Come, let’s change the world, let’s walk towards a new era

Let’s accept that some lives are incomplete

Let’s listen to every voice, let’s give courage to every scream

Let’s not hide our differences under the blankets of tradition

Let’s ask ourselves what our gender has got to do with our dreams

Let’s differentiate between ‘My truth’ and ‘The truth’

Let’s work continuously towards creating a world without any differences

The Hindi Film ‘Pink’ made the following words resonate with every woman across the country: ‘No means no’. When Amitabh said, “’Na’ sirf ek shabd nahi, apne aap mein ek poora vakya hai (‘No’ is not just a word, but a full sentence in and of itself,)” India took cognizance. The film is credited to have broken down the idea of ‘consent’ to its simplest form for men to understand it better. The nation began discussing about ‘consent’ and importantly so. However, to my own surprise, something about ‘No means No’ bothered me. And then it struck me…why should a woman have to say ‘No’?!

We all have been guilty of letting hope interfere with our logic. When you ask your mom’s consent to go for a night-out with your friends, and she does not consent, what do you do? You hope she will change her mind and then you badger her, until she gives in. Did she truly give her consent or relent to your pressure?

You must have heard the song ‘Na na karte pyaar tumhi se kar baithe..’. Sung by Mohd. Rafi, the song from the Hindi film ‘Jab Jab Phool Khile’ expresses the popular sentiment perfectly. In almost all the songs from the 70’s and 80’s, the heroine would be depicted as coy and very ‘proper’. She would have a change of heart only after many attempts made by her suitor. The moral – ‘Never give up’ because ‘sabr ka phal meetha hota hai’. This kind of harassment has been our idea of ‘romance’!

Well she was the much younger wife of the famous Greek Philosopher Socrates. And what did Socrates think about his wife Xanthippe? He said that he tolerated his first wife Xanthippe, because she bore him sons, in the same way one tolerated the noise of geese because they produce eggs and chicks. Basically, this analogy perpetuated the claim that a woman’s sole role was reproduction.

 

An incident involving the two went ‘viral’ (well we still know of it 2500 years later don’t we?) was how Xanthippe poured the contents of a bedpan on to the philosopher’s head after an argument. And that’s how the term “Xanthippe” has now come to mean any nagging scolding person, especially a shrewish wife. I think Xanthippe was one of the first Feminists and given how her name has such a negative connotation today, Socrates could may well have called her a Feminazi!

And nothing has changed really. Even today almost all of Feminism is being reduced to ‘angry frustrated women asking for rights’ or Feminazi’s! And this post is about deciphering why Feminism got such a bad name?

Before that…at the cost of repetition (sorry my regular empathetic readers – you can skip this part), Feminism speaks of equal rights and opportunities for all genders. And the definition of a Feminist that most resonated with me was the one that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Feminist from Lagos, Nigeria gave in her very well-articulated TEDx talk, ‘Why we should all be Feminists’ – ‘A feminist is a man or a woman, who says -Yes, there is a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it. We must do better.’ 

The above question has plagued me. I believe that everyone should support the idea of Feminism – men as well as women. Feminism talks of equal rights and opportunities for all genders. And equality as an ideal should make sense to everyone. Of course there is resistance from those who believe that there is a reason why there is a hierarchy in place. Now I get why most men would think this. Owing to years of conditioning, they have got used to it. But what I don’t understand is why women would oppose Feminism!? And I wish this was fiction…something sexists had created. But when I looked back at my life, I realized that a lot of my notions of patriarchy came from women around me.

Patriarchy as a system relegates women as the secondary sex. It is an age old concept. Philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato are considered to have influenced the idea that women must be ruled by men because they were not true rational beings and the only way to perfect themselves [be truly human], was for them to die and return to earth as men [Kasubhai; 1996:37, 47]. If this concept had to become universal and spread across the world since the last 2500 years, then it could not have been possible without women aligning to the concept. I am sure women protested at the beginning but these ‘Tired Feminists’ as I call them, gave up the fight…perhaps too easily and too soon. And that is what we should assess so that the next 2500 years are drastically different.

She looked in the mirror

And searched for signs of beauty

So futile, she reminded herself

When her strength was her vanity

The attack had melted the veneer

But her face was not her only identity

Her spirit was recovering

She refused to live like a faceless entity

The world had turned its back

Judging her for the blisters of vengeance

But she had done no wrong

Then why was she begging for acceptance?

Her damaged eyesight didn’t impair her vision

Her crinkled body was now thick-skinned

Her scarred lips didn’t quiver anymore

Her shriveled ears tuned out the din

She will put on her game face

And contour a winsome future

She will pursue justice

For she was not a Victim but a Victor.