The Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Speech that Became a Feminist Anthem

Delivered in December 2012, the talk would become a global touchstone, especially for African feminists. Blending personal narrative with cultural critique — and a fistful of humor — Adichie articulated feminism in a way that resonated deeply with a wide audience.

This wasn’t her first significant TED Talk. Three years earlier, she had delivered The Danger of a Single Story, a powerful speech on African representation and cultural stereotypes. That talk has since become one of the 25 most popular TED Talks of all time, firmly establishing Adichie not just as a celebrated novelist, but as a global thought leader.

By the time she gave We Should All Be Feminists, Adichie’s literary career was at its height. Her debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, had garnered international acclaim for its exploration of post-colonial Nigeria and familial tension. She followed it with Half of a Yellow Sun, a portrayal of the Nigerian Civil War that won the prestigious Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. In 2008, she released The Thing Around Your Neck, a collection of short stories that further solidified her reputation. By then, she had also received numerous accolades and awards.

What made the We Should All Be Feminists speech groundbreaking was its accessibility. She didn’t begin with theory or statistics — she began with a story. She recalled being called a feminist by her childhood friend, Okoloma, a label that at the time felt like an accusation rather than a compliment. With humor and honesty, she unpacked the societal baggage tied to feminism, especially in African contexts where it had often been framed as radical or anti-male. Adichie redefined the word in its simplest form: a belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.

Dr. Ainehi Edoro, Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and founder of the African literary blog Brittle Paper, sees this talk as a watershed moment. “That was the moment African feminism went viral,” Dr. Edoro tells OkayAfrica. “Before that, African feminism had long been powerful, as a movement, an academic discipline, and a philosophy, but it wasn’t necessarily popular. What Adichie did with We Should All Be Feminists was make feminism feel universal and personal at once.”

Adichie’s intersectional approach was also key to the speech’s impact. Though rooted in her lived experience as a Nigerian woman, the themes she addressed — gender roles, societal expectations, cultural double standards — transcended borders. Through relatable examples, from tipping waiters in Lagos to navigating male-dominated workspaces, she exposed how sexism operates on multiple levels. Her critique was both personal and globally relevant.

“Adichie can explain complex ideas clearly, but more importantly, she makes people care about them,” Dr. Edoro says. “That’s one of her superpowers. She knows how to take something people might take for granted and reframe it so they feel its emotional and political urgency.”

The message gained even more traction in 2013, when Beyoncé sampled the speech in her song “Flawless” from her self-titled album. Suddenly, millions who had never heard of TEDxEuston were listening to Adichie’s voice proclaim: “We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller…”

While Adichie appreciated the exposure — saying that “with this song [Beyoncé] has reached many people who would otherwise probably never have heard the word feminism, let alone gone out and buy my essay" — she later expressed unease about the limits of pop culture to fully convey feminist nuance. For her, visibility alone isn’t enough.

Dr. Edoro echoes this tension: “That was such a cultural moment … Suddenly, feminism wasn’t just a political movement or an academic conversation. It was something you could live by.” Yet she adds, “It raised big questions. Like: What happens when feminist messages become high fashion? Are we still talking about liberation, or are we watching a movement being folded into celebrity and consumer culture?”

In 2014, the talk was adapted into a book, distributed to every 16-year-old in Sweden as part of a national gender equality initiative. By that time, the TEDx video had already surpassed one million views. Today, that number has grown to over 8.6 million. In 2017, Adichie followed up with Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, offering practical guidance on raising feminist daughters.

Since then, Adichie’s work has continued to evolve. In 2021, she published Notes on Grief, a moving meditation on the loss of her father. She also ventured into children’s literature in 2023 with Mama’s Sleeping Scarf, and in 2025, returned to fiction with Dream Count, her fourth novel.

However, Adichie’s relationship with contemporary feminist discourse has not been without controversy. In a 2017 interview with Channel 4, she remarked that “trans women are trans women,” suggesting their experiences are different from those of cisgender women. The controversy deepened after a public dispute with non-binary author Akwaeke Emezi, followed by Adichie’s essay It Is Obscene in 2021, which restarted debates about her views on trans rights, cancel culture, and literary politics. While some defended her call for nuance, others viewed her comments as dismissive and exclusionary.

Can her foundational role in 21st-century feminism coexist with these criticisms? Dr. Edoro believes so: “That talk is foundational. It’s hard to talk about 21st-century feminism, especially the kind that reached a wide audience on the continent and beyond, without talking about Adichie.”

She adds: “We can honor We Should All Be Feminists for what it made possible, and we can also stay in conversation with the feminist questions and critiques that continue to emerge.”

More than a decade later, Adichie’s message still resonates. “It’s the simplicity and power of that title,” says Edoro. “‘We should all be feminists.’ It reminds us that feminism isn’t just for women, or for people who’ve read the canon. It’s for everyone.”