Interestingly, a friend of mine who read my post about the Barbie movie loved what Ruth says to Barbie. This friend told me that her mother always competes with her and makes her feel small. She just wishes that her mother would stand still and let her forge her own path. My friend has a point. I suspect that if her mother would learn to understand and love herself, she wouldn’t need to compete with her daughter. Imagine, they could both look back together and honour how far each of them has come.

I said in my last blog post that one of the messages from the Barbie movie echoes a theme that runs through the book Women who run with the wolves: integrate Life and Death, dark and light, the beautiful and not-beautiful. This is what we (and my friend’s mother) should do, but how exactly? One way I thought of was to embrace imperfection. This brought me back to Brené Brown’s The gifts of imperfection that I first read just before she became a TED-talk sensation.

Thirteen years later, I read The gifts of imperfection again for this blog post. My experience of reading the book now was very different from the first time. To begin with, I read it through the lens of many new life experiences. I also read it through the lens of my rating criteria and how I structure my blog posts. Not to mention that this time Brené Brown’s voice rang in my head as well.

So, let’s consider what I think is good and bad about the book before I explore cultivating courage, connection, and compassion that can flow out of imperfection.

The Good

Brené Brown tells a good story in simple, accessible language. Not only that, her book benefits from her experience as an educator. Every chapter follows a similar structure that builds from the previous one. Brown uses headings well, makes links backwards and forwards, and ends every chapter with some practical things you can do. Additionally, she provides clever—or annoying, depending on your taste—acrostics to help you remember what you are learning. In other words, you always know where you are and what to expect.

Another benefit of Brown’s experience as an educator is her ability to model what a healthy alternative to shame and blame could be. Without this, many of us would have little idea of how to change our inner dialogue. We also wouldn’t know how to work with the many layers of our stories until we get to the root story underneath. And she reminds us through the stories she tells that every individual is different; what might be courageous for one person could turn out to be cowardice for another.

All in all, Brown does a good job of making her 10 year’s worth of research digestible for everyday people. She groups the qualities embodied by people who are good at wholehearted living into ten categories that she calls guideposts. She gives each quality it’s own chapter which makes it easy to choose to focus on only one at a time. Each guidepost chapter describes the quality as understood by the wholehearted, what barriers the research reveals, and some practical steps you can take towards reaching the guidepost.

Lastly, Brown’s appeal to her credentials as a social-work researcher using Grounded Theory to analyse over ten thousand accounts adds weight to her arguments. But don’t be deceived; there are some flaws.

The Bad

Brené Brown’s deep engagement with her research, and her year in therapy as a result, seem to have made her a bit cocky. The tone of The gifts of imperfection can come across as overly confident and categorical. If you’ve listened to her on podcasts, Instagram, and TED, you’ll know Brown speaks forcefully and her book comes across the same way. Consequently, there is a subtle undertone of judgement that undermines the most important message of her book: worthiness of love and belonging has no prerequisites.

One example of a subtle judgement is the statement that babies should come with a warning label not to trade their authenticity for safety. Crikey! This is a total (categorical) lack of nuance. Brown omits that we develop all the tactics she’s found get in the way of wholehearted living as bids to stay safely attached to the adults we depend on to reach adulthood ourselves. She also fails to acknowledge the trauma that often informs these tactics, or the distress that trying to let go of them can unleash.

So, this book fails in a very important way. It posits that you will live wholeheartedly if you follow the ten guideposts of authenticity, self-compassion, resilience, joy, intuition and trusting faith, creativity, play and rest, calm and stillness, meaningful work, and laughter, song and dance. It doesn’t inform you of the risks linked to embarking on the journey towards these destinations. It doesn’t identify the signs that tell you when you should seek therapy or urge you to do so. It doesn’t mention the preconditions needed to do the work.

