Posted by Black Britain on
Young Nigerian novelist Helen Oyeyemi speaks out about black women today as the Fawcett Society plays host to its annual Inspiring Women discussion taking place this Monday 17th.
Young Nigerian novelist Helen Oyeyemi speaks out about black women today as the Fawcett Society plays host to its annual Inspiring Women discussion taking place this Monday 17th.
Helen, born in 1984 wrote her widely-acclaimed novel The Icarus Girl still in her teens before reading social and political sciences at Cambridge and said that some issues confronted by young black women are invisible.
'Young black men are seen as underachieving in education and there is some discussion about that (even there's not enough action)
'Whereas black women, faced with the difficulties of fitting into the accepted aesthetic of beauty, are inevitably struggling more with depression and anxiety and eating disorders
'Lots of times in Cambridge and elsewhere I have felt invisible - not ugly, not stupid (for ethnic girls are allowed, at least, to be clever) but just not there."