is bad for both women and men because it makes the standards uneven,” she says.
She reiterates her dream of a world where women are seen as human, “a world in which women are allowed to be many things; a world where women can be something and another thing, rather than something or another thing