Brown never tells us about the life circumstances that enable her research subjects to live wholeheartedly. She writes as if we are individuals who, like her, are white and privileged enough to have a loving family, a stable job, a group of trusted friends, and the finances needed to take on this work. Nowhere in her book does she discuss the social injustices that so many people face daily due to their various identities. The gifts of imperfection never recognises how society traps so many people in not-good-enough boxes not of their making.

These caveats are unfortunate. Forewarned, though, now you can engage with all that rings true, and there is a lot.

The How To

Embrace imperfection

Brown tells us that people who manage to live wholeheartedly are people who embrace imperfection. They know in their bones that they are worthy of love and belonging in spite of their imperfections. Therefore, when they encounter human imperfection (and the shame and fear that comes with it) they respond with courage, connection, and compassion.

How do they do that? To begin with, they know that shame and fear get bigger with secrecy. So the solution is to tell our story. It’s to choose the right person at the right time to connect with courageously. According to Brown, courage means sharing honestly about who we are, our experiences, and how they make us feel. Courage means risking being vulnerable. It means risking making other people feel uncomfortable by setting boundaries, and risking being disappointed by their response.

Still, this authenticity makes us own our story and integrate the part of the story we think doesn’t belong. When we do this, we meet others as our equals and communicate we are worthy of love and belonging. Plus, it makes it possible for us to be present with other people’s darkness and that is the essence of compassion. Finally, by measuring authenticity as our goal, we set ourselves up to still be okay even if the other person chooses not to like us.

So, how did this work for me?

A friend and I had dinner a while back. I laughed in recognition when they showed me the plethora of draft messages in their notes app that they never intend to send. My laugh meant I had to prove that I do the same thing by revealing the four different drafts I have of the same message. After some discussion, my friend reminded me that something good could come of sending the message, but not sending it probably guaranteed I’d poison the relationship as I feared.

The next day, I wrote draft five of the message and sent it while my heart pounded, my hands ran cold, and my nausea rose. Why such a strong reaction? The battle I’d won was to honour my needs and feelings to the point that I felt strong enough to cope with a shaming response should it come to that. After all, my own internal shaming voice was judging me for being ridiculous.

The friend I was writing to had promised to get back to me within a week of me offering to do them a favour. More than a week went by and their silence should not have been a big deal really. In fact, it was their loss and saved me some effort. Nevertheless, it bugged me. So I sat with that annoyance for a while and learnt three things:

1. I feel triggered because important people throughout my life have created false expectations or have reneged on their promises. Then I become resentful and distrusting because of it.
2. I value the friendship more than I realised.
3. I should communicate my boundaries and expectations if we are to have a healthy relationships characterised by respect.

In my message, I explained what was happening for me and how I would like to know what was happening for them. They responded within an hour. They did not ridicule me or question the validity of my need. Instead, they met my bid for connection with an equally vulnerable response. Of course, this reestablished safety and connection for both of us. Now, if my friend had responded differently, I would’ve learnt that I can’t be authentic with them and that would’ve helped me create a new boundary.

Conclusion

Brené Brown’s book, The gifts of imperfection, summarises 10 year’s worth of research amongst people who live wholeheartedly. The book explains how to courageously reach out and connect in our moments of shame to increase the chance of reaping compassion. As these three qualities of courage, connection and compassion emerge in moments of rupture to our relationships with ourselves and others, they gain the power to repair and reinforce love and belonging, which all humans need and crave.

Brown eloquently and adeptly guides us through her research and identifies many practical ways to start putting the findings into practice. Unfortunately, writing to us as if we were her ignores many nuances and risks that people with other identities and life experiences face. These risks and barriers can stymie their efforts to live as if they are enough and worthy of love and belonging right now, just as they are. Brown’s shortsightedness makes her book come across as categorical and overly confident. Even so, many ideas and suggestions ring true. Just remember to have a therapist waiting in the wings as you go on this journey.

Tell us how it worked for you in the comments and tag a friend or share on social media.

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.

