Adichie, in a 2014 article written for Elle,[1] described becoming aware of a Western social norm that "women who wanted to be taken seriously were supposed to substantiate their seriousness with a studied indifference to appearance."[2] The western concept contrasted with her upbringing in Nigeria, because in West Africa the attention that a person pays to their fashion and style correlates to the amount of prestige and respectability they will be given by society.[3] She began to recognise that people were judged for the way that they dressed. In particular, women writers wrote disparagingly about or trivialised attention to fashion,[4] depicting woman who enjoyed fashion and makeup as silly, shallow or vain and without any depth.[5] Acknowledging the relationship between beauty, fashion, style and socio-political inequalities, Adichie became committed to promoting body positivity as a means to acquire agency.[3][4] She began to focus on body politics, taking particular pride in her African features such as her skin colour, hair texture and curves,[6] and wearing bold designs featuring bright colours to make a statement about self-empowerment.[3]
Adichie was included on Vanity Fair's 2016 International Best-Dressed List, and cited Michelle Obama as her style idol.[7][8] That year, Maria Grazia Chiuri, the first female creative director of French fashion company Dior, featured in her debut collection a T-shirt with the title of Adichie's TED talk, "We Should All Be Feminists".[9][5] Adichie was surprised to learn that Dior had never had a woman rule its creative division and agreed to a collaboration with Chiuri, who invited her as an honoured guest to sit in the front-row of the company's spring runway show during the 2016 Paris Fashion Week.[5][9][10] Scholar Matthew Lecznar stated that Adichie often challenges feminist stereotypes through references to fashion. He stated that allowing Dior to feature her text was a skillful way to use various media forms to not only deliver political messaging, but also to develop her image as a multi-faceted intellectual, literary and fashionable "transmedia phenomenon".[11] She became the face of No.7, a makeup brand division of British drugstore retailer Boots.[12] In her 2016 Facebook post Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, Adichie argued that minimising femininity and its expression through fashion and makeup is "part of a culture of sexism".[8]
On 8 May 2017, Adichie announced her "Wear Nigerian" campaign on her Facebook page. The Nigerian government had launched a "Buy Nigerian to Grow the Naira" campaign after the Nigerian naira experienced a devaluation.[13][14] She set up an Instagram account that her nieces Chisom and Amaka managed,[13] and gained around 600,000 followers.[15] Adichie's goal was to help protect Nigeria's cultural heritage by showcasing the quality of craftsmanship and use of innovative hand-made techniques, materials and textiles being used by Nigerian designers.[16] Just as important was the idea of persuading Nigerians to buy local products, as opposed to purchasing garments abroad, as had been done in the past.[15] The posts on her page do not focus on her private life, but instead highlight her professional appearances all over the world, in an effort to show that style has the power to push boundaries and have global impact.[17] She won a Shorty Award in 2018 for her "Wear Nigerian" campaign,[18] and in 2019 was selected as one of 15 women to appear on the cover of the issue of British Vogue in an issue guest-edited by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.[19]
In a 2021 discussion at Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, Adichie spoke with the former Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, and journalists Miriam Meckel and Léa Steinacker. They discussed that, for democracy to survive, people needed to preserve their traditions and history, be informed about intolerance and learn to accept diversity. Adichie said that she often uses fashion to educate people about diversity, and Merkel agreed that it could serve as a cultural bridge to bring people together globally.[20]
Religion
Although Adichie was raised as a Catholic, she considers her views, especially those on feminism, to sometimes conflict with her religion. As sectarian tensions in Nigeria arose between Christians and Muslims in 2012, she urged leaders to preach messages of peace and togetherness.[21] Adichie stated that her relationship to Catholicism is complicated because she identifies culturally as Catholic, but feels that the Church's focus on money and guilt do not align with her values.[22]
In a 2017 event at Georgetown University, she stated that differences in ideology between Catholic and Church Mission Society leaders caused divisions in Nigerian society during her childhood, and that she had left the church around the time of the inauguration of Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.[23] She acknowledged that the teachings of Pope Francis, who was elected in 2013, and the birth in 2016 of her daughter drew her back to the Catholic faith and spurred her decision to raise her child as Catholic.[23] By 2021, Adichie stated that she was a nominal Catholic and only attended Mass when she could find a progressive community focused on uplifting humanity. She clarified that "I think of myself as agnostic and questioning".[22]
