‘Unlike Hillary Clinton, I have never wanted to be someone’s wife’

After writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie grilled the former US presidential candidate about why the first word on her Twitter bio is ‘wife’, Clinton said she would think about changing it. Why do women still let their domestic roles define them?

Hillary Clinton: “Wife, mom, grandma, women+kids advocate, Flotus, senator, SecState, hair icon, pantsuit aficionado, 2016 presidential candidate.” To be clear, this is not how Wide Awoke would describe Clinton. It’s her own Twitter biography and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – writer, Nigerian, feminist, woman … screw it, let’s just go with writer, like Martin Amis does – is not happy that the first woman in history to have had a shot at the US top job is leading with “wife”.

“I have to confess that I felt just a little bit upset,” Adichie admitted during an interview with Clinton at the PEN World Voices festival. “And then I looked at your husband’s Twitter account, and the first word was not ‘husband’.” Of course, it wasn’t. His bio is: “Founder, Clinton Foundation and 42nd president of the United States.” Because that’s who he is and how he is valued. We live in a world where presidents are men and their wives are first ladies: a job so inherently sexist it demands the women – sorry, ladies – who acquire it to abandon professions and opinions of their own in order to further their husbands’ careers.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2JieeHy