Last week we talked about how to hold a grudge, and crazy making behaviour is definitely grudge worthy. Gasligting is crazy making behaviour by another name, and it’s what this week’s book is about. Here I tell about what’s good, what drove me up the wall, and my take on Sarkis’ strategy to document, document, document in her book Gaslighting.

The Good

Through Gaslighting by Stephanie Moulton Sarkis, you will learn in broad strokes what this popular term tends to mean.  You can use the tactic descriptions and case studies to identify ways in which you might be subject to gaslighting or you may be using it yourself.  You will also get a sense of the extent of damage it can do.  Know that you are not alone, that there are ways to talk about it, and measures to take whether you are on the giving or receiving end.

If you have been around people who serially gaslight, you may already have a good sense of the strategies laid out in the book.  You may be so used to it, though, that you see it as normal.  Sarkis explains how this happens.  She outlines what, how and why it constitutes abuse and is clear that abusive relationships do not improve over time, but rather escalate.  Having experienced the destruction wreaked by these behaviours, you may have decided to never practice them yourself!  But have you decided to protect yourself from people who do this to you?  There are many ideas, recommendations and resources in the book to do just this. 

The basic message of the book is to get out of an abusive relationship.  Sarkis helps the reader identify what both healthy and abusive relationships look like.  She is very clear that getting out is almost impossible to do alone.  Getting therapy, along with support and protection from family, friends and the justice system is consistently recommended.  A chapter is dedicated to different types of therapy so that you can select the one best suited to you.  There is also an extensive resource section at the end of the book.  It will be necessary to extrapolate the gist of what she recommends to your local context if you do not live in the US.

Sarkis is careful to avoid victim-blaming.  The experience of people who have been repeatedly gaslighted is also normalised.  This is a great antidote to the chaos and lies sown by someone who emotionally abuses others on a daily basis.  

Another great antidote to judging yourself, victim-blaming, and the paranoia that arises from being gaslit is Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Talking to Strangers.  In it he covers 3 effective human communication strategies that occasionally get us into trouble: default to truth, expectations of transparency, and coupling.  He concludes, “Those occasions when our trusting nature gets violated are tragic.  But the alternative – to abandon trust as a defence against predation and deception – is worse”.

Many of the articles found on-line, or videos available on YouTube, address gaslighting on an interpersonal level.  Looking at it on a collective level is what Sarkis’ book adds to the conversation.  The discussion shows how it plays out in politics, the media, the internet, cults, and destructive groups like gangs and terrorist cells.  Here again, the importance of strength in numbers is highlighted.  

The Bad

Sarkis has been criticised for using a term that does not appear in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and she is the first to admit that.  She is a seasoned psychologist whose work regularly brings her into contact with this kind of behaviour.  By not using a DSM term, she removes the temptation for her readers to make an unqualified clinical diagnosis of Cluster B personality disorders (like narcissism) while giving the reader language to name and describe what they are experiencing or doing

In the introduction Sarkis explains how the book is structured and urges readers to read all chapters because they each have something useful no matter your situation.  This is true.  However, by structuring the book according to arenas where gaslighting plays out, the reader is invited to skip to the chapter that talks about the context they are in.  I would have found it more helpful if it were laid out according to tactics/strategies that comprise gaslighting.  This would have provided the intellectual space to deal with them in a more complex and nuanced manner.  Each chapter could then include case studies and examples from different contexts to illustrate it more, followed by strategies for dealing with the behaviour in question.  Also, the tactics could be arranged in a way that show how they build and escalate into something surprising, unbearable and abusive.  The information about what healthy relationships look like could be a chapter on its own.  In addition to their modus operandi, a chapter on the profile of why gaslighters (sic) do what they do would be useful.  The creativity in applying gaslighting tactics is as endless as we are unique.  Once we understand what motivates a person to use these strategies along with what they hope to achieve, we will better be able to see through this creativity.  It’s not that this information isn’t in the book.  It is.  It’s just that it is scattered all over the place.

