Feminism: Through the Looking Glass

 

Whenever I say that I am a feminist, all I see is heads turning around, accusing glances, and exasperated exclamations of “Oh, my God! Why do you hate men?”

Oh wait, you’ve heard that one before.

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My point is, no matter how many times I reiterate the same words, the matter of concern never budges from its rusty old shelf. Raising a voice against gender inequality in today’s society has become synonymous with man-hating. Feminism has gained an unpopular status in society. As feminists, women have been called too aggressive, too strong, anti-men, and unattractive, even. The recited movements, protests and demonstrations with the aim of creating a place of parity for men and women in the past, have often been associated with the superiority of the latter over the former.    

   

Why is that, we wonder. The reason lies in the folds of ever-intensifying patriarchal curtains that drape the world all over. Certain women addressing sexism and violence against their gender shouldn’t make people uncomfortable. The issues they address should make people uncomfortable. It is truly wondrous, how feminists are called man-haters, when this is the only group that truly believes in men’s capacity to change for the better. We refuse to collapse into the hopelessness of biological determinism.

 However, the fact that our society has not yet ceased birthing the need to fight for basic human rights is fascinating to me. Moreover, this inequality goes back a long, long time, and has been a deep-rooted evil in the human society. Nevertheless, no matter how primitive it grows, mankind just doesn’t seem to get over it. We keep holding onto the self-manifested ideology of discriminating women from men, giving it the status of omnipresence in each one of our lives and hence, hindering our own progress.

Gender discrimination is seen in the most essential and day-to-day aspects of our life; there is a default parallax in societal judgement whenever the same task is performed by a man and a woman. In a common household, it is never under focal scrutiny when she cooks, in fact, it is her duty. But, when he ever so slightly lays hands upon a utensil, his Midas touch is all we can talk about. The COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented catastrophe, had compelled our company to the four walls of our homes for the past year. Surprisingly, it took a 120-nm virus to teach us how it is time we normalize the basic acts of cooking and cleaning, instead of confining them to certain gender.

Women are not provided the most basic rights in the under developed regions of society; education and healthcare, for instance, being vitally essential and yet, neglected. In the backward sectors of society, families choose to invest inadequately in daughters, unlike sons, along with denying them a plethora of opportunities. Statistically scripting, more than 15 million girls of primary school age will never learn to read or write, compared to less than 10 million boys. The main motive, as observed, behind this is the early marriage of girl children, sending them off to be someone else’s burden.

 This leads to 12 million adolescent girls (younger than 18 years) becoming child brides each year across the globe, with expectations of running a full-fledged household and managing their kids at such a tender age. Eventually, they evolve to be women who are deprived of their health and sexual rights and, in the last 10 years (2008-2018), only 55% of married or in-union women made their own decisions regarding their reproductive life.

Gender inequality, when broken down to the core, points out the pinnacle of disrespect being faced by women. And the most detrimental aspect of this disrespect is abuse. In fact, if we look around at the people, we’ve known our entire lives: 90% of them have been victims of abuse; a form of disrespect which is not confined to just ‘rape’.

Say it with me -Verbal, physical, mental, social and sexual abuse.

For most females, abuse begins from a very young age. In fact, these early beginnings promote the notion of physical and mental abuse being a part and parcel of life. A majority of young girls in rural areas face the brunt of ‘not being boys’ at the hands of their male relatives- the alpha males of toxic masculinity. Millions of women today are survivors of sexual harassment and rape, acts known to be the most heinous forms of abuse.

In the 21^st Century, when we believe to have achieved truly marvellous breakthroughs in fields of science, language, arts and mathematics, there are unruly men out on the streets, using women’s bodies to viciously vent their built-up frustrations. On one hand, society pressurizes women to maintain a certain level of thinness; beauty these days lies not in the eyes of the beholder, but in what lies beneath our ‘must be narrow’ waists and shoulders. And on the other, why are we struggling to reach that Aphrodite-like body image, when men cannot simply imagine of respecting the temples of their own origin?

Moreover, 82.5 % of rape cases result in female victims bearing children. And surprisingly, women only have rights to abortion in case of rape. This implies that women need to be violated to acquire control over their own bodies. As a community stepping into a new unorthodox era, we need to normalize women not wanting to be child-bearers, rather than making them feel helpless when it comes to motherhood. We need to learn to revere their bodies as sacred creations of God, ones that they solely have rights to. 

Additionally, it is not just about the women. Feminism is never just about the women.

Young men are brutally called out by the society for coming out with issues as normal and pertinent as mental-illnesses. A male is shamed to be “less of a man”, if he ever risks expressing his true feelings publicly. Most men are alienated when the limelight is on sexual assault; this form of abuse, for victims, does not limit itself only to one gender. As parents, it is common knowledge that women are held on a higher pedestal than men, when it is a fact that a child requires a fatherly presence just as much as a motherly essence in life.

Campaigners and activists have been struggling for a gender-equal society for decades now; and yet, there exists not a single nation to have achieved absolute gender parity. In the past few years, I have come to realize the futility of the various awareness schemes and gender-equality laws that have been implemented by Governments, globally. This fight is not about another new law, rather, it is about a new thinking. A change in our narrow mindset. A fresh way of peeping through the looking glass, maybe even a new glass. And in my opinion, that reformed outlook would be brought about by feminism- a struggle for equality among both the sexes and the need of the hour.

I believe we need feminism, because in today’s day and age, a man in a room full of women is ecstatic, and a woman in a room full of men is terrified.

 And the responsibility of accomplishing equivalence between both the sexes, lies upon us, the privileged citizens of a vastly underprivileged world.

It is high time we understand the vitality of the efficient functioning of both, the male and female, wheels of the vehicle of our society, speeding it along the pathway of evolution.

I want a world where I am not judged based on what I wear, how I walk and talk and the way I raise my voice whenever necessary. I want a world where I am valued for what I do and how I do it, not for the gender I belong to. I want a world where I am not shamed for my body, whichever way it is. I want a world where my brothers are allowed to cry as much as I am, feel frightened as much as I do, and stand by their opinions, like real men, no judgement. I want a world where there are no more stained glasses partitioning us from reality. I want a world where there are liberal views on people, in general. 

I want a world where we women are celebrated, not only today, not only tomorrow, but every single day.

I'm sure we all do.

-Tiara Arora ,Class XII

cleopatratia18@gmail.com