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The women are, of course, the biggest single group of oppressed people in the world and, if we are to believe the Book of Genesis, the very oldest.
Chinua Achebe
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote highlights the long-standing oppression of women throughout history, suggesting they are a fundamental group within societal struggles.

Chinua Achebe’s quote draws attention to the historical and ongoing plight of women, characterizing them as the largest group of oppressed individuals globally. By referencing the Book of Genesis, he emphasizes the age-old nature of this oppression, suggesting that the challenges women face are deeply rooted in societal norms and structures that have existed for millennia.

Themes

WomenOppressionHistoricalGenesisSociety

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a speech advocating for women's rights to highlight historical oppression.

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In fact, I thought that Christianity was very a good and a very valuable thing for us. But after a while, I began to feel that the story that I was told about this religion wasn't perhaps completely whole, that something was left out.
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It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.
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Writing has always been a serious business for me. I felt it was a moral obligation. A major concern of the time was the absence of the African voice. Being part of that dialogue meant not only sitting at the table but effectively telling the African story from an African perspective - in full earshot of the world.
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An angry man is always a stupid man.
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