Chapter 1 is a catalogue of behaviours that can be considered gaslighting.  The sketches are caricatures, emphasising one aspect and ignoring or downplaying others.  For almost all of the behaviours mentioned, I could think of a more complex, subtle and nuanced way that I have seen it played out.  I once supervised a twenty-something person whose boundless creativity with employing these strategies was impressive to behold.  

I experienced this book as a relentless onslaught.  The book feels vitriolic.  Although the author admits in passing that we all use gaslighting tactics from time to time, there is little if any compassion for people who do it.  She employs splitting and stereotyping:  people who consistently gaslight are given a label, gaslighters, and they have no redeeming qualities while the people on the receiving end are victims.  Life is much more complex than this.

It seems that her intent is to help people who are victims get away.  By the time I got to the end of the chapter on families (halfway through the book by the Kindle meter) I got the sense that everyone who gaslights is a  psychopath waiting to happen and that extreme measures are warranted always.  Bombarding readers with so much overwhelming and catastrophizing information may just paralyse them more… or make them put the book down and miss some important information.  She talks about how the abuse ramps up over time and that it can end in violence and quite possibly death.  I don’t doubt this in some cases.  It is ironic, then, that Sarkis seldom makes explicit the dangers inherent in taking the actions she lists in the book. 

The How To

Document, document, document — this is one of the strategies that Sarkis is emphatic about.

From personal experience, documentation can be a declaration of war.  This is because documentation belies both the personal image and narrative that are so important to people who gaslight.  I do not recommend using it to hold someone like this accountable on a daily basis. 

Documentation is important first and foremost because of what it does for you:

• It gives you something to refer back to as proof that you are not crazy!  
• The pattern(s) will begin to emerge as you flip back through all the incidents that you have written down.
• You will be able to identify how many qualities are present and how persistent they are.  
• It will reveal whether you need to take steps to protect yourself, and which ones.  
• It will give you material to work with in identifying your beliefs and values, and affirming that you deserve to be treated with dignity, kindness and respect. 

Sophie Hannah’s process for How To Hold a Grudge is a great way to document what is happening, assess the seriousness of it, identify the right thing to do, and affirm your worth while acknowledging that the person who is harming you is a human being worthy of compassion even as they are to be kept very far away.  (You can read my review of this process here).

There are times, however, when you will want to take legal or disciplinary action, and then documentation following the correct format is required.   Writing down the incident as soon as possible is best since memory plays tricks on us later and is influenced by conversations with others.  A very helpful app is Talk to Spot, which will walk you through all the categories that protect you in a court of law.  As a supervisor, I learned the hard way that any old documentation is not good enough.  It has to contain certain key information to stand up to legal challenges.  As such, your HR department won’t allow you to let someone go if your documentation does not make the grade. 

All written communication is a form of documentation.  It is a good suggestion to communicate as much as possible in writing with the person gaslighting you.  Take screenshots of your electronic chats so that they cannot be deleted by the other person.  If this is occurring in a work context, be sure to send screenshots and copies of e-mails to your personal e-mail account, or store on a personal usb device.  Again, seeing the pattern is what will free you to take the next steps you need to and confirm (or not) the extent of what you are experiencing.  If you do have to go to court, then you also have evidence to back you up.

Conclusion

“Educating yourself is one of the most powerful steps you can take to combat gaslighters and their harassment”, so says Sarkis.  I couldn’t agree more.  There is a lot of good and helpful information in her book, Gaslighting, that you can use to educate yourself.  Despite its redeeming qualities, I got bored and annoyed and overwhelmed and had to force myself to read to the end.  At times it feels like all the author’s experience and information was slapped together as quickly as possible.  This may account for the higgledy-piggledy information that you have to wade through all over the place to find what you really need.  There is little acknowledgement of degrees; degrees of gaslighting and degrees of the measures to take. What can happen when you take the recommended steps to put a stop to gaslighting are also hardly dealt with.  She seems to deal in extremes.

