It’s been a while. I never published the last blog post I wrote way back when because fact-checking revealed something about the author that I’ve been struggling to reconcile. Then, the Barbie movie brought me back.

I know, I know—this is a surprise because I seldom played with dolls as a kid, I regard myself as a feminist who survived the anorexic experience, and I’m reviewing a movie instead of a book. The Barbie movie prompted a thousand thoughts the morning after and made me think of a book: Women who run with the wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. So you will get some insight into a book after all, but I won’t share all my one thousand thoughts.

For context, it would be useful to first give a quick summary of the plot. Most of the action happens in Barbieland where all the different versions of the Barbie and Ken dolls commercialised over the years by Mattel play out a typical, perfect day. However, everything gets ruined when a tear appears in the membrane between Barbieland and the real world. Stereotypical Barbie, aka Blonde Barbie, must travel to the real world to fix it. Ken only feels important when he’s noticed by Barbie, so naturally he finds a way to tag along.

The real world is not what Barbie and Ken expect it to be and they both return independently. Ken tries to impose patriarchy with what he’s learnt. Meanwhile, together with a real mother and her real daughter, Barbie escapes the Mattel executives who aim to capture her and put her back in a box. Now these three women must send the real world back where it belongs and restore Barbieland.

You can tell that this is fertile ground for more social commentary than anyone can possibly fit in a single blog post. As with all my other posts, I’ll review what’s good, what’s bad, and how to be enough a la Barbie and Ken in the movie.

The Good

If you haven’t already seen this movie, you should definitely watch Barbie. You’ll both laugh and cringe as you appreciate the attention to detail, dialogue, and design. It’s obvious that Warner Brothers did not skimp on expenses or pink paint to make this humorous satire that spares few gendered ideas or archetypes, except possibly mothers (I’ll come back to this in the section on what’s bad).

The way this movie is put together is delightful:

• The dialogue reflects the type of language used when girls play with Barbies, and the people from the real world speak like their characters would.
• The sets are put together in a way that mimics the ratios and proportions between the Barbie and Ken dolls and the toys that come with them.
• The pool is a sticker and for this reason everyone can walk on water.
• The closet looks like the box a collection of Barbie outfits would come in.
• The screenplay is also very clever; watch for iconic scenes that reference other movies and important world events.
• The strategic but infrequent use of a narrator gives helpful asides in moments that could be confusing or open to misinterpretation.
• The performances of Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as stereotypical Barbie and Ken respectively really lean into the characters and the humorous spirit of the movie.
• The feminist critique of the Barbie phenomenon is built into the plot.

The Bad

While you watch the Barbie movie, you should bear its limitations in mind. The first is that it remains true to the Barbieland and associated paraphernalia that Mattel has commercialised (including dolls that were withdrawn or canceled). Therefore, expect the story to be almost 100% heteronormative. Also, inclusion happens to the extent that Mattel’s Barbie and Ken dolls are inclusive. In other words, there are superficial hints at inclusion but no more than that.

Then, the movie rolls for 114 minutes. The length feels right but it’s too short to introduce nuance to most of the themes running through it. Not to mention that any parody is often at odds with nuance.

The fact that the film is parody and satire introduces another limitation. For it to work, the screenplay has to be close enough yet far enough from “reality”. Naturally, the ambiguity here makes it difficult to know which commentary is really just meant to make you laugh—which you’ll do a lot—and which commentary is serious. So, I may have gotten different messages from the ones intended by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, the screen writers.

I found two things in the Barbie movie that don’t ring true for me, namely the treatment of:

1. Mothering and–or motherhood; and
2. War.

A movie that spoofs patriarchy (among other things) would be incomplete without a nod to war. The Kens go to war against one another when the Barbies strategically provoke jealousy amongst the Kens. I’ve seen men hit other men for hitting on their wife or girlfriend uninvited but not when it’s the other way around. In my experience, men seldom punish the other party with whom ‘their woman’ (sic) is provoking jealousy; more often than not, they subtly and overtly take their jealousy out on her. Personally, I think the Barbies’ jealousy strategy is more likely to end in intimate-partner violence than war against the other Kens.