That year, her reflections on Pope Francis's encyclical Fratelli tutti were published in Italian in the 5 July edition of the Vatican's newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.[24][25] In her 2021 article "Sognare come un'unica umanità" ("Dreaming as a Single Humanity"), Adichie recalled being berated at her mother's funeral for having criticised the Church's focus on money, but she also acknowledged that Catholic rituals gave her solace during her mourning. She stated that Pope Francis's call in Fratelli tutti for recognition of everyone as part of the human family and for their responsibility to care for one another allowed her to re-imagine what the Church might be.[24]
LGBT rights
Adichie is an activist and supporter of LGBT rights in Africa and has been vocal in her support for LGBT rights in Nigeria.[26][27] She has questioned whether consensual homosexual conduct between adults rises to the standard of a crime, as crime requires a victim and harm to society. When Nigeria passed an anti-homosexuality bill in 2014, she was among the Nigerian writers who objected to the law, calling it unconstitutional, unjust and "a strange priority to a country with so many real problems". She stated that adults expressing affection for each other did not cause harm to society, but that the law would "lead to crimes of violence".[28] Adichie was close friends with Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina, whom she credited with demystifying and humanising homosexuality when he publicly came out in 2014.[29][30] Writer Bernard Dayo said that Adichie's eulogy to Wainaina in 2019 perfectly captured the spirit of the "bold LGBTQ activist [of] the African literary world where homosexuality is still treated as a fringe concept."[31]
Transgender inclusion
Since 2017, Adichie has intermittently publicly discussed transgender topics, and some have accused her of transphobia.[32] In a 2017 Channel 4 interview, Adichie said that "When people talk about, you know, 'Are trans women women?', my feeling is that trans women are trans women". She stated that the experiences of woman who "has lived as a man, with the privileges the world accords to men" are not the same experiences as "a woman who, from the beginning, has lived in the world as a woman".[33][27] In a follow-up Facebook post, Adichie stated that transgender women and other women's experiences are different, and one could acknowledge those differences without invalidating or diminishing either group's lived experience.[27] She stated "I said, in an interview, that trans women are trans women, that they are people who, having been born male, benefited from the privileges that the world affords men, and that we should not say that the experience of women born female is the same as the experience of trans women.... I think the impulse to say that trans women are women just like women born female are women comes from a need to make trans issues mainstream. Because by making them mainstream, we might reduce the many oppressions they experience.... Perhaps I should have said trans women are trans women and cis women are cis women and all are women. Except that 'cis' is not an organic part of my vocabulary. And would probably not be understood by a majority of people. Because saying 'trans' and 'cis' acknowledges that there is a distinction between women born female and women who transition, without elevating one or the other, which was my point.... I have and will continue to stand up for the rights of transgender people. Not merely because of the violence they experience but because they are equal human beings deserving to be what they are".[34] She stressed that girls are socialised in ways that damage their self-worth, which has a lasting impact throughout their lives, whereas boys benefit from the advantages of male privilege, before transitioning.[27][35]
The controversy emerged again in 2020 when Adichie voiced support for J. K. Rowling's article on gender and sex, in an interview in the British newspaper, The Guardian, calling the essay "perfectly reasonable".[36][37] That interview sparked a Twitter backlash from critics of her opinion, which included a former graduate of one of Adichie's writing workshops, Akwaeke Emezi.[38][37] In response, Adichie penned "It Is Obscene: A True Reflection in Three Parts" and posted it on her website in June 2021, criticising the use of social media to air out grievances.[39][32] The following month, students who were members of the LGBT community at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, boycotted her public lecture on their campus.[32] Adichie stated in an interview with Otosirieze Obi-Young in September that she was "deeply hurt" by the backlash and that during the controversy, she had read anything she could find on trans topics to help her understand what was going on.[40]
In late 2022, Adichie faced further criticism for her views after another interview with The Guardian when she said, "So somebody who looks like my brother—he says, 'I'm a woman', and walks into the women's bathroom, and a woman goes, 'You're not supposed to be here', and she's transphobic?"[33][41][42] The magazine PinkNews said that Adichie "remains insensitive" and that she was using "harmful rhetoric".[42] Academic Cheryl Stobie said that Adichie supported an "exclusionary conceptualisation of gender".[43] Researcher B. Camminga stated that Adichie's fame led to her comments on trans women being elevated and the voices of other African women, both trans and cis, being silenced.[44]
Culture
