About Feminism and other things

 A lot has always been spoken about feminism and might be I am one of the many who believe in feminism but is often misguided and transfixed by blatant blabbers. Today I read some popular Indian actor saying that she is not feminist and that she believes in equality. I read it twice and thrice and still could not digest what actually that meant. It sounded more like those commercial Hindi or South Indian films whose bombastic dialogues if actually pondered upon will only make us realise it was much noise about nothing.

Feminism means equality and I am a feminist too. To be a feminist the only characteristic that one needs to have is that the being should be human, gender does not count at all. And I am seriously against seats being reserved for women or the titles like ‘first among women’ or ‘best among women’ because these are unnecessary. What is necessary is equal opportunities, equal pay checks, equal rights and a society where women are not judged by the clothes and makeup.

India already has a huge disparity when it comes to representation of women in fields like education or management or engineering and to work on that some ‘advantages’ might be given but that is necessary and the years of disparity cannot be taken away by equality unless there are some advantages provided. But none of the advantages should be at the cost of fellow beings (men). Today India is misguided by pseudo feminists who talk about male bashing because they think that is how equality will come. But no it is about equality and nothing else. And for that women should start thinking that they are equal and need no backup or external force to come forward. There are issues which pull back women and those issues should be taken care of by men and women together. It is not a fight, it’s a journey, a camaraderie. Most men have become too used to with the power and the advantages that come with the gender so it is the duty of its counterpart to make them understand that its time for a change and that should be done with full courage, enthusiasm and honesty.

 A man in many cases face problems, issues, abuses which they cannot express because in India if a man is told you are behaving like a woman it is taken as an abuse and people think ‘Men do not cry’. A feminist society will also support their men and see to it that they are not abused or accused when they are not at fault. This is a society we all look forward to and it can be achieved if the right kind of feminism is instilled in every human being. India needs a feminist society because women have been suppressed and oppressed since long but that should not be at the cost of male bashing. Rape is a rape and is a crime in any form. A woman should report but so should men, which does not happen in this society because then the ‘manliness’ will be ripped off from the male victim.

Today feminism does not reach the places where it actually should and where the need is much more that the urban boundaries. Still now in many states of India like Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh the girls are married off at tender age and immediately they start having babies because that is how women are looked upon. There are places where the girls are not allowed to study because they are ‘someone else’s property’ and spending money on them is not a good investment. The sex ratio in most of the Northern states is miserable and nothing is changing till now. Even the capital city Delhi has shocking sex ratio. So what we understand is that feminism has still not arrived in India and its high time that it slowly seeps into the minds of people.