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Dear Ijeawele,
What joy. And what lovely names: Chizalum Adaora. She is
so beautiful. Only a day old and she already looks curious about the world.
Your note made me cry. You know how I get foolishly emotional sometimes. Please
know that I take your charge – how to raise her feminist – very seriously. And
I understand what you mean by not always knowing what the feminist response to
situations should be. For me, feminism is always contextual. I don’t have a
set-in-stone rule; the closest I have to a formula are my two ‘Feminist Tools’
and I want to share them with you as a starting point.
The first is your premise, the solid unbending belief
that you start off with. What is your premise? Your feminist premise should be:
I matter. I matter equally. Not ‘if only.’ Not ‘as long as.’ I matter equally.
Full stop.
The second tool is a question: can you reverse X and get
the same results?