The Good

Magical thinking is well and truly slain in How to Hold a Grudge: From Resentment to Contentment – The Power of Grudges to Transform Your Life.  It is a call to live with our feet firmly planted on the ground and come to terms with what is really happening – in the actions of others and in ourselves.  The process involves very practical tips and steps for coming to terms with the reality of harsh situations and doing the right thing in response.

Its starting point is “the unchanging fact that people, intentionally and unintentionally, will regularly hurt, inconvenience and infuriate us throughout our lives, unless we go and live in a cabin in some remote woods, with no wifi and miles away from all other human beings”. We don’t want to sugarcoat things more than we have to and we want to ensure that there is some justice in our lives and in the world!  So, what do we do about it? We follow Sophie Hannah’s Grudge-fold Path.  This is finding the famous middle way between clinging to anger and bitterness to such an extent that they ruin our lives, or forgiving everybody straightaway, making light of what happened while repressing our understandable and justified hurt or rage (Denial! As the sharks say to Marlin in the movie Finding Nemo).

It is a very practical way of acknowledging and processing anger into the productive result it is intended for:  protection and restoration of our boundaries and those of others, as well as the healing of trauma.  It helps us to observe our anger rather than become our anger.  Although Sophie Hannah says she could never follow the Buddhist Eight-fold Path, what she puts forward is a mindful way of working with all emotions that arise in response to a grudge-worthy event.

Each chapter deals with philosophical ideas, practical steps, and pitfalls for dealing with different aspects of holding grudges.  Each chapter ends with a case study demonstrating how the process can be applied to a real-life example.  The cases become more extreme as we progress through the book.  Hannah also classifies, categorises and grades many kinds of treatment that we should not put up with.  She is clear that giving ourselves permission to care in a serious way about how we are treated will lead most of us to also automatically extend that care to others.  Thus, the personal becomes political.  In addition, there are guidelines for discerning what are invalid, bad and / or toxic grudges.  Obviously, the recommendation is to ditch those immediately, and consider getting therapy.  By the same token, she invites us all to see how we have provoked grudges in others and what to do about that.  For balance, we are also reminded to create a list of stories that acknowledge what we are grateful for.

Hannah is the first to acknowledge that holding and processing grudges is not for everyone.  She encourages avid grudge holders, along with those of us who have trouble doing so, to read all the way to the end, if only to be affirmed in the first case, or to understand avid grudge holders in the second.  I tend to fall into the second group and I have to say that this book has been an eye-opener for me that has changed my life.  I have come to appreciate how properly processed grudges offer:

• Protection by reminding us of a valuable life lesson we have learned
• A witness that the experience matters
• Motivation to act differently or prove a label wrong
• Acknowledgement that the grudge-sparking behaviour is not okay
• Symbolic justice through the trace left of the ill treatment suffered, making it possible to forgive and move on if we choose to

Anyone who has trouble with protecting their own boundaries, questions their personal worth, or questions their right to take up space on this planet will find that this book guides you towards a healthier regard for yourself and validates expecting the same from others.  You will also develop realistic expectations of others and yourself (since she deals with the grudges we can hold against ourselves too). Through these exercises you will articulate your own personal value system more clearly as well.

To cap it all off, this book is funny.  I laughed out loud on a number of occasions.  Don’t worry, though, you can read How To Hold A Grudge in public, unlike some books by a Swedish author and journalist that have me rolling on the floor from start to finish. 

As with anything, the depth and seriousness with which you take this on will determine how much you get out of it.  WARNING!  It has the potential to rock your world.  Grudges that you thought were mere trifles might turn out to be much more serious than initially assumed.  This happened to me!  The process also has the potential to alter your core beliefs.  By the end of it you will likely think and act differently.  This is the point.  Doing so could drastically change your life.  It might be more than you bargained for, though.

