Feminism. Not this F word, right? “Ugh, fuck this.” If you are still reading, I want to talk about this concept as neutrally as possible and try to understand what it actually means to be a feminist today. From all the history that women have been through, I have always agreed that it has never been a better time to be a woman than today. I consider myself to be privileged enough to even have this conversation today. But just because this privilege exists, does not mean that the fight is even close to over.

Stereotypes

The definition implicates a simple concept of equality between the genders in the economic, cultural and political environment but there are still so many categories, waves, types, notions of feminism. Some people (men and women), when they hear the words “I am a feminist” coming out of any woman in particular, almost always think:

• “Oh so they basically hate all men, they hate wearings bras, they will be hairy women because they believe that patriarchy has enforced this notion of women being perfect hairless/mindless products of nature. I mean come on, just let somebody open the door for you, you won’t die”
• “She is a sheep. She’s actually so girly, seeks attention from men all the time for everything and isn’t really a ‘true’ feminist at all”
• “They shouldn’t label themselves as a ‘feminist’ today and create barriers which segregate them from all other classes, they shouldn’t be so angry about every little experience. Everybody obviously just want equality of the sexes”
• And the worst of all, “Ugh, men face a lot of issues too you know. Get over it, women have come such a long way”

Patriarchal Society

While patriarchy is one of the major reasons that’s causing women oppression, I think that fighting for equal rights of the genders (men, women and everybody else in between) is often mixed with fighting the patriarchal cultural/societal norms. The only issue with this is that “culture” is constantly changing. People tend to undermine the concept of Feminism because they’re called out for being sexist or chauvinists. But the two are so intensely intertwined today, it’s difficult to talk about the two issues separately. Arguably, being sexist is a stepping stone towards being, what one might call, an “anti-feminist”.

Every cultural problem today stems back to the manner of upbringing of children and one of the more difficult conversations that seemingly nobody really wants to have – really though, what about men? If we talk in numbers, men have vastly higher suicide rates, work-place deaths, crime deaths and arguably a much reduced life expectancy as compared to women. In a patriarchal society, men have their own number of challenges to face and cages to fill.

The debate needs to be re-focussed on a much narrower scale. Parents need to start encouraging the individual interests and abilities of their sons and daughters instead of setting sky as the limit and the expectation. They need to stop raising their sons to fit a suit and they need to stop teaching their daughters on how to soothe the fragile male ego. We need to teach males about the kind of privilege they have been born into today and how to make better sensitive choices.

Personal Experiences

Recently, my male set of friends decided to take a weekend trip and did not invite any of the female friends in the group because they wanted to play Fifa the whole time and assumed we will not be interested. While I truly did not have any interest in playing Fifa, I felt bothered that I was not even asked if I wanted to come along and they assumed that I will not be interested.

This other time, one of my male friends and I, went to a new restaurant in town and when the waiter got us the bill, I immediately took out my card to pay. My friend did not even have his wallet out but the waiter proceeded to give him the bill while I am holding the card up, almost waving it in the waiter’s face. It bothered me but my friend said something to the effect of, “come on, there was no need to be rude, he is just a waiter and it’s not really his fault, he is a societal product”. Now, if you are a female reader there’s a 90% chance that this has happened with you too. Of course, the waiters are not really to blame but I was bothered because I felt invisible. I wasn’t trying to be rude but simply trying to be visible.

All of the above, is a result of the societal norms to a certain extent. Masculinity is directly linked with money. Gender inequality is an age-old issue, older than capitalism even but it still is prominent because it’s such an easy conversation to close. And I understand that because feminism has a lot of negative baggage. But this one particular “end-question decider” which I absolutely loathe is – aren’t men & women biologically different and hence, they will always have differences? Yes, since inception we have been biologically different and we also used to be Apes so … what’s your point on the equal rights issue?

I mean we have come a long way since the Hindu tradition of “sati” when recently widowed women would burn themselves to death and now cut to today, when women are asked to marry men who earn more than they do, if not as much. It’s a constant social and cultural evolution. We need to listen when women talk and not listen to reply. We need to speak up for women, not silence them.

If you don’t want to label yourself as a “feminist” because labels are too restrictive or too narrow for you, that’s okay. But one mustn’t go around, questioning/undermining people who are not afraid to speak-up/fight/label themselves as “Feminists”. Since we have now managed to land on Mars, let’s atleast land on equal rights for all sexes on Earth?