Do not be deceived by the Barbie movie or Homer’s claim that the beautiful face of Helen of Troy launched a thousand ships. The masterminds of war are not motivated by a woman. I believe that war is the maximum expression of patriarchy because war leverages power to dominate and control of resources. The authors of war are artful at masking their real motives, though, by motivating others to do their dirty work for them in the name of defending the honour of a woman, including Lady Justice and the Motherland.

Speaking of mothers, for me the movie inadvertently traps real girls and women just as Barbie inadvertently traps them. I’d love to have a conversation with Greta Gerwig about this. I suspect that the message I’m getting isn’t inadvertent at all. The message I’m getting is:

Barbie smashes a girl’s interest in being a mother to smithereens (see the opening scene). Barbieland does this because it excludes children, as well as cancels Skipper, the babysitter, and Midge, the pregnant woman. It also makes Ken an accessory to Barbie’s perfect life and self-actualisation. But it’s a real mother who repairs the rip in the membrane between the real word and fantasy by articulating the impossible standards imposed on women. It’s also the mother who frees her daughter to be whatever she wants to be and ‘stands still so that her daughter can look back and see how far she’s come’.

That final phrase is what Ruth, Barbie’s creator, says to Barbie as Barbie tries to decide who and how she will be after her brush with reality. Then they hold hands and Ruth transmits images of motherhood to Barbie. You’ll have to watch the movie to find out what Barbie does after that.

Other than perhaps to set an impossible standard to which our bodies should return after giving birth, as a mother I can confidently say that Barbie has hardly made a dent in the mythos of motherhood. I have mothered in three different cultures in three different countries, and motherhood is alive and well in all of them. Actually, what needs an overhaul is the mythos of motherhood and mothering. It starts with ending this idea that you’re only a real woman once you’re a mother.

When mothers—and the cultures they’re embedded in—choose to act differently, then things will change. For instance, standing still is the last thing a mother should do in my experience. If mothers stand still, so do their children of all genders. I realised this when one of my own children repeated the unhealthy things I said and did. That was my wake-up call to act differently in my marriage and eventually divorce their dad. While this was difficult for everybody, my children have wisdom now that I wish I had had at their age. I can only hope they are going to act differently in consequence.

It’s also a fantasy if we think that mothers can save women from patriarchy by vocalising all the contradictory ways in which the culture tells a mother she is not enough. Women have already been doing this for a long time to little avail. And this is where I think the Barbie movie gets interesting. A theme that emerges towards the end is how Barbieland is not enough for Barbie while both the real mother and Ken feel like they are not enough. To my mind, the movie doesn’t solve the not-enough feeling for mothers, although it does show how to solve the not-enoughness for Barbie and Ken.

How to

Be enough a la Barbie and Ken

As I said at the beginning, the Barbie movie brought to mind the book, Women who run with the wolves. More specifically, it brought to mind two stories—Manawee and The skeleton woman—that Pinkola Estés analyses in her book. It’s when Barbie is willing to entertain the skeleton woman, that is the spectre of death, that she rends the veil between fantasy and reality. Doing so sends everyone and everything in Barbieland and the real world into crisis with each of them going on a journey of their own to resolve it. 

It’s significant that although Ken goes along with Barbie for the ride, in the end, each of them has their own experience and makes their own independent decisions. As a result, Barbie must come to terms with the dark side of Ken, and Ken must acknowledge what he doesn’t like about Barbie. To manage that, they must both also make peace with what they don’t like in themselves. Integrating the dual nature of life and death, good and bad, beautiful and not-beautiful is what love and life is all about according to the Manawee story that Pinkola Estés tells. 

As they both untangle what makes themselves and Barbieland not-enough, Barbie learns that Barbieland is not enough for her because it is perfect whereas sadness, death-awareness, and difficulties are what make life worth living. Ken learns to face his fear of becoming nothing without the female gaze valuing him, and discovers his inner worth on his own.

The details of how Barbie and Ken do this are obviously not given in the movie; there’s no time for that. You can read much more about how to do this in the Manawee and Skeleton Woman stories along with the analysis Pinkola Estés provides. I strongly encourage you to do so. I know I need to return to these stories time and time again because integrating my dual nature and learning I’m enough is a life-long journey.

