2020 EDIT: Rating's changed. Read this and this for more.
Final Score: 3/5
Original Review:
A bit simple and not as necessarily intersectional as it should be for me, especially when giving advice on raising daughters (of any background and ethnicity, yet are defaulted to turn out heterosexual and cisgender) to be feminists. But it is nevertheless a vital piece of feminist non-fiction for contemporary times - tackling major universal gender issues in bite sizes - that anyone can read on a break.
Maybe I've come to expect too much since reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's other pocket-sized feminist manifesto, 'We Should All Be Feminists'; I've grown in nuance as a(n intersectional) feminist, and I'm hard to satisfy now. However, 'Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions' is as personal and engaging as 'We Should All Be Feminists', because Adichie writes about feminism from experience; from a real place, told to fellow human acquaintances. Friendly, comforting, honest and concerned; no BS.
'Dear Ijeawele' is very good for a 60-page book of essays that can be wholesomely digested in less than half an hour. There is no shame in being female - no one should be born to feel inferior, for any reason - and marriage, giving birth, and domestic work are not inherent female goals or traits. Trust and care for women with power! Husbands are not everything! F&*£%! a husband's permission or "allowance" to do anything! F%*&! Feminism Lite! You are a feminist or you are not - there is no in-between. Feminism means equality, no compromises. It means you matter.
May all our daughters be feminists. May we all be feminists, already.
Final Score: 4/5
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