In 2009, Adichie delivered a TED Talk titled "The Danger of a Single Story".[45] In the talk, Adichie expressed her concern that accepting one version of a story perpetrates myths and stereotypes[46] because it fails to recognise the complexities of human life and situations.[47] She argued that under-representation of the layers that make up a person's identity or culture deprives them of their humanity.[46][47] Adichie has continued to reuse the message drawn from the talk in her subsequent speeches, including her address at the Hilton Humanitarian Symposium of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation in 2019.[48] On 15 March 2012, Adichie became the youngest person to deliver a Commonwealth Lecture.[49][50] The presentation was given at the Guildhall in London addressing the theme "Connecting Cultures".[50]
Adichie accepted an invitation to speak in London in 2012,[51] at TEDxEuston, because a series of talks focusing on African affairs was being organised by her brother Chuks, who worked in the technology and information development department there, and she wanted to help him.[45] In her presentation, "We Should All Be Feminists", Adichie stressed the importance of reclaiming the word "feminist"[46] to combat the negative connotations previously associated with it.[52] In 2015, Adichie returned to the theme of feminism at the commencement address for Wellesley College.[46] She has spoken at many commencement ceremonies, including at Williams College (2017),[53]Harvard University (2018),[54] and the American University (2019).[55] Adichie was the first African to speak at Yale University's Class Day in 2019.[56]
Freedom
Adichie co-curated the 2015 PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature in New York City, along with festival director Laszlo Jakab Orsos.[57]i[58] She closed the conference with her Arthur Miller Freedom to Write lecture, which focused on censorship and using one's voice to speak out against injustices.[57] Although she did not speak of her father's recent kidnapping and release, writer Nicole Lee of The Guardian said that the crowd was aware of her personal ordeal, which made her speech "all the more poignant".[57]
American politics
In 2016, Adichie was invited to speak about her thoughts on Donald Trump's election to the US Presidency for the BBC's television current affairs programme Newsnight. When she arrived at the studio, she was informed that the format would be a debate between her and R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., a Trump supporter and the editor-in-chief of The American Spectator, a conservative magazine.[59][60] The debate turned adversarial when Tyrrell said "I do not respond emotionally like this lady",[60] and then declared that "Trump hasn't been a racist".[61] Adichie countered his statements and gave an example citing Trump's statement that Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel could not be impartial in the case Low v. Trump University because of his Mexican heritage.[61] After the debate, she wrote on her Facebook page that she felt ambushed by the BBC and that they had "sneakily [pitted her] against a Trump supporter" to create adversarial entertainment. In response, the BBC issued an apology for not informing her of the nature of the interview, but claimed that they had designed the programme to offer a balanced perspective.[60]
Adichie delivered the second annual Eudora Welty Lecture on 8 November 2017 at the Lincoln Theatre in Washington, D.C.[62] That year, she also spoke at the Foreign Affairs Symposium held at Johns Hopkins University. Her talk focused on the fragility of optimism in the face of the current political climate.[59] Adichie and Hillary Clinton delivered the 2018 PEN World Voices Festival, Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture at Cooper Union in Manhattan. Although the speech was centered on feminism and censorship, Adichie's questioning of why Clinton's Twitter profile began with "wife" instead of her own accomplishments became the focus of media attention,[63][64][65] prompting Clinton to change her Twitter bio.[65] Later that year, she spoke at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany about breaking the cycles which silence women's voices.[66] In 2019, as part of the Chancellor's Lecture Series, she gave the speech "Writer, Thinker, Feminist: Vignettes from Life" at Vanderbilt University's Langford Auditorium.[67]
Adichie has been the keynote speaker at several conferences.[17] In 2018, she spoke at the seventh annual International Igbo Conference.[68] She spoke at the inaugural Gabriel García Márquez Lecture in Cartagena, Colombia in 2019. Her speech was given in the Nelson Mandela barrio, one of the poorest neighborhoods of the city.[69] She gave an address at the 2020 Congreso Futuro[es] (Future Conference) in Santiago, Chile,[70] and was the keynote speaker of the 2021 Reykjavik International Literature Festival held in the Háskólbíó cinema at the University of Iceland, and presented the talk In Pursuit of Joy: On Storytelling, Feminism, and Changing My Mind.[71] On 30 November 2022, Adichie delivered the first of the BBC's 2022 Reith Lectures, inspired by Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" speech.[72]
"Keynote: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie". RIKK. Reykjavík, Iceland: Reykjavík Institute for Gender, Equality and Difference. 7 September 2021. Archived from the original on 17 May 2024. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
Urujzian, Vero-Ekpris Gladstone. "Proverbs and metaphors as discursive strategies in selected novels by Achebe and Adichie." LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research 20, no. 1 (2023): 72-86.
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