In this convoluted, cruel world – if you can be a lover, a dog lover or can even love automobiles; if you can be a nationalist, an optimist, or monotheist … why are you not a feminist?
Why is not every sane, logical person a feminist?
How can the term get so maligned. So distorted!
To tackle distortions let’s define it first.
Feminism : A support for social equality among genders. Opposite to patriarchy.
Men are usually physically stronger, don’t have to bear child birth or go through monthly menstruation. So historically they were the hunters or warriors.
But then over a period of time, gender roles got institutionalized, like religion, to unacceptable lengths.
Most limitations of the past are no more valid now. Not all men are hunters and soldiers. They are cooks and tailors, and comedians.
So not all women need to be just homemakers.
Here are a few stupid refutations to feminism:
It’s anti-men
Nope.
It’s not anti anything. It’s not even strictly pro-women like most think – as it does not advocate for any special privileges for them.
It is about not discriminating against them for the only reason that they lack testosterone and thus muscle mass.
Sure, some feminists frown upon men – for they have primarily been the reason for this ism to come into existence. Like for any ideology, some feminists go too far and put forward unreasonable claims. But that does not mean we ignore the reasonable ones.
You don’t ban all cars because some drive too fast.
Let’s face it. There are men who think that just because they can defeat a woman in arm-wrestling, that they are somehow better than them.
There once was the facade of white man’s burden that treated all non-whites as inferiors.
Similarly some still believe is the man’s burden that considers all women inferior and that it's a man's job to - you know - provide.
There certainly are men - not all but a lot - responsible for the plight, for patriarchy.
I’m not feminist, I am humanist
At the core of it, there is no difference.
Feminism does not demand guys to open the door for their dates – that’s chivalry. Entirely different concept.
One does not have to offer his seat in a commute to a woman. One should – to an old man, or a sick person, or to a pregnant lady. But that's empathy. Again, entirely different concept.
Feminism is about freedom of choices. Legal and non-legal rights. It’s about the perception and the treatment - in the household and in the society - of people from both genders as equals, as humans.
It’s about raising voices against lynching of young girls and boys by grumpy family members for fleeing for marriage.
Or throwing acid on faces by grumpy lovers for declining to flee for marriage.
Then why are there separate seats for women in buses?
He asked the question but didn’t wait to listen to the answer.
Mostly we are so filled with our own biases and prejudices that we don’t consider the other person’s argument with an open mind.
We just find refutations and counter arguments. ‘coz ego. Male ego.
Reserved seats for women is a blinding example of the illness our society is suffering from. It’s a band-aid trying to cover a much grossed out disease engulfing our social system.
We have creeps touching women inappropriately on crowded buses and trains. Yes, crowded.
One common news that one can find in the local newspaper here in Mumbai is about men molesting women in local trains. This is when Mumbai is comparatively safer than Indian cities.
This is unthinkable in advance societies. But our greatest fucking civilization – which has invented airplanes thousands years ago by sages of the glorious Vedic era – have to have separate seating arrangements for women.
Not everything is lost though. We have some sensible, educated people fighting for the honor of a queen that lived in a 500 years old poem for an alleged film sequence nobody had seen.
Why doesn’t government simply make laws to make things better for woman?
Because:
a) It’s more of a social problem than a legal one.
Dowry system, honor killings, sexual harassment at workplace – there are laws against them. But then, do we stop at a red signal if no traffic police is looking?
b) Any representative government resonates the society it represents.
So the largely patriarchal government of our wholly patriarchal society keep passing shitty pieces of legislation mostly for appeasement.
Example: New maternity act provides for paid maternity leave up to 26 weeks for women.
Also, zero days of paternity leaves for men.
In this age and time when it’s super easy to store and bottle feed mother’s milk to babies – child care is still exclusively the mother’s job.
The better bills – like the one that provides for women reservation in our legislatures – where 90 percent present are from the un-fairer sex – is lingering for decades.
There are real problems in the society, do we really need feminism?
Absolutely.
In the absence of feminism, patriarchy creeps in. See what it has done to us!
Marital rape is not a crime. Somehow marriage eclipses rape. It is heinous here – not husbands raping their wives, but wives complaining about it.
Our public figures publicly blame increased use of telephones and chowmein for increased percentage of rapes.
‘coz boys toh will be boys naa!
Our prime time news - we debate nationalism in the naming of an actor’s new born. We take SMS polls on whether we should attack Pakistan or not!
A cricketer’s wedding is somehow in the breaking news segment.
We need to shift focus to the real issues – of education, employment. Of matters that affect the half of our population. Little less than half , for we kill some of them in the womb.
But I don’t see the women around me facing any difficulties, it’s just so hyped up!
It’s not.
Most of us who read English newspapers belong to the elite section of the society. Top 10%.
Women in the rest of the society face grave hardships – which we ignorants blissfully don’t see.
Not that it's all nice and cozy for the women around us. But we have internalized things so much so that they don’t seem to be problems at all. It’s just the way it is!
I like to go out for walks in nights. It’s serene.
So if it’s 1 AM and I want to go out, I go. All I need to consider is if I am wearing any pants and carrying my earphones or not. It’s one of the gratifications of being born here in this country – apart from the freedom to pee anytime, anywhere.
But for a girl to go out at such hours is a big big task – she need to consider a lot of things:
How safe is it outside? Am I dressed properly? What would I say to my land lady? Oh, the security guard will give me that look! Should I call someone first?
She is a prisoner in her own house.
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One more definition:
Dualism of work: A concept that describes that women now have, over decades, started taking pecuniary work outside their homes. However, their contribution in the household work have remained almost constant.
They have taken traditional men’s work. But the vice versa has not happened.
So they are stuck with doing both.
I work in a bank and I have female colleagues – who go back to their homes after office hours and, while their husbands are watching kya kool hain hum part 3, do the daily chores and take care of their nagging children. They wake up in the morning, make breakfast, face the tantrums of their in-laws, before leaving for office hoping to find a seat in the local train’s reserved compartment for women passengers.
Women, in general, work harder, longer than men. Numerous studies prove this.
The least we can do is acknowledge. Give them a day off once in while, Make breakfast.
Make the hostilities they face in their day to day life a little less hostile.
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Now being a boy, I have to address the guy’s prospective as well. This is about eve teasing.
It is in-built in guys to turn their heads if they see someone attractive passing by. Like for dogs to run after cars - it just comes naturally to most of us.
It’s not offensive per se. If anything, it is an expression of an unbiased appreciation.
But then, we take it too far. Stare too long, Stalk, Pass disgusting sexual remarks.
Boundaries are crossed with impunity.
To make a girl uncomfortable in a public place is not cool.
Some even have the audacity to physically confront. We have stooped so low!
In almost all animals, the mating ritual encompasses that the male try to woo the female – and then the female chooses the one she deems most appropriate.
Peacock dances, elephants fight, spiders bring food wrapped in silk.
Human males were to go to the female in a bar, use a pickup line, and offer to buy a drink. That was to be the cultural classical way.
But then who listens to classical music in the era of Honey Singhs!
They tease, then threaten and yes, they rape.
There are sons of bitches who rape. And for such despicable heinous act, we name-call their mothers!
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Feminism is one of the few concepts whose end objective is a society in which this concept itself becomes obsolete.
Imagine there’s no sexism,
It isn’t hard to do.
Imagine all the genders
Living life in peace. You.
Don’t be a pseudo intellectual or a moron – Be a feminist. Be cool.
