Her 2013 TED Talk may have been memorably sampled on Beyoncé’s song ‘Flawless,’ but writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie doesn’t always agree with the singer’s particular brand of feminism.
The award-winning author of Americanah and Half Of A Yellow Sun had already enjoyed both critical acclaim and bestseller status before her quote from We Should All Be Feminists was picked up by Bey. In a new interview with Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, she is ambivalent about having become so closely associated with the singer, whose feminist values are markedly different to her own.
‘In the first place: of course Beyoncé asked permission to use my texts, and I did give her permission,’ she explained, before conceding that the Lemonade singer’s star power will certainly have helped bring her work to a mass audience. ‘I think she’s lovely and I am convinced that she has nothing but the best intentions. In addition, Beyoncé is a celebrity of the first order and with this song she has reached many people who would otherwise probably never have heard the word feminism, let alone gone out and buy my essay,’ she added, before outlining the key difference between the feminist values she holds, and those which Beyoncé espouses.
‘Still, her type of feminism is not mine, as it is the kind that, at the same time, gives quite a lot of space to the necessity of men,’ explained the author, whose words recently adorned t-shirts at Maria Grazia Chiuri’s first catwalk show for Dior. ‘I think men are lovely, but I don’t think that women should relate everything they do to men: did he hurt me, do I forgive him, did he put a ring on my finger?’
But while the two women may differ in their beliefs, Chimamanda praised Beyoncé for taking a stand on social issues, and for fashioning her own brand of ‘girl power.’
‘Her style is not my style, but I do find it interesting that she takes a stand in political and social issues, since a few years,’ she concluded. ‘She portrays a woman who is in charge of her own destiny who does her own thing, and she has girl power. I am very taken with that.’
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