Conclusion

Even if you were always just an observer, the Barbie movie will take you back to your childhood. As a parody, this well scripted and beautifully designed movie will be entertaining and make you laugh. If you choose to, you can ignore that it’s satire as well. If you engage with the satire, there will be much that you can appreciate and that will make you think. Just remember that ultimately Mattel sold the movie rights to Warner Brothers. So, don’t expect it to be too nuanced in its critique of consumerism, the industrial-beauty complex, war, patriarchy, or how Barbie has furthered or fettered feminism. Still, the message that you are enough comes through, and that life’s richer when it’s not eternally picture perfect. 

Getting in touch with our own bodies and possibly someone else’s too can seem like a little too much to ask.  If you are a woman and have ever wondered what the big deal is about sex, or if you are a partner who has ever wondered why women fake orgasms or are just not that interested, then this is a book for you.  Do you wonder whether you are normal?  Come as you are while I review what’s good and what’s bad about Emily Nagoski’s book on the surprising new science that will transform your sex life.  The first place to start is by learning how to love the vulva, vagina, and mons and I tell you about the experience that I and 3 other women had doing the exercises in chapter 1 of Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life.

The Good

Emily Nagoski is a passionate sex educator who is up to date on the latest science on the subject.  She loves science, and she combines this with warmth, kindness, and care to present an accessible book on sexuality in general, with the specific purpose of promoting women’s sexual well-being, autonomy and pleasure.  She uses the singular pronoun “they” instead of “she” and “he” because it is simpler and because it is more inclusive of people outside of the gender binary.  At the same time, she acknowledges that there is very little research on trans and genderqueer sexual functioning to generalise from cisgender women’s sexual functioning to that of trans people.

The writer busts many myths about women’s bodies and their genitals.  You definitely want to read what she has to say about the hymen in this regard.   Now, if the clitoris is new to you, then I recommend you check out this article on cliteracy by the Huffington Post even before you read Come As You Are.  In addition to exploring the science of our genitals, Nagoski talks about things like arousal non-concordance (and non-concordance in other emotions), as well as the fact that desire is not a drive. 

Everything she writes about sex, desire, context, mindfulness, culture, etc., is designed to show the ways that women’s  and men’s sexuality are different while sharing similarities.  There is a great biology and anatomy lesson in which the author demonstrates the concept of homology: that we are all made of the same parts, just organised in a different way.  She says this is true for every aspect of sexual expression, including how our sex accelerators (excitation) and breaks (inhibition) work.  She also applies homology to how women’s bodies change over the course of their lives.  Nagoski is at great pains to show that we are all normal (and does give some clues as to the rare occasions when we are not), and that variety may be the only truly universal characteristic of human sexuality. She celebrates it all.

This book is deeply body positive and sex positive.  What I love about the book is that it is not just about your body; it’s also about how you feel about your body, and how your context affects your body’s sexual response and functioning.  There are two things you will definitely come away with after reading this book: you are normal; and you are beautiful in every way.  You will also understand your unique sexual personality and how you can get the most out of it alone and/or with a partner.  Once you understand the dual response model in yourself and others, as well as the roles that emotion and stress play, you will be able to enjoy sexuality a whole lot more.

The book is arranged into four main parts that map onto the biological, psychological and social aspects of our sexuality.  Each chapter includes a summary at the end referred to as tl;dr (too long; didn’t read).  There are also exercises and questionnaires that you can use to understand yourself, sexuality, and your context better.  The two additional exercises in the appendices: Therapeutic Masturbation and Extended Orgasm, come highly recommended.

The Bad

This book is long, and perhaps this is why the writer includes the tl;dr (too long; didn’t read) sections at the end of each chapter.  I must say, though, that while these cover the take away messages in bullet points, you won’t get the full idea of what Nagoski wants to say, or see how the points hang together.

Nagoski makes very valid critiques of the metaphorical meaning that has historically been given to women’s and men’s genitals. She is all about the science, and she uses what we know about anatomy and biology to give new meaning to women’s genitals.  I have no problem with this, per se.  We are story-making animals and I love the meaning she is attaching.  She is still attaching meaning to women’s genitals without openly acknowledging that, though.  

The book is written from a Western perspective with a heavy focus on North American culture.  That does not mean her book has nothing to say to people from other cultures.  The three elements that determine sexual functioning and response: biology, psychology, and social processes, are addressed – culture is only one part of that.

