The 8th of March is International Women’s Day. While each day of the year it is necessary to work towards true equality of the sexes, on a special day like today, we can’t resist focusing on Chimamada Ngozi Adichie, author of the book, “Everyone should be a feminist” and published by Random House.

This author was born in Nigeria, in 1977, and at the early age of 14 her best friend said to her “you are a real feminist”. At that time she had no idea what that word even meant, but with the passing of the years she has become a true ambassador for feminism in this 21^st century.

In Sweden alone her book, which makes for an absorbing read, was handed out to over 100.000 boys and girls of sixteen years of age. The book was distributed with the idea of helping these young teenagers to reflect her on gender roles by analyzing their own experiences. It is a kind of manifesto written in the style of “Indignaos (“Outrage”), by Stephan Hessel, which created such a furor when it first came out.

She is the author of several novels and the latest one – “Americanah” – a large tome of more than 600 pages, has been receiving great acclaim from critics and public alike. Adichie is even having an influence on the lyrics of some songs, such as one from Beyoncé, who “lifts” a couple of feminist verses on one of her songs.

The barely 70 pages of this feminist tract traces its origins to a TED conference which Adichie gave using her keen sense of humor which allowed her to win over a convinced audience.

She brought her talk to an end with the following gem: “A guy I know in Nigeria once asked me if I was worried by the fact that the men felt intimidated by me. That fact does not worry me in the least. In fact, it would never have occurred to me to let that worry me, because any man who would feel intimidated by me is precisely the type of man that does not interest me at all”.

Words like that makes us think of some of our Kukuxumusu characters, such as “Roja” (our version of Little Red Riding Hood who definitely keeps the Wolf at bay), or our Cinderella who refuses to be sweet-talked by any prince. Nor does our particular Princess fall for the first frog that kisses her. And of course, there is also our aggressive woodcutter or even “Marymoto”, who goes her own way just about everywhere…

Our girls like to be out and about. They are not the stay-at-home types by any means. They know how to deal with wolves, princes and heart-stealers. They are the type of girls who take things in their own hands. They sure know how to do themselves up for any occasion and have no time for drips or whiners. And what really drives them up the wall is when anyone tries to put on the hard-man act with them.

And while we take most things here at Kukuxumusu with a grain of salt and an amused chuckle, there are some things that can make us feel outraged and incensed. And top of the list is the growing spate of gender violence. And from our side we can only applaud any kind of initiative that serves to take us closer towards a truer, more just, sense of equality where everyone can live happily in an equal world.

By the way, only today 8th March, you will get a of 15% discount in your purchases.