You Are a Badass By Jen Sincero
This self-help book was gifted to me last year, well in 2020, but came around to reading it at the end of 2021. I enjoyed reading this book, and Jen really makes me feel like I can do anything and because of this book, I started doing daily affirmations. I wrote them down, and I say them every day.
She is the author of You Are a Badass at Making Money: Master the Mindset of Wealth and You Are a Badass Every Day: How to Keep Your Motivation, which I have added to my reading list.
Have you read any books by Jen Sincero? What did you think of them?
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
This book is her TEDxEuston talk that she gave, I believe, in 2013. If you haven’t seen it – you definitely should. I cannot remember when I first saw this Ted talk or what brought me to watch it, but while I was watching it, I realized part of it was used in Beyonce’s song, “Flawless.” I then googled her and found this book and others that I added to my reading list.
I received this book as a gift from an Instagram book exchange I participated in. I was super excited because it was on my reading list. Although I had heard the Ted talk, while reading the speech, I caught a few things that I had missed.
First was, she mentioned how her American female friends were so invested in being “liked.”
“They have been raised to believe that their being likable is very important and that this ‘likable’ trait is a specific thing,” she wrote. And this instantly brought me back to Mark Manson’s book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*%k, and how he mentioned the fact that in western culture, people try so much to be liked that they change who they are depending on who they are with. I am going to assume that this really is a western culture thing.
The second thing that I had missed while hearing the speech but caught while reading was when she was talking about marriage; she wrote, “The language of marriage is often a language of ownership, not a language of partnership,” and this is so true. We often hear about how wives belong to their husbands. And sometimes, in my experience, family members ask my husband, “why would you let her do that” or “why would you let her wear that?” As if I need to ask my husband ‘permission’ to do anything. Of course, I’ll always be respectful to him, but I don’t need to ask for ‘permission’ to do anything.
I do love that my marriage is a partnership. We don’t follow ‘gender roles.’ We both cook, clean, pay bills, etc. There are a few exceptions, though, my husband doesn’t let me take out the trash, he always says it’s his job, and when something needs to be done for the cars, he takes care of that. But other than that, we don’t do gender roles here, we are in this together, and we take care of each other.
How do you feel about the word feminist? I wrote a post about feminism and some information I found about the history of the word and the movement. I do believe in the equal rights of both genders.
Alright, these are my takeaways from these two books – let me know if you have read them or what is on your reading list! Thank you so much for reading.
With Love,
Heidy
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