Music: Beyoncé - 'Flawless' & Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi

For my current Appropriation project, I am creating a body of work from a Feminist point of view. As I began looking for inspiration, I came across a familiar song by Beyoncé. As I know she is a feminist, I began listening to her music. Flawless is only one of many songs speaking on the issue of feminism, and there is one point in the lyrics that really stands out to me. It is a quote from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi, a Nigerian Writer.

"We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you would threaten the man. Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same? We raise girls to see each other as competitors not for jobs or accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are. Feminist: the person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes."

This quote is a very compressed version of the 30 minute speech Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi made, which I very much encourage you to watch and listen to below. This speech filled me with inspiration, and along with the powerful music of Beyoncé's Flawless, gave me a clear indication on what I wanted to portray in my work.