Topic

Topic overview

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s commencement address at Wellesley College is a speech that revolves around gender issues. The speech is addressed to an audience of young female graduates.

The speaker shows the audience that gender discrimination can take many forms and explores how women are treated in both Nigeria and the US.

The speaker uses personal stories to look at gender roles in Nigeria telling readers how her opinion was disregarded by a man because she was a young woman or how her mother fought discrimination as the first woman to be chair of a university in Nigeria.

Adichie further explores the topic of gender discrimination by looking at occupational sexism in the US, She mentions issues like men not being allowed to take parental leave or women being underpaid compared to men doing the same job.

Finally, Adichie explores gender discrimination by also talking about feminism. Her arguments are that certain feminists have a rigid perspective on women’s rights when they should acknowledge that there are different ways to fight for gender equality.

In exploring the topic of gender discrimination, the speaker wants to inspire the young female graduates to take a stand and listen to their inner voice rather than conforming to biased social norms about women.

Structure

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s com...