Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Quotes

Many of us were raised with the 'be a lady' thing, and all those kind of things that can be used against you and strip you out of opportunity and power.

Most parts for women have them reacting to something a man has done. Women never instigate any action; they only react it. We women have become accustomed to doing that.

We come back to Kate Fagan of ESPN who says we need to reprogram the way we're raising men. You notice we never, ever, nobody ever discusses the possibility that we might need to reprogram the way we raise women. Why? Because that's already perfect.

Often, women as little girls are sent off on a track for them to live a perfect life and be a perfect woman. Not for boys, who can be themselves with their mood and their temper.

We are still vulnerable to gender-targeted marketing no matter how carefully we edit our children's bookshelves.

I'd much rather be a woman than a man. Women can cry, they can wear cute clothes, and they're the first to be rescued off sinking ships.

There's more pressure on women to be chirpy and perky.

Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster.

The great and almost only comfort about being a woman is that one can always pretend to be more stupid than one is and no one is surprised.

Society certainly encourages women to be victims in every way.

A man is as good as he has to be, and a woman as bad as she dares.

As a kid, you get to the stage where you realise the gender barriers that exist in society and what you're supposed to do and not supposed to do.

We have been very conditioned by the cultures that we come from and are usually very identified with the particular gender that we happen to be a member of.

I've always been so confused about being a girl. Not in a Bruce Jenner way, just... there's that expectation where you walk into a room, and it's like, Is it OK to be a woman?' Or, you know, you're looking for your keys in the back of a cab, and sometimes the driver can treat you like you've had a lobotomy.

Growing up, I was not told that there were women's areas of preoccupation or male ones.

I think, so many times in society, women are expected to behave a certain way. You are raised to say 'sorry' and 'excuse me', and get out of the way.

Both my husband and I wanted a boy. I wasn't sure what I'd do with a daughter. What if she asked for a Barbie? I would have been like, 'Honey, we don't support Barbie because she isn't an accurate depiction of a woman's body.'

Patriarchy doesn't just make men out to be ogres. Women buy into the patriarchy as well, and women make those comments as well, like, 'Boys will be boys.' Women have to undo that stuff, too.

Push the envelope too far as a female artist, and you may only earn an ocean of ink expressing concern for your delicate constitution, amounting to a caution against playing on traditionally male wavelengths.

Even though society has come a long way in correcting the inequalities between men and women in the workplace, it still has to be said that women are oftentimes subconsciously playing to the gender roles which we are taught from birth.

My second-grade teacher went around the class and asked everybody what they were going to be when they grew up. I said, 'I want to travel the world,' and he said, 'You'll be married and pregnant by 21, just like all the girls in this room.'

Women are allowed to exist in this very narrow lane, but as soon as you step out of that lane, people want to stone you.

Nobody asks a working man who looks after his children; it's always the woman who is asked.

The message about sex and relationships that she had gotten as a child... was confused, contradictory. Sex was for men, and marriage, like lifeboats, was for women and children.

I also think it's still easy for us - as women, as writers and as directors and producers - to let it fall into the same patterns. Like, "and then the woman brings in the food, because the woman's the one who makes food." It's easy for that to happen, because that's what we've always known.