Adichie frequently draws on examples from her own life and from her female friends’ lives to make larger points about the realities of sexism. She describes how, as a single woman in her city of Lagos, Nigeria, she’s often either ignored or harassed. When she’s out with a male friend, she writes, service people frequently ignore her, even when she’s the one paying them; when she’s alone, she’s forbidden from entering night clubs and questioned by people behind hotel desks, who assume that she’s a sex worker. Such behavior points to a societal suspicion of women and to an inability to see women except in relation to men.

Adichie draws a parallel between her own experience and those of her American female friends; in doing so, she means to highlight the existence of sexism the world over, even if this sexism takes different forms in different places. It’s significant that the American friends she discusses are both executives—what many people consider independent, liberated women. However, even in their powerful positions, these women are silenced or belittled by the men around them and experience frustration and resentment like Adichie’s.