The book I read for the reading without walls challenge was We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This very short non-fiction book actually originated as a TEDxEuston Talk, a conference that encourages speakers to challenge and inspire Africans and friends of Africa. This book actually met two of the three challenges for me. I don’t normally read books in this format (short and speech-like), and I also don’t generally read books from an African perspective, particularly on this topic. I picked this challenge because I was hoping it might stretch my understanding of a topic that I am passionate about: equality of gender. However, I have really only been exposed to a white and American perspective on this topic.
Ngozi Adichie inspires her audience to think about the subtleties of gender inequality in our culture. Even though her book is short, it is jam-packed with real-life examples of how women are treated differently than men. She also spends her time digging into our thought process about gender and what we can do with a stereotype that seems so loaded: feminism. By the end of the book, she will have you thinking about this term in a brand new way. I gained incredible insight from this book. The most important insight is probably the reminder that other countries and cultures see gender equality differently than we do in the United States. However, it also gave me insight into how much is really quite similar to the struggles of women’s rights and treatment in the United States. It seems that all cultures are currently struggling to bridge the divide between an age-old treatment of women and a new acceptance of women as equal to men. Ngozi Adichie knocked me off of my feet with one very simple perspective, and that is how men and women dress in the workplace. “The sad truth of the matter is that when it comes to appearance, we start off with men as the standard, as the norm. Many of us think that the less feminine a woman appears, the more likely she is to be taken seriously. A man going to a business meeting doesn't wonder about being taken seriously based on what he is wearing—but a woman does.” She so eloquently brought to light something that I have struggled to explain or even acknowledge in my life as a woman. To “dress up” in a powerful way, the way to control a room or others around you, is to dress more like a man. Her enlightening book is filled with these stories from and about women. However, her book is written for all people, regardless of gender. In fact, she cites her brother as one of the strongest feminists she knows. I believe this book and TedxEuston Talk will be something to talk about for generations to come. Post by Ms. Thompson, DHS 10th Grade ELA Teacher
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I chose to read Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, a narrative non-fiction book on a topic I knew very little about and had never closely experienced. While the cover definitely didn’t catch my eye, the endorsements from Desmond Tutu and Nicholas Kristof, its placement on the New York Times bestseller list, and an upcoming lecture at Luther College did. As it turns out, all of the hype was justified, and this has been added to my list of books that have rattled me and changed me and left me wanting more from my country.
Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer representing prisoners on death row, provides a first hand account that leaves the reader with no doubt that racism is pervasive in our courts, from police investigations to jury selection to judges to death sentence verdicts. Before reading this book I was naive about our criminal justice system, I somehow chose to believe, from a nice, safe distance, that it was by and large fair and commendable. I now know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that racism is pervasive and leads to innocent people being tried, convicted, and even killed for crimes they didn’t commit. The United States has the highest percentage of its population in prison than any other nation in the world, and these prisoners are disproportionately black, with 1 in 3 black boys projected to end up in prison in his lifetime. Oddly enough, the book left me hopeful, and this is, I believe, the genius of Stevenson. The stories of the individual people he represents are heartbreaking, and the ingrained injustice of it all is maddening, but once we see this and understand this we can most definitely advocate for change and the tools to do so are provided in the book. In addition, Stevenson has founded the Equal Justice Initiative as a non-profit that educates and advocates for change. As Stevenson was told, “You can’t understand most of the important things from a distance, Bryan. You have to get close.” This book was my way of getting close to a problem that one man is tackling head on and asking us to step up and understand. “My work with the poor and the incarcerated has persuaded me that the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice. Finally, I’ve come to believe that the true measure of ...our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned.” - Bryan Stevenson Post by Ms. Horton, DHS Teacher Librarian |
AuthorSTenth grade students at Decorah High School share how they're reading outside of their own experiences and how it has changed them. Categories
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