Okay, Things Fall Apart is a really interesting book with a lot of cool stuff about Igbo culture that I would have never known if I weren’t reading it, and I understand why Okonkwo is the way he is, and normally I really understand sexism in older books, because, hey, that’s how they were! And Achebe himself is probably not a flaming sexist.

But someone PLEASE get between this book and my pimp hand.  I cannot deal with all the really casual “justified” wife-beating and “Wow, my daughter is so cool, she should have been a boy” ANY MORE and I have seventeen more chapters to go.  I really, really do understand that the “god, only losers don’t know how to control their women! i will teach my sons how to do manly things like murder people and beat them if they enjoy stories that aren’t about murder!” is a cultural thing and it’s fucked up of me not to be ok with it despite the fact that i’m aware of this.

but

HNGH