The author is very enthusiastic about her topic and the things that she has discovered in her practice as a sex educator.  She freely shares what has worked for the students and women she has come into contact with.  This is encouraging but at the same time gives the impression that these actions alone can lead to a better sex life.  In my experience, there is a lot that lies behind each of the exercises and ideas she puts forward (see the caveats below).  You have to do the work and it can be lengthy and emotionally taxing.  I also feel she does not sufficiently address the hurdles we face in trying out some of the exercises.  She does mention the importance of therapy, in particular for women who are traumatised by sexual abuse.  So be warned, your sex life will not improve just by reading this, while it does have the potential to open a whole can of worms, but a good can of worms to go fishing for better sex with. 

While there are extensive notes and a thorough reference section, the book falls short on where to find more resources.  Emily Nagoski’s answer is — within.  It’s a good answer but not good enough.  I know where she is coming from, though.  It is a response to a culture that teaches us not to trust our own intuition, especially with respect to sex.  It is a response that seeks to reassure us that we are normal and that there is nothing wrong with us.

How To

Look on your vulva with love

Emily Nagoski is clear that your best source of knowledge about your sexuality is your own body and that how you feel about your genitals, along with loving your body as it is, will give you more intense arousal and desire, as well as bigger and better orgasms.  Hence, the first exercises in her book are about getting to know your vulva by looking at it with a hand mirror and identifying all the parts.  Then she invites you to make a note of all the things you see that you like.  Don’t include the things that you don’t like.  Do this again every week, or twice a week or more often.  She says that the more you do this, the things you like will become more salient and the noise in your brain will get a little quieter.  Maybe even consider telling someone else about what you see and what you like.  Better still, tell someone who also did the exercise!

I have frequently looked at my vulva and vagina over the years, but usually with 1/3 hate, 1/2 worry and 1/6 gratitude.  Hate because it was a source of shame resulting from sexual abuse; worry because I struggled with vaginitis for years and also wondered whether it would all stretch enough for the birth of both my daughters; and gratitude because it did all, in fact, stretch enough for both births.  I had never tried to consider what I like about these intimate parts of my body, my genitals, until I did this exercise.

I did this practice solo and in community.  Three other women did the exercise for a couple of weeks and then we talked about it.  We did so one-on-one and not in community; the women are scattered across the globe, do not all know one another, and don’t all share a common language.  One woman is starting in on her 30s, another in her 40s, I am on the cusp of 50, and the fourth woman is in her early 70s.  I highly recommend doing this with a friend or even in a women’s circle.

It was fascinating to discover the truth behind what Nagoski says about our attitudes towards a woman’s vulva, vagina and clitoris and how that affects each one of us.  Three of us had to confront the truth that we have been conditioned to think that looking at our vulva is not normal.  We had to overcome the shame we felt before we could even start. Then we had to cope with our own judgement towards ourselves for being so disconnected from our own bodies. Also, having this conversation led to a wider ranging conversation about ideas related to what it means to be a decent woman; how we experience our sexuality; our attitudes towards menstruation, menopause, self-pleasuring i.e., masturbation; and what we hope for ourselves and future generations of women related to all these topics.  The conversation would have been incomplete without talking about labiaplasty, and one of the women told me about a plastic surgeon in Colombia who only does this procedure.  We joked about how the women who go to him will all come out with a vulva looking like what he thinks the perfect (sic) vulva should look like.

When Hilde Atalanta asked “What can I do to start liking my vulva?” on her IG @the.vulva.gallery account, one person responded: 

My suggestion is to aim towards neutrality before attempting to climb the mountain of love for your vulva.  Sometimes when we’ve felt insecure for so long, trying to flip all the way to love can be very hard, and it’s easier to focus on a more neutral stance.  ‘My vulva exists’.  ‘My vulva does not seek to harm me.’ ‘My vulva is hairy and that it normal’.  ‘My vulva is brown/pink/purple/beige in color.’ Simple statements of fact like this can be much easier for our brains to handle.  After that you can try to find things to love!  For instance, my vulva has really fluffy hair, and I think my labia look great!”

You probably will not want to show your vulva to all and sundry, but if you can do that with the mutual consent of at least one other woman, I recommend this too.  This is easily said, but must be cautiously done.  It is so open to misunderstanding with people who have not already done some thinking and feeling about women’s sexuality and their own.  The friend I did this with spoke about having to confront associating the vulva with abuse and violation; the notion that someone else seeing your vulva is invasive; what it means for our sexual identity — will the other woman get the wrong idea?  Because of all the taboos around our genitals, being able to look with a friend depends on trust, respect and depth of relationship.   The ability to do it is evidence of the presence of this in your friendship.  What we found was that the act of showing and looking wasn’t nearly as difficult as getting past our ideas and fears about doing it.  It was a sacred and liberating moment.

