Another headline about sexual assault - this time in public and involving a whole crowd of revellers on New Year's eve in one of India's most cosmopolitan cities. Another round of chilling statements about women's clothes and their startling, conscious choice to be outside of their homes with male partners who were not their husbands or brothers. In the meantime, India's superstar Shahrukh Khan says in an interview for a women's magazine: "Why a feminist? I would love to be a woman!" You cannot and need not be a woman, Shahrukh. Being a feminist would do just fine. Because we could do with a few more of those in these trying times.
I have always wished people would not be so wishy-washy about the term. Even an otherwise articulate and outspoken woman like Meryl Streep feels the need to defend her feminism with the shield of 'humanism' not wanting to pin herself down to the label of 'feminist.' Sarah Jessica Parker proclaimed she was no feminist but she 'believed in gender equality.' Kim Kardashian is aware that "a feminist is someone who advocates for the civil and social rights and liberties of all people, regardless of their gender; anyone who believes that women should have the same choices and opportunities as men when it comes to education and employment, their bodies and their lifestyles." But that did not stop her writing a heavily shared essay on why she herself was NOT one. Closer home Priyanka Chopra, Katrina Kaif and Parineeti Chopra have all proudly declared their 'non-feminist' credentials. These are all intelligent, successful, influential women. Difficult to imagine they did not know what they were talking about.
And then there is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - perhaps the best-known feminist in the present day. After writing 'The Feminist Manifesto For Our Daughters' and 'We Should All be Feminists', a short essay which has been made mandatory reading for all 16-year-olds in Sweden, Adichie became the face of a UK-based cosmetics company. I cannot think of a more thrilling, empowering, revelatory moment for feminism in recent times!
I wore my first 'I am a feminist' t-shirt when I was in National Law School, which was a Universe where everyone wore all their labels proudly. But out in the real world, I discovered that it was not okay to say so if you wanted to be liked and accepted. I have seen many young women vocally demand to be treated on equal footing with males and equally loudly protest that they are not feminists. The need to decry the label stems from the misunderstanding that being a feminist also means that you hate men, that you don't respect marriage and family and that you absolutely -absolutely - detest wearing a bra. Can we clear the air on that one once and for all? Feminism is not against bras! Way back in 1968, there was a protest against a Miss America pageant on the grounds that it promoted a male dominated concept of feminine beauty to which women felt themselves obliged to conform. As a symbolic escape from the strictures of beauty as propagated by such events, there was a proposal to burn bras in public. None were actually burned. Feminism was never about liberating breasts from bras. It was (among other things) about liberating women from the compulsion to wear them purely as a norm dictated by society - it sought to give women the power to choose whether or not they wanted to confine their assets in that manner. Period. That is the extent of the connection between clothing and feminism.
Being a feminist does NOT mean you are required to:
- Wear asexual or androgynous clothing
- Give up your love for pink or bling
- Give up your heels or dainty bags
- Give up makeup, as Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi has so poignantly demonstrated in that proud photograph of her posing for a makeup company.
What many women mean when they say 'I believe in women's equality but I am not a feminist' is that they value their femininity. That they believe in romance. That they love the men in their lives and enjoy cooking dinner for them. That they adore their children and would not mind buying pretty dresses for them. Please do understand that you can do all of that and still be a feminist! There is nothing antithetical about being feminine and being feminist.
The reason why I think it is so important in these days for people to say out loud that they are feminists is this - world-over, societies have been structured on the paternalistic notion of keeping their women 'secure' behind closed doors or the watchful eyes of fathers, brothers, husbands and even society at large. Knowingly or unknowingly we continue to nurture such norms in the name of tradition, culture or 'values'. Feminism is the filter through which you assess whether something - anything that feels unfair to you as a woman or as a man who loves and respects the women in his life - is, in fact, fair or just another tool through which women have been traditionally subdued. If it does not pass the test of equality and fairness, it needs to go. To tear down a mega structure that has taken centuries to build is going to take as many people as can be enlisted to the task. Which is why the world needs more feminists and more people to say it out loud.
Patriarchy does not always look like a Khap Panchayat in a village you haven't heard of placing unreasonable restrictions on women you don't know (and therefore don't sympathise with). It could look like your colleague who feels he can make a joke about your anatomy since you chose to wear skin tight jeans. Or your college management that asks women students to 'dress modestly' and higher officials who complain that working days are being wasted on account of women's 'time of the month' or pregnancies. It could appear in the form of your friend's husband who asked her to quit her job because he wanted home cooked meals three times a day and because he 'did not need his woman to provide for the family.' It also takes much more subtle forms - like when a well-wisher asked me why I did not try to have one more baby - 'a boy who could become a writer like his father since you have only girls'. Or the time the suave, cosmopolitan director of an institution I was part of asked girl students to avoid going out (at night, to buy food, at a time when the hostel mess was closed) as a solution to the eve teaser problem on the dimly lit road from the hostel to the nearby junction. Or the times we have unthinkingly danced along to songs that say 'I will teach you a lesson, woman-who-thwarted-my-advances' and applauded the hero who slaps the heroine and growls 'You are a woman. Just a woman.'