The Bad

I had to work to find things to write in this section.  This book earned a 4.8 star rating because Hannah covers all the bases for a good how-to book!

My grudge with Sophie Hannah is her tone.  There are moments when she comes across as a bit of a know-it-all. I wondered whether it was  just the voice in my head reading her this way, but it comes through when you listen to her on her podcast too.  Of course, there is a high chance that I find this annoying because her style mirrors something that I am learning to accept about myself, befriend and moderate.

The author refers to the difficult and intense emotions as negative.  I think we all understand what she means, but I have learned the importance of discerning the message that they have for us rather than giving them a valence.  The irony is that this whole book is precisely about accessing the message in the emotion!  It is a very practical way of learning to listen to what anger, shame, grief, sadness and hate have to teach us.

The only other real issue I have is Hannah’s time estimate for processing a grudge.  She says it will initially take you about 2 hours and with practice it will take a mere hour.  This has not been my experience.  It can take considerably longer depending on:

• how practiced and comfortable you are with writing, 
• how perfectionist you are, and 
• how intense the experience and lessons are.  

You may have to break down and cry, rant, go for a run, work in the garden, eat a slice of cake etc., to keep the process going. You may also discover you have to go for therapy.

The How to

Identify the right thing to do

Sophie Hannah describes her process of how to hold a grudge in detail.  After writing down the grudge, categorising it, and grading it, comes the part of extracting the lessons.  If you could rewrite the story, what of your actions would you change?  The focus is only on your actions because you can’t change what your grudgee did to you!  Then, you rewrite the story including your fictitious different actions along with the different results they would have reaped.

Now you place the two versions next to one another, read them and ask yourself:  Is the strength of your feeling around this raw grudge due to either:

1. frustration at being unable to change the past, or
2. anger at yourself for nor having done the obvious right thing(s) to do?

Identifying the Right Things To Do (RTTD) is the practice I want to tell you about here.  

You will have identified the right things to do that didn’t get done when you looked at what actions you would change.  Beating yourself up about these takes your attention and energy away from what the right thing to do is in the here and now.  We can’t change the past, and those right-things-to-do now no longer exist.  The first step is accepting this reality.

The next step is identifying the present moment right things to do (RTTDs) by looking at what you would have done differently and seeing if there is anything on the list that you can still do.  If there is something that you can still and should do now, do it!  Take any action that you could take to right a wrong in your grudge story, always with the aim of righting a wrong, not with the aim of taking revenge!  If you discover a correct and feasible action would remove your grudge, then perform it rather than holding the grudge!

The next present moment RTTD is to learn all the lessons offered by the story.  Which of those lessons can be implemented this moment?  Like for instance making sure your children know that stealing is something they must never, ever do.  Which of those lessons should be implemented the next time a similar situation arises?  Which of those lessons should be applied to your relationship with the person in question going forward?

I find thinking about the RTTD so powerful because it doesn’t only apply to processing a grudge-sparking incident.  Asking ourselves this question in the midst of a difficult situation could be the difference between sparking a grudge in someone else and resolving it.  I have heard people say that it is better to do the right thing than to be right!  

There is a third instant where identifying the RTTD and doing it applies.  This is when you know that someone holds a grudge against you.  Take the time to consider what you can or should say or do, assuming that you agree that you wrongfully caused someone else harm.  How might you set things right now, and would you be willing to try? Would you be willing to accept rejection?  Other people are under no obligation to accept your apology.

The rest of the process includes being grateful for what this experience has taught you by listing the benefits that have accrued to you.  Accept any residual bad feelings you may have towards your grudgee but don’t act on them!  Vent to yourself if needs be.  Eventually they will dissipate, especially as you start to reap the benefits of all you have learned.  If you are still plagued by the incident, Hannah recommends getting therapy.