As I already mentioned, Nagoski is all about body positivity and I encourage you to learn to look on the other parts of your body that you are not so keen on with love, and find the beauty in them too.  To get this right, take some advice from John O’Donahue:

“… if our style of looking becomes beautiful, then beauty will become visible and shine forth for us.  We will be surprised to discover beauty in unexpected places where the ungraceful eye would never linger. The graced eye can glimpse beauty anywhere, for beauty does not reserve itself for special elite moments or instances; it does not wait for perfection but is present already secretly in everything.  When we beautify our gaze, the grace of hidden beauty becomes our joy and our sanctuary.” 

Excerpt from Beauty: The Invisible Embrace by John O’Donahue

Conclusion

Emily Nagoski has written a deeply body positive and sex positive book about the science that explains women’s sexuality.  Through the exercises and questionnaires you will gain insight into your own very normal and unique sexual functioning.  Be aware — doing the work laid out in the book is far from easy, and bringing a friend along can make all the difference.

Here I look at what’s good about the book, what’s bad, and how to be an anthropologist who studies the romantic rituals of a foreign culture.  

The Good

In Untangled Lisa Damour tackles three things that get in the way of girls’, and therefore also women’s, well-being:

• The myth that adolescence is chaotic, difficult and impossible to understand so we must all just grin and bear it while we muddle our way through.
• The reality that we mimic the parenting that we grew up with (especially under stress) and not all of it was adequate to the task.
• The limiting beliefs and values that society imposes on girls and women which get in the way of bringing our full selves to the table.

The writer looks for a new way to talk about teenage girls that is fairer to them and their parents.  She untangles adolescence from what looks like chaos into seven predictable strands of development that teenagers negotiate in order to become functioning adults.  They are:

1. Parting with childhood
2. Joining a new tribe
3. Harnessing emotions
4. Contending with adult authority
5. Planning for the future
6. Entering the romantic world
7. Caring for herself

The focus of this book is on how girls specifically negotiate these strands of development within their social context and the confines that come with it.  To do this, Damour uses case studies that are a composite of the many situations she has dealt with in her practice as therapist, guidance counsellor, university teacher, and parent.  She also refers to a lot of research and explains it in lay terms.  The research is sensitive to how girls of different racial, ethnic and economic backgrounds are affected differently.  Additionally, she reveals the outworking of social norms and attitudes on the lives of girls and women and offers some alternatives for what to do about it.

As she goes, the writer suggests ways to handle common challenges teenage girls experience, and confront adults with, so that they can successfully move forward.  It’s very helpful to know that teenage girls do not all take these tasks on in the same order, nor do they complete them at the same pace.  Some girls will do really well and sail through some tasks, while resisting and stumbling through others.  They are all usually progressing down multiple strands at any given time too.  Once we understand what these strands of development are and can recognise them, we will be in a position to celebrate what seemed like a parenting hurdle or rebelliousness for what it really is: a sign that she is doing the work of growing up.  We will also be able to identify the best approach to accompanying her in a healthy way.  And we will know not to let her success in one strand distract us from the difficulty she may be having in another.

I really appreciate that Lisa Damour does not shy away from concretely addressing issues around sex, drugs, alcohol, eating disorders, gender identity and sexual orientation. The author is a total realist.  She invites adults to acknowledge and work with the options most girls actually have, rather than with the social options we wish they had.  She says that if we can do this, we will protect our daughters. We will also avoid setting up a dynamic where our daughters are forced to lie to us in order to complete their growing up; something which ultimately prevents them from asking us for our help when they need it. The other thing she is a realist about is the high-speed culture of intense competitive pressure and 24/7 digital connection that todays’s teenagers are growing up with.  She provides some good ideas and guidance in this regard as well.

One of the things that I found so helpful about this book is how Lisa Damour gently yet firmly reminds us of what our task is as adults walking with teenagers who are trying to become adults themselves.  In every chapter there is some anchoring statement or idea that centres us and reminds us what we want to be as parents, and what goal teenagers are pursuing and that we want them to pursue too.  For instance, making sure that their safety comes before any of our disciplinary policies.  In other words, they can count on us when they get into a complicated, difficult and risky situation.