Patriarchy does not always look like a Khap Panchayat in a village you haven't heard of placing unreasonable restrictions on women you don't know (and therefore don't sympathise with). It could look like your colleague who feels he can make a joke about your anatomy since you chose to wear skin tight jeans. Or your college management that asks women students to 'dress modestly' and higher officials who complain that working days are being wasted on account of women's 'time of the month' or pregnancies. It could appear in the form of your friend's husband who asked her to quit her job because he wanted home cooked meals three times a day and because he 'did not need his woman to provide for the family.' It also takes much more subtle forms - like when a well-wisher asked me why I did not try to have one more baby - 'a boy who could become a writer like his father since you have only girls'. Or the time the suave, cosmopolitan director of an institution I was part of asked girl students to avoid going out (at night, to buy food, at a time when the hostel mess was closed) as a solution to the eve teaser problem on the dimly lit road from the hostel to the nearby junction. Or the times we have unthinkingly danced along to songs that say 'I will teach you a lesson, woman-who-thwarted-my-advances' and applauded the hero who slaps the heroine and growls 'You are a woman. Just a woman.'
When a man assumes that a woman who wears western clothing and chooses to be out at night is 'asking for it' and worse, assumes it is alright in that scenario for him to assert his sexual dominance over her, it shows a rot in the human mindset that has survived centuries of evolution, refinement in thinking and cultural advances. We have come a long way from the days where women were not allowed to work outside of the home or vote, from the days when they were denied an education, choices or opportunities. And feminism played a large part in bringing these about. But there is still a sense of discomfort - even in the supposedly more advanced societies of the West - with the idea that women have complete ownership of their bodies and minds. In the name of protecting the structure of society based on conventional marriage and family, in the name of protecting the sanctity of religion, and even maintaining law and order (as was seen in the authorities' responses to the mass molestation in Bangalore on New Year's eve) societies try to hold on to a status quo that is heavily balanced against women. If you are aware that this is wrong, if you are aware that this is not the way forward, I think it is time to say so, loud and clear.
Women are half the population of this world. And in every society, there have been ways and means to control women's liberties, morality, thought process and identity. And yet, the challenges faced by women in Kerala are not the same as in the hinterlands of UP - those of women in the developed world are not the same as women in Muslim countries. The commonality is only in the patriarchal mindset assuming the power the control their womenfolk. That is why feminism in each society has a different battle to wage, a different challenge to overcome. But at the very core of it all is the effort to assert that being a woman does not mean you have to live with a set of iron-clad informal rules in addition to what is envisioned by the constitution and laws of a country. If you are a woman and you have ever inwardly seethed with the words 'just because I am a woman?' raging around in your head, you are most likely a feminist. If you are a man and have pondered about why things should be more difficult for the women in your life, you are most likely a feminist too. Being a feminist just means you understand that being a woman does not automatically put a limit on anyone's potential, capacities or dreams. It means you or a woman you love should not have to forgo an opportunity or be apologetic for what they want to do. It means getting due consideration (as a matter of right, not favour) for factors arising from purely biological characteristics like periods or pregnancies. It means never having to submit to primitive strictures that arise from a paternalistic society's ideas of what is right for a woman to do.
Women are half the population of this world. And in every society, there have been ways and means to control women's liberties, morality, thought process and identity. And yet, the challenges faced by women in Kerala are not the same as in the hinterlands of UP - those of women in the developed world are not the same as women in Muslim countries. The commonality is only in the patriarchal mindset assuming the power the control their womenfolk. That is why feminism in each society has a different battle to wage, a different challenge to overcome. But at the very core of it all is the effort to assert that being a woman does not mean you have to live with a set of iron-clad informal rules in addition to what is envisioned by the constitution and laws of a country. If you are a woman and you have ever inwardly seethed with the words 'just because I am a woman?' raging around in your head, you are most likely a feminist. If you are a man and have pondered about why things should be more difficult for the women in your life, you are most likely a feminist too. Being a feminist just means you understand that being a woman does not automatically put a limit on anyone's potential, capacities or dreams. It means you or a woman you love should not have to forgo an opportunity or be apologetic for what they want to do. It means getting due consideration (as a matter of right, not favour) for factors arising from purely biological characteristics like periods or pregnancies. It means never having to submit to primitive strictures that arise from a paternalistic society's ideas of what is right for a woman to do.
It is time the F-word took centre stage. In a world where the highest glass ceiling remains unshattered, where women are still sold as sex slaves and bounties of war, where women still need 'permission' to work or stay out late and have their sexual and even procreative choices set out for them, it is time for everyone who understands that these are primitive notions to say it out loud. It is time for humanity as a whole to take a step forward. Towards a world that is more equal, more fair and more gender-neutral.
