I was a 16 years old teenager when I first came across the term feminist. It was my young and supposedly hip English teacher who introduced the term to me that ended up sculpting my entire life.
I had submitted my first ever piece of poetry that I scribbled at the back of my half-torn notebook to her class level poetry competition. The poetic prose was something I came up with within 15 minutes and it detailed Joan of Arc and her legendary bravery against the oppressive men in the society.
She proudly declared that I won the contest with a big margin and that I was a young feminist.
At that time, it felt cool to be called that by my teacher. She was an adult that everyone wanted to grow up to be. Unlike most adults, she had no restrictions with kids mingling with the opposite sex. Shocking in a conventional Indian high school.
She would allow us to spend classes not studying from the fat, boring textbooks but drawing sketches of the fictional characters from the English textbooks.
She would even hear out people’s personal problems and give them the needed emotional support.
Even though, I proudly started flaunting the label from that moment onwards without understanding it very well, however, little did she (and I ) knew, I was a feminist even before I knew what it really meant.
I was 12 years old when I noticed that my regular rickshaw bhaiya (Man driving the cycle passenger cart) would shamelessly ogle at my uncovered legs. My mother had hired him to take me to school in the early winter mornings.
She assumed that hiring an old male to ferry me to school would protect her fragile daughter from the evil men in the world. Her logic said that only younger men are predators and pose a threat to women. After becoming very sure of the unnecessary, uncomfortable staring, I confronted him.
I shouted at him to keep his damn eyes on the road. I complained to the school guard who gave him a piece of his mind. As expected, he was never seen near my house and school.
I was 13 years old when the teenage hormones were bubbling all around the school. My classmates were becoming excessively preoccupied with beautifying their maturing bodies.
My then friend decided that it was her duty to give me a piece of “friendly advice” for my benefit. She whispered, “You really should do something about your unruly leg hair. No guy will like that.” For a second, I was taken aback. I was never told by my mother that I was supposed to go through the painful process of ripping out my hair to please men I was not even interested in.
As my brain churned with all the information, I looked at my friend’s hairless, shiny smooth legs that were supposedly a boy magnet. “Nah. I am good. It looks too painful and unnecessary.” I explained to her shocked face. I did not start shaving till I was in my senior year of High school.
I did it then because I wanted to do it and it made me feel confident about myself.
I was 15 years old when my distant uncle advised me for my well being that I should go for teaching as a career path when I told him that my dream was to become a civil servant.
He supported his advice by telling me that the flexible hours of the job would allow me to give time to my children and in-laws, take care of the household, and serve piping hot food to my future husband. After all, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.
Not once he bothered to ask me about my ambitions. He drew three assumptions based on my gender. First, he expected that I would want to get married. Second, I would want to live with my in-laws after marriage. Lastly, the fact that I would definitely have children.
Even 7 years later, I still remember my response to his statement as clearly as crystal. I looked him straight in the eyes and told him to mind his own business.
I would have gone on full-on aggressive mode if my mother was not already shooting daggers at me for disrespecting an elder male of the family.
India is a land of oxymorons.
It is a country where women are worshiped for nine days twice a year and treated inferiorly for all 365 days. According to a survey conducted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, India was ranked number one in terms of dangerousness for women.
While the methodology of the survey could be questioned, however, the fact persists that there is a high rate of crime against women being perpetrated every day.
Stats by National Family Health Survey (NHFS-4) say that every third Indian woman faces any form of violence at their own home, showing how personal spaces are also unsafe for you if you are a woman.
Despite dowry being made illegal, it is still practiced and India reports the highest total number of dowry-related deaths with 8,233 such deaths reported in 2012, with the numbers even higher in 2020.
Marital rape still continues to legal as long as the wife is above the age of 15 years.
As expected, Feminism is still seen as a western import, just like homosexuality.
You can easily ask any middle-aged Indian male about feminism and they would give you their version of “sab hamare culture ke against hai” (everything is against our cultural values).
They want to force-feed your oppression wrapped nicely in the paper that screams culture. Anything against the culture is seen as deviant and an American thing.
However, what these people don’t know is the fact that Ancient Indian society was relatively far more liberating for women than it is currently.
It is believed that in the Vedic period that lasted from 1500 to 500 BCE, women enjoyed autonomy and played a significant role in society. They were labeled as ardhangini (better half) and sahadharmini (equal partner) in the institute of marriage.
Unlike modern and supposedly progressive India, marriage was never imposed on women in Rig Vedic society.
After reaching sexual maturation and completing education, women were allowed to hold swayamvara where they would choose their husbands. Having multiple partners was not only limited to men, as there are several instances of women being mentioned in connection with husbands in the plural.
Anant Sadashiv Altekar, a historian quoted that in some passages of the Vedāḥ, the “wife is mentioned in connection with husbands in the plural.”
Historians Nandal and Rajnish have talked about women being the “very source of Puruṣārthas, not only Dhárma, Artha and Káma, but even Mokṣa” in their book Status of Women through Ages in India.
This means that women were seen as the source of achieving freedom from the endless cycle of rebirths. For Indians, achieving moksha or freedom from this repetitive cycle is seen to be the ultimate goal of human existence.
Being compared to moksha means that women were deemed important enough in society and culture.
Conclusion
I wonder if the Indian people who preach misogyny and sexism under the layer of Indian culture know what the culture actually preaches. I wonder if they even know what the word culture actually means.
They are rigid if it serves their purpose and flexible if it is gaining them something.
You do not need a label to be a feminist. I know women who have adopted the term solely because they think it gives them power over men. In one of the class discussions, my classmate (who boasts the word feminism in her Instagram bio) blamed a woman who got murdered because she was cheating on her absent husband and roaming out late at night without any company.
I remember being shocked at this self-proclaimed woman studying in one of the top social science institutes in the country who looked down on the victim just because she engaged in adultery.
While on the other hand, I have heard some really progressive things being said from my house help who has never even heard the term feminism.
She has never gone to school or used social media to scream out to the world about being a feminist, however, she is more of a feminist than most of my classmates are.
To sum up, honestly, there is no perfect feminist.
We are a product of our regressive, sex-negative, misogynist culture that we live in. However, recognizing and acknowledging your privileges and disadvantages is the first, and the biggest step you can take towards reaching the ultimate goal of achieving gender equality.
Using labels, or not using one does not make any difference in your journey to eradicate sexism from society.
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About the Creator
Jjyoti
24. Full-time post-grad student. Part-time writer.
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