Another thing that is really good about this book is that the author does not downplay the importance of seeking professional help as a parent.  I have personally found that seeking advice and counsel for myself has been of utmost importance.  It acknowledges my role in whatever is happening in my daughter’s life without her feeling like there is something wrong with her for having growing pains.  In addition, Damour clearly outlines how to recognise when it is time to worry and seek professional and third-party interventions for a teenage girl at the same time.

The Bad

I have come back to this book over and over again, as I know others have too.  That is because there is so much great information and orientation here.  Perhaps it is my naivety to think that things should turn out the way the writer confidently predicts.  It has been my experience that some of the anecdotes come across as simple to resolve when, in fact, every situation is unique and complex. I can think of at least one situation where I applied an approach that went awry for us. 

That being said, Lisa Damour does say in her introduction that what she offers are suggestions for responding to the many normal yet perplexing challenges we face with teens.  She also admits that when it comes to parenting there are many ways to get it right.  So maybe it was just me desperately hoping for an instant solution, too wrapped up in my own anxiety to connect with my inner wisdom and the suggestions in her book.

When it comes to discussing sexuality and sex education, this book is written with a conservative Western cultural approach in mind.  Damour does not refer to the Scandinavian and Dutch approaches to Sex Ed and the outcomes of that, or what that might mean for your parenting.  Read this article If you would like to explore this more.

How To

Be an anthropologist of teen romantic rituals

Romance and sexuality are a highly fulfilling part of human life, yet they are also fraught and complex.  Add to this that sex is in many ways a taboo subject.  As parents and caregivers we often feel at a loss to work with this.

When it dawns on us at about age three that our parents have an exclusive relationship, this is the time that we first become aware that we are not the centre of every human relationship.  “At around age four children realise that romantic relationships constitute a very special connection and that they don’t have a romance of their own.” This is why the Dutch school system starts sex education at the pre-primary level already.  I can confirm that around this time both my daughters told us about crushes they had for the first time. 

From that first moment we were anthropologists, which is why Damour’s suggestion really resonated with me.  I saw that this is what we had done.  Being an anthropologist who studies the romantic rituals of a foreign culture means putting aside our own values, judgements, interpretations and assumptions.  It means being curious and observant.  It means asking lots of open ended questions.  When we do this we will glean important information that will guide us towards an appropriate reaction that keeps the door open to further discussions, builds trust and lets girls know they can turn to us for advice and help.  To be clear, this is the opening move and you are encouraged to communicate your values and expectations after you have heard a teen out.

The reason I think this is so important is that we often forget that children are children. When we hear they have a boyfriend or girlfriend our minds have already jumped to what that means for us as adults.  We often read way more into something than is actually there.   I almost freaked and started imagining the worst when one of my daughters was 9 years old and told me that she had a boyfriend.  Then I remembered what we had done when she was four, which was ask questions.  I breathed and said, “What does it mean to have a boyfriend?”  She told us that means you actually talk to this boy, whereas you ignore all the others in your class because they are so annoying.  She wasn’t sneaking behind a bush during break to kiss him!  Of course, that is a likely behaviour later.

Being an anthropologist doesn’t only have to apply to your teen girl’s own experience.  She is occasionally going to tell you stuff about her friends and this is an especially great moment to get curious, observe, and ask questions.  It gives you a way to get her thinking about what it would mean for her to be in the same predicament.  You can also ask her what she thinks about what’s going on with her friend and what advice she is thinking of giving her / him.  Don’t forget that she may be telling you about a friend while in fact she is talking about herself.

Damour specifically talks about being an anthropologist in this context of burgeoning romance.  Actually, it is great advice for all areas of parenting.  If you go back and read with this in mind you will notice that the writer models this throughout the book; no judgement, no advice, just curiosity and well thought out questions.  I am guessing that this is easier said than done for most parents.  We are emotionally involved and afraid of everything we know can go wrong, as well as the things that can go wrong that we have no idea about.  I found it was easier to be an anthropologist when my children were toddlers than it is now.  Then I had no expectation of communicating complex ideas, beliefs and values to them; arguing with them over who is right and who is wrong.  Now it is different.  All teenagers are playing at being adults one way or another.  Some are so good at it that we can easily forget they are still children.  Being an anthropologist is still a good antidote to falling into this trap.