Conclusion

The central tenet of this book is “Do No Harm”.  It is about seeing people as they are and letting them be them while not letting them walk all over you.  The Grudge-fold Path offers a structure or a container to work with our resentments.  Think of it as the alchemist’s crucible, the mortar and pestle that Baba Yaga flies about in, Noah’s Ark that rides above the flood, the tent that protects the pilgrim from the dust storm.  It is full of humour, compassion and grace towards the reader, as well as the people who commit grudge-worthy acts (i.e. all of us). I suspect that people who are already holding good grudges don’t need this book.  If you are like me, however, who falls into the category of those who tend not to hold grudges, you might find this book changes your life – for the better.  

The Good

Chris Voss knows something that Screwtape does too:  when we don’t look out for our interests, all hell breaks loose.  Hence the title: Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if your life depended on it. 

The book is about negotiating in your own self-interest without being selfish.  You do this through understanding who you are negotiating with, and perceiving what they want. 

Each chapter is dedicated to developing and learning to use a specific tool that will definitely improve your communication skills, and potentially also your negotiation skills in the future.  Some of the skills are not new to those who have studied the field, and for some of us a few of them are already habits (like labelling, for instance).  There are lots of great techniques and skills that are easy to put into practice and that will surprise even seasoned conflict transformation practitioners.  As Voss says, they are game changers.  (See below on How to Master No) Each skill builds on the previous one. In theory, by the end of the book you should have a full tool-box that will turn you into a better negotiator in the home, work, school, community, and social settings.

Voss turns conventional wisdom about negotiating on its head through the stories he tells, and by referring to scientific studies in behavioural economics and psychology.  What I really appreciate about the book is the philosophical underpinning along with the core values espoused by the author.  This is not a winner takes all book about negotiation.  It is a profoundly humanising approach that values connection, creating relationship and getting people to talk and think together above all else.  The emphasis is on deeply empathising with the party you are negotiating with, even if you detest what they stand for.  Voss’s starting point is always the person sitting in front of you, and asks you to quiet your own mind and assumptions while you do that.   Then you can move from there to disagree when needed without being disagreeable.  I wonder if Malcolm Gladwell looks at all the “disagreeable” people he admires whether he will find that they know how to disagree without actually being disagreeable?  Although, just to be clear, Voss is not talking about saccharine niceness either.  He says this is disingenuous manipulation that won’t get you far.  That is why mastering the art of “No” is so important.

The Bad

I have at least two friends who struggled to get to the end of this book.  I did not have that problem.  Perhaps it is because I have a background, and therefore an interest, in conflict transformation.  I will say that the tone sometimes skates dangerously close to false modesty alternating with arrogance, which I find quite off-putting until I get into the nitty gritty of what he is saying, and then I concentrate on content rather than tone.

Like all of us, Voss has some blindspots… There are a number of assumptions and some background information that are glossed over:  

• He takes as a given that you understand and can practice empathy.  
• He assumes you know what you want and how to establish, as well as respect, boundaries.
• He assumes that you know the basic mediation and negotiation skills, like active listening.  He takes active listening to another level in his book.
• He promotes himself as just an ordinary guy who has found himself doing extraordinary things with the skills he has unlocked. We know he isn’t an ordinary guy from his dedication to his parents who unconditionally loved him.  How many of us can truly say that?  More than 50% of us, at least, have traumatised childhoods to talk about.  And that directly impacts on two of the points above – honed empathy skills, and being good at boundaries.
• Similarly, he glosses over how being a white male opens doors for him that it doesn’t for others.  There is limited if any power analysis or attention to negotiating off the back-foot.
• He works as part of a large (and elite) team whose job it is to do this.  Most of us have to go into these situations under-resourced, without a budget or exclusive time dedicated to negotiating the issue at hand.

Another issue I have is that he seems to approach every situation as if it is a negotiation and implies that almost all of life is just that.  This leads to the syndrome of “if you have a hammer, everything becomes a nail”.

