So Inspirational!: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2015 Wellesley Commencement Speech

Multiple award winning author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave a rousing speech last week at the 2015 graduating set of  Wellesley College, Massachusetts. She encouraged women to be the best they can be, irrespective of the circumstances they find themselves in. "Your standardized ideologies will not always fit your life. Because life is messy." Below’s an excerpt from the speech which we found inspirational:

“I already knew that the world does not extend to women the many small courtesies that it extends to men. I also knew that victimhood is not a virtue. That being discriminated against does not make you somehow morally better. 

And I knew that men were not inherently bad or evil. They were merely privileged. And I knew that privilege blinds because it is the nature of privilege to blind. 

I knew from this personal experience, from the class privilege I had of growing up in an educated family, that it sometimes blinded me, that I was not always as alert to the nuances of people who were different from me. 

And you, because you now have your beautiful Wellesley degree, have become privileged, no matter what your background. That degree, and the experience of being here, is a privilege. Don’t let it blind you too often. Sometimes you will need to push it aside in order to see clearly.”

She also goes on to say:

“We can not always bend the world into the shapes we want but we can try, we can make a concerted and real and true effort. And you are privileged that, because of your education here, you have already been given many of the tools that you will need to try. Always just try. Because you never know. 

And so as you graduate, as you deal with your excitement and your doubts today, I urge you to try and create the world you want to live in. Minister to the world in a way that can change it. Minister radically in a real, active, practical, get your hands dirty way.
Wellesley will open doors for you. Walk through those doors and make your strides long and firm and sure. 

Write television shows in which female strength is not depicted as remarkable but merely normal. Teach your students to see that vulnerability is a HUMAN rather than a FEMALE trait. Commission magazine articles that teach men HOW TO KEEP A WOMAN HAPPY. Because there are already too many articles that tell women how to keep a man happy. 

And in media interviews make sure fathers are asked how they balance family and work. In this age of ‘parenting as guilt,’ please spread the guilt equally. Make fathers feel as bad as mothers. Make fathers share in the glory of guilt. 

Campaign and agitate for paid paternity leave everywhere in America. Hire more women where there are few. But remember that a woman you hire doesn’t have to be exceptionally good. Like a majority of the men who get hired, she just needs to be good enough.”

Read the entire speech here and be inspired!