Conclusion

Everyone I know who has read this book has loved it.  I am no exception.  We have all found useful and practical suggestions.  Lisa Damour has definitely managed to strike the right balance between pushing us beyond our comfort zone while affirming all our efforts to get it right.  The well-being of teenage girls and the adults who walk with them is always front and centre.  To achieve this, the writer is a total realist who invites us to be too.  She demystifies the unpredictable nature of adolescence and opens a window for us to appreciate the amazing things that teenagers and their parents do during this important phase of life.  Here too, she brings balance to a conversation that is usually focussed on the pain (dolor) in the word adolescence,  rather than the gain.

This review looks at the good, the bad and the how-to of implementing Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s suggestions for how to empower a daughter to become a strong, independent woman.  It is a start to an urgently needed conversation about what it really means to be a woman today.  She gives both practical advice and philosophical reasons for raising a girl to be herself.

The Good

You can easily read Dear Ijeawele in one sitting over a morning or an afternoon.  The tone is conversational, intimate, and amusing.  It is well-written with language that is economical, simple and accessible.  This is what makes for its remarkable breadth and depth. I envy people who can cover so much ground in so few words and take you along for the ride. 

It truly is a feminist book in my opinion!  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie takes her two feminist tools seriously and applies them to both men and women throughout her essay.  She is not rigid, insisting on 50:50 everything as a way of raising children differently in order to create a fairer world for women and men.  For her, feminism is always contextual.  Equal means mattering equally.  And her test of equality in the home is when resentment does not exist. 

Adichie introduces the reader to the ins and outs of gender analysis with practical examples while avoiding feminist jargon.  She questions so many gendered assumptions that are prevalent in many, if not most, cultural contexts.  As she gives both practical advice and philosophical reasons for raising a girl to be herself, she addresses societal expectations and ideas in terms of marriage, gender roles, sport, power, gendered behaviour and attributes (like anger, likability, humility, ruthlessness etc.), femininity, beauty ideals and body politics, boundaries, sexuality and virginity, biology, shame, love, the list goes on.  

The whole essay is a critique of language use and how words create worlds.  This is very helpful in terms of giving you tools to subtly shift / adjust thinking and core beliefs about men and women, boys and girls, leading to other ways of being and doing. 

She is unapologetic about being Nigerian and is proud of being African.  Her anecdotes about being Black, and about Nigeria, are wonderfully uplifting and at the same time eye-opening for people of other backgrounds.  If you fall into the latter, you will grow as an ally as you grow as a feminist.  Adichie also names a trap that allies and the oppressed easily fall into… “Saintliness is not a prerequisite for dignity, so don’t turn the oppressed into saints.  People who are unkind and dishonest are still human, and still deserve dignity”.

The Bad

The brevity and simplicity of this book can also be its downfall.  It’s one of those books that draw you in, that you race through nodding your head and then get to the end and think, “what all did I just read?”.  I recommend devouring this book and then sitting down to chew on it slowly and thoughtfully a second time.

The book is an adaptation of a letter to a Nigerian friend in response to a request for advice.  This means that it is heavy on references to Nigerian culture and customs.  Since I have lived and worked in Africa, I could see some of the subtext and fill in the blanks.  I think that as you read through the book you will be able to pick-up and understand the cultural references.  However, some footnotes might be useful to readers from other disimilar traditions.

Because it is an adapted letter, you will not find any references to academic articles, philosophers and deep philosophical texts, or hard-core feminist theory.  If you are looking for this, you will need to look elsewhere.

This book is about systemic and cultural change.  As such, you may have to wait a loooong time to see the results of your actions.  I don’t mean months.  I mean possibly generations.  That being said, I have done some of the work laid out by Adichie, and by comparing my daughters to myself at their age, I can see huge steps forward in the feminist agenda.

For instance, look at this poster done by my 13-year-old daughter in response to the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 in the US. 

I would never have been that aware or that concerned or even thought that way when I was 13!  I don’t claim all the credit. Gen-Z is so much more aware than Gen-X, but I think as a generation we do have something to do with Gen-Z being where they are!  And so do our mothers, and our grandmothers.  We stand on one another’s shoulders.

