Sublime

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writes of the dangers of cookies in her novel Americanah.

We were in his house, arguing, both of us bristling with half-baked knowledge from the books we had read.

All of us, women and men, must do better.

I am trying to unlearn many lessons of gender I internalized while growing up. But I sometimes still feel vulnerable in the face of gender expectations.

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 will threaten the man.

I knew that because I was female, I would automatically have to prove my worth. And I was worried that if I looked too feminine, I would not be taken seriously.