There are a number of sweeping generalisations, such as  “I’ll try” always means “no” in practice, or what I just mentioned above.

Like other authors on mediation, negotiation and arbitration techniques, he doesn’t address what to do when the person you are negotiating with has also read the same book.  Essentially, they can see through what you are doing and have been inoculated against your technique.  He also doesn’t warn you about how these techniques can backfire when dealing with someone toxic who you have to see day in and day out.  Very different things are at stake in life and death negotiations with hostage takers who you will never see again and don’t have to live or work with daily.  Life and death, or any other, negotiations with narcissists who are part of your family, friendship or professional network are entirely a different story.

How To

Beware ‘Yes’ — Master ‘No’

Not all “Yeses” and “Noes” are created equal.  Usually we think of “Yes” as something positive, and by extension “No” must be negative because it is “Yes’s” opposite.  We instinctively jump to the conclusion that “No” is an act of rejection, a manifestation of stubbornness, or that it means the end of the discussion. Rather, Voss puts forward some powerful arguments for why we should seek a “No” in order to begin the discussions.  “No” protects the status quo while buying time to think and providing an oasis of control.  

You would have to read Chapter 5 of Never Split the Difference to follow all the arguments that lay out what “No” does. In summary, though, No

• allows the real issues to be brought forth,
• protects people from making ineffective decisions, or allows them to change them,
• slows the conversation down so that people can embrace their decisions
• helps people feel safe, secure, emotionally comfortable and in control of their decisions, and
• moves everyone’s efforts forward because it spurs people to action and gets creativity flowing.

He argues that if you want to negotiate a good outcome that everyone can feel good about, you have to learn to ask for “No”, then become comfortable hearing “No”, and train yourself to listen to what it actually means.  Potentially “No” means:

• I am not ready yet to agree;
• You are making me feel uncomfortable;
• I do not understand;
• I don’t think I can afford it;
• I want something else;
• I need more information; or 
• I want to talk it over with someone else.

While Voss puts this forward as a complete list of possible extended interpretations of the word “No”, I wonder if it is exhaustive.  Please feel free to add an interpretation that comes to your mind in the comments section below.

He also says that if you try every which way to get a “No” that is not forthcoming you should run.  It means that your counterpart is confused or indecisive or has a hidden agenda.  (This is one of those categorical statements that I mentioned may be problematic).

So, what’s wrong with “Yes”? Because as Fischer and Ury posit, Getting to Yes is what we want at the end of the day.  Again, the author explains how we conflate the positive value of that final “Yes” with a positive value of “Yes” in general.  Like “No”, “Yes” doesn’t always mean “Yes”.  We are told to listen carefully and identify which one we are being offered.  

• Are we being offered a counterfeit “Yes” designed as a polite way to get us off their back?
• Is it a confirmation “Yes”, a reflexive response to a black-and-white question? Or
• Is it a commitment “Yes”, a true agreement that leads to action?

To quote Voss, “Triggering “No” peels away the plastic falsehood of “Yes” and gets you to what’s really at stake.”

Conclusion

I liked this book.  It is very practical and I think that there are things that anyone from any background can use (like mirroring and labelling) that improve communication, understanding and connection in a conversation.  I value the affirmation that creating human relationship is the first goal of any negotiation.  However, the book is offered as a series of techniques for anyone to use in almost any circumstance.  It obviates the need for discernment, understanding what the consequences can be in on-going relationships, and that these skills are not built overnight. Practice, practice, practice is needed in order to see results.  What happens when it backfires?  And what happens if you are the woman in the room who puts a great suggestion on the table that everyone ignores, only for a man to put that same suggestion on the table later and it to be taken up whole-heartedly?  For “woman” add person of colour, a person with a disability, a person identifying as LGBTQ+, poor, with an accent, dressed differently (you get the picture) or any combination of all these things.

Back to top

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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