The author tangentially addresses the issue of raising feminist boys and raising awareness in men.  This is not a surprise as it is not the stated purpose of the book.  She also tangentially touches on sexual orientation, giving freedom to make an untraditional choice, but acknowledges that she is writing to her friend who is in a heteronormative marriage.  

The How to

The book is long on awareness raising and general guidelines, and shorter on actionable steps. In this sense, it operates more as a check-list of core beliefs and thinking that needs to be changed.  This is as it should be. Real and lasting change only happens when we change what we believe about something first. It will whet your appetite for issues that you want to learn more about and to look for actionable steps that you can practice in your daily life as a woman and mother.  Think of it as a first step in the journey, a map as it were.  Use it to plot your route, then look for ways to get there…

That being said, there are a couple of practical suggestions that I want to tell you about:

1. Teach your daughter to read: Adichie’s Fifth Suggestion

 “Teach her to love books.  Do this by casual example so that she will understand reading is valuable.  Books (the ones she chooses and you choose to show her, not the ones she has to read for school), will help her understand and question the world, help her express herself, and help her in whatever she wants to become. If all else fails, pay her to read.”

I wholeheartedly embrace and endorse this suggestion!  Adichie also mentions in her ninth suggestion that you should expose your daughter to female heroes that share something of her heritage and she can relate to.  Books are a good way to do this.  They are also one of the ways of exposing your daughter to difference and teaching her that it is normal (Fifteenth Suggestion).

My daughters and I have loved reading Robert Munsch stories together because so many of them have plucky girl protagonists who are determined to be themselves, learn, and overcome fears and challenges.  We have had some great conversations about the stories and the decisions the girls make too.  For instance, in the Paper Bag Princess, Elizabeth decides not to marry Prince Ronald after all because of how he behaves.  This opened the door for casually talking about women being able to choose, whether women must get married (see Seventh Suggestion), how appearances can be deceiving, and also how someone should behave under similar circumstances regardless of whether you are considering them as a partner or not. These stories appeal to 3-to-10-year-olds on average. Since you will read them over and over again, each reading provides a new opportunity to talk about one aspect at a time. Among our favourites are:

• The Paper Bag Princess
• The Fire Station
• David’s Father
• Angela’s Airplane
• A Promise is a Promise
• Pigs
• Where is Gah-Ning?

Roald Dahl wrote a couple of books that celebrate resilient girls facing awful circumstances. These are ‘Matilda’ and ‘The BFG’.  Both books have been made into movies that are worth watching too, although Steven Spielberg did adjust the ending to the BFG and in so doing eliminated Dahl’s anti-war statement at the end.  Reading level and interest is pre-teen.

Some books about heroic women that we have enjoyed include Rad Women Worldwide, and Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls.  Note, though, that each culture has a specific idea of what heroism looks like.  Also, if your daughter is introverted and reserved, you may need to look harder for heroic women with her temperament that she can relate to.  Gain some valuable insight into female temperaments through Jean Shinoda Bolen’s Goddesses in Everywoman.

2. It takes a Village to raise a child: Adichie’s Tenth Suggestion

The author says to surround your child with a village of Aunties and Uncles who have the qualities you would like them to admire.  (Clarification:  all older women and men are thought of as Aunties and Uncles in Nigerian culture.)  Talk about how much you admire them and what you admire them for.  Children copy and learn from example. 

This is often easier said than done, especially when it comes to finding suitable men.  Not for this reason should we give up the attempt, though!  It probably means having a community with a diverse age spread to get this right.  Obviously, surrounding children with real, flesh-and-blood people who can become their examples and mentors is ideal.  However, in their absence, it might also mean a virtual village in the form of books, movies, social media groups etc.  So, falling back on suggestions Five and Seven will have to do sometimes.  

Conclusion

I love this book, Dear Ijeawele.  It has something for everyone  For the seasoned feminist it is a great reminder of where we want to be going and the work still to be done.  As such, I suggest reading this book often.  It will bring you back to centre, which, after all, is the purpose of a manifesto!   It is also a great book for any woman who is dipping their toes into feminism for the first time and wanting to raise their daughters (and sons) for a more dignified and equal future.  The book draws the reader in and is not a rant against men making it a wonderful book for men to read.  What I said earlier applies to men too; they will grow as allies as they grow as feminists.  And God knows we need a lot more men around who are feminist and allies as well!

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