What Feminism Means to Me.

I don’t think I have written what feminism means to me, though anyone who has ever read my blog would have inferred by now that am one.  Needless to say, I am a Third-Wave feminist, with a lot of intricacies thrown in. I hardly go by the frames and notions of essentialist feminist ideals that are apparent in radical feminism, nor do I belong to the post-feminist category. So I decided to have a completely subjective rant about what feminism means to me without any analysis of the situation.

To me, feminism means:-

• Something that is class-race-caste-culture-socioeconomic factors specific. You simply cannot amalgamate everything into a chunk and generalize it. It has a universal set, true. But the subsets are so many, which intersect at certain points but definitely not all. To cite a specific example, sometimes I get into fights because somebody gropes me in a crowded bus or so. More often than not, the women in the vicinity keep mum whilst the men speak up to ‘protect my honour’. This is entirely different from the problems of a woman who has been gang -raped and mutilated in Congo. Feminism is highly micro-specific and empowerment has to be target -cohesive.

• Equal opportunity. That I have the same opportunity as the guy with the same educational status as me and that I don’t get discriminated against because of my sex. It also means that in an interview, my breasts do not carry extra points in the minds of the interviewer.

• Identity. It means no patriarchal propertisation of me or my womb. My name is Sruthi  J S. I have been asked continuously to tag my father’s name in the end or my surname. To me, personally, that is disgusting. I don’t prefer that I be known as the property of a man, whether it be my father or my legal husband. To me, every woman who changes their names after wedding is like a plague hindering gender equality and mainstreaming. It is like saying that her mother and her family meant nothing to her and that her genes are the property of her father to be contributed to her husband’s family lineage.

• Definitely not man-bashing. I love men. I don’t go by the SCUM Manifesto of Valerie Solanas and definitely not Separatist Feminism. I believe that men are equally trapped in patriarchy. True, they hold the power and the system is to their advantage. But what is the use of empowerment if it does not concentrate on both sexes?  I believe that every father who is hesitant to send his daughter to school must be empowered too. I believe that every husband who doesn’t want his wife to earn should be de-educated socially to make him understand the benefits of wife earning. If the men of the society need to realise what is wrong with the picture, they also need to be treated as part of the solution and not just held responsible for the system. 

• Partnership. People ask me why I believe in marriage if I am ‘such a feminist’. I don’t believe in marriage as a contract, but as a partnership. There are complementarities that are needed in every system to balance the harmony of gender. Gender is fluid. It is not a black and white boundary, but a rather contour that shifts back and forth in balance. If I find a person who is willing to make those oscillations with me, why would I be averse to such a companionship?

• NOT essentials of conformity to rigid mainstream notions of feminism. It is one thing I dislike. That I am expected to run with the pack and that a label of feminism makes me the target to certain assumptions of how I should and should not be as a feminist. I have never been tolerant of such normalization and I never will be. I will continue to cry at beautiful films, love the color pink, wear kajal and the biggest earrings in the shop and definitely continue feeding the people I love. How does my cooking for my brother once in a while make me a traitor because he is a man? I like to pamper him. Should I instead ask someone else to take over my recipe and yet derive the same satisfaction when he eats it? It only matters if he orders me to do something for him without considering my inclination to do it.
  

• Being in control of my womb. I am pro-choice and I believe it is a woman’s choice whether or not to have kids. I don’t believe it is something you should do because the society requires you to do. I don’t believe that one needs kids to be happy and it is a highly subjective issue. A woman definitely does not abort for fun, she does it because she wants to be in control of her life and I support it and if I ever have to, I will do it.

• Having my opinions and having the courage to stand up for my beliefs no matter what the opposition. It is something that women in our society find hard to do, because every time we have an opinion, it is considered to be a woman’s opinion and not a person’s. Aggression in a woman is considered as an anomaly. The cliché-est retort when a man finds a woman would not back down on her argument is, ‘you must be on your period’. Come on people, it has been millennia. Can’t you find something novel?

• Freedom. It does not mean I want to go around naked because I want to prove a point that I am not ashamed that I have breasts. It simply means that I should have the choice to do what I want. There should be no pressure on me to compromise myself more than a man because I have a vagina. It also means that every physical cultural adornment that represents that I am a man’s is something I abhor, like a thaali or sindoor, especially the latter. Of course one could argue that it is highly subjective and it should be left to the woman, but the real question is, how many women actually debate this issue within them.

So to sum up, I am a Third-Wave feminist with a liberal mix of Anarcha-Feminism, who is fascinated with how nature entwines with the social system and hence a bit an Ecofeminist and who blatantly criticizes Cultural Feminism or any misandric Radical Feminism. I wouldn’t treat my son as an inferior to my daughter and not my daughter as inferior to my son. They should learn how to share, respect, criticize and empower each other. One is not possible without the other.