Forgotten Feminism

I have been contemplating writing my thoughts on this topic for some time now. If you count an approximation of 3 years as ‘some time’ then yes, sometime it is. And then Vogue happened along with Deepika Padukone , Homi Adjania & 98 other women who seem to be advertising for a black Dove soap in a grey cover.  The last, much needed push came from yesterday’s conversation with a friend who was dumbfounded on hearing my thoughts and took many of his hats off during our conversation.  By the end of it I had collected a bagful of virtual hats from him. Now to the piece, lest I loose my thoughts to laziness one more time.

I looked up the actual meaning of ‘Feminism’ in Wikipedia. Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal, and social rights for women. Right to vote, equal pay, equal work opportunities, education, enter contracts, respect for her body, to own property et cetera. These seem absolutely fine to me.

The problem lies in the warped meaning it has achieved over years.  Since when did equal rights become the right to offend men, right to look down upon housework, right to procrastinate pregnancy for your own ambitious needs even when your partner desires a child, right to derogatorily talk about other women as “O, she is just a housewife!” Well…sex outside marriage is also a right which if she needs, so be it. But be prepared to lose the right to complain when he has it tomorrow.  Aren’t we talking equal rights here?

We have to accept that nature has made man the provider. He was always the hunter. The one who went out to fetch, the one who fended for his people, the one who increased the tribe and trained it; to protect from predators galore. The promiscuity of men has roots in this fact too (where he was always in search of healthy and fertile partner who could give birth to more children and raise them for him) but will need another write-up though. Not that the women have ever been immune from promiscuous behaviour in the past. But in a sample size men have far outdone their fairer counterparts and thus happily take the blame. Nature also made woman the nurturer, the care-giver. The one, who gave life, nurtured the life, imparted values. The basic roles haven’t changed much even today but we the women seem to have a problem. Oh! The confused feministic streak.

I happened to attend a sports event and an annual event in my kids’ school last year. There is something eternally graceful about a woman’s curvaceous body when it moves to the beat of rhythm and music to produce some enthralling dance moves. In athletics, there was a 100 metre race of girls and then boys apart from many other races. But the sheer energy exuded by the boys when they ran, the crisp and well sculpted legs and hand coordination, the intensity on the face of those 15 year old boys far outdid the pleasure to see the girls running. At the risk of sounding misogynistic or backward, I have to admit that these are some genetical pleasures of a woman dancing or a man running carried on era after era which can get modified but not eliminated.

Coming back to My Choice! On a good day it is eating potato chips along with a captivating book and to be left alone in a room. But then my choice will be made into a book not a small article which only I will buy. India has a vast population of under privileged women out there in urban cities, small towns and villages who do not have a choice but to work for a paltry amount of cash, come back and cook, run the other errands around their house, take care of the child and do much more as many of them probably have a man who lurks around a desi-daru shop & beats her black and blue when she refuses to entertain his whims for some moolah or sex. She is the real super woman who goes unnoticed, uncredited, unsung and completely unaware of the choices Vogue thinks are important like putting a surname after her name along with the hallowed red bindi.
   

Being a woman is such a privilege. Isn’t it a matter of pride to be able to nurture life firstly inside your womb and then outside it for the rest of the child’s life? Isn’t it love which you serve along with the food on the plate? The emotions and energy spent while cooking by a woman of the house, impacts the mental consciousness of the one who eats it. Hence there is a word like ‘ghar ka khaana’ and outside food. With cooks in many a modern households doing the needful what else can we expect but a generation full of apathetic youngsters.

Aspirations, independence, being able are all very good, to support your family or plain yourself financially even better but the audacity to look down, to defy the ability that nature has given her is when I have a problem. It is good to say “you don’t own me” to your man but then so don’t you. This, in your face bluntness or aggression is the kind of feminism which scares me. Womanhood is about sharing, caring, adjusting and nurturing. We need to be proud of this fact, not ashamed of it. There is merit to the statement when Indra Nooyi or Anne Marie Slaughter said that “Women can’t have it all”. The trouble is when she seeks it all. She should remember that if she can’t, so also the men can’t have it all. He can’t wear pink pants or go on a devilish mode citing ‘those days of the month’ as a reason. On a serious note, he can facilitate but not bear life. Only a woman is capable of binding a house which can never be a man thing. She should revel in the glory of what she has, the prime quality of being a nurturer and a care-giver.  Being a provider is secondary for her and will always remain so. She may like it or hate it. Just like being a provider/ protector will always remain primary for a man. Isn’t it a fact that when it comes to choosing a partner, be it for a live-in relationship or a marriage, however successful a woman might be she almost always seeks a man more successful than her? Why? Think.

Walking with the man and his family not ahead of him or behind him is true feminism.