Saturday, March 21, 2015

Ted Talk- Chimamanda Adichie

In class on Thursday, we watched the Ted Talk we had discussed a few weeks before. It's entitled "We should all be feminists", but it's not only about feminism. It's about gender stereotypes in gender, and how we should raise generations not according to predetermined racial stereotypes. One quote that really stuck with me was "People create culture. Culture does not create people." The talk is about 30 minutes long, but it was really fun to watch and extremely moving, so I wanted to share it with y'all!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg3umXU_qWc

2 comments:

Unknown said...

That quote stuck out to me as well Bonnie. Because we usually use culture as an excuse for why things are the way they are, but we have the power to change the culture that is around us. Today I overheard a man saying that there will always be a double standard between things boys can do and girls can't. I believe that if we actually wanted to change something we have the power to. But it is a group effort.

Unknown said...

That same quote has been stuck in my head since yesterday also! I've actually been thinking about it a lot. I agree with you, Breuna. It's said how culture is seen as a way of justifying oppression and discrimination. It is not right to blame gender inequality on culture, for as Adichie said, it's the people of a society who define culture and not the other way around. Anything in culture can be changed if the people change it. In ethics, we have to present a current events article. I talked about how women in Iran are not allowed to enter a stadium and watch sports with men. All of the advertisements for the World Cup in the Iran did not include any women. Women still cannot watch sports with men in 2015. The president or head of FIFA was trying to get Iran to change this law, but the government stated that it would be "un-islamic" and against their principles for women and men to watch a sport together. Once again, as Adichie pointed out, we see how people, like Iran's government, are blaming inequality on culture or religious practices that they have radicalized to cover up how people are actually the ones who cause gender inequality in society.