#BeingFemaleInNigeria: Meet The Feminist Changing Women's Lives

Tweeted over 20,000 times already, the hashtag #BeingFemaleinNigeria is transforming perceptions of feminism and sexism in eastern Africa

FemaleNigeria

Tweeted over 20,000 times already, the hashtag #BeingFemaleinNigeria is transforming perceptions of feminism and sexism in eastern Africa

Basically, it all comes down to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Beyonce's favourite feminist, who recently gave the most empowering and emotional speech on what it means 'to be liked' ever, is behind the hashtag #BeingFemaleInNigeria.

Yep, when Florence Warmate (pictured above) and her book club finished reading Chimamanda's book, 'We Should All Be Feminists', they couldn't stop talking about their own experiences of sexism in Nigeria.

'We were discussing the book, started talking about our own experiences and thought we should take this to a larger audience,' explained Florence to Buzzfeed. 'If no one talks about it, it just escalates, and it becomes a normal thing that happens to everyone. So we wanted to spread this fire.'

Realising that women outside of their Whatsapp group might have stories to contribute to the conversation too, they tweeted, using the hashtag #beingfemaleinNigeria.

And, as predicted, it struck a chord.

Or, more specifically, thousands and thousands of chords.

Women were sharing stories about marriage, men and infidelity; how there is one set of rules for guys, and another set for them; how they're pressured to start a family, rather than a career.

Within a few hours, the hashtag was the top trending topic in Nigeria. A few hours later, it was trending worldwide.

And while Chimamanda herself has yet to comment, we can't wait until she does.

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