Rescued by a Feminist : An Indian fairy tale of equality and other myths: An Indian tale of equality and other myths

by Saloni Chopra

The assumption that you can exist and not be part of change is the problem because you’re still changing this world when you’re choosing to be complacent. Ask yourself if that’s the kind of change you wish to be a part of.

Imagine a scenario where as soon as you (a man) were born, society gave you four apples, but when I was born, they gave me just two apples, even though neither of us did anything to deserve less or more. However, we go on to live our lives happily together, oblivious of what these apples are even for, let alone each other’s unfair apple division. One day, I finally realise that you have more apples than me, and I want the same amount as well because it turns out that having fewer apples from the day I was born makes my life so much harder and far more restricted than yours, and I demand it because I deserve the same things as you. When you were younger, you thought so too, but we grew up with completely different lives and now you’re not so sure anymore. But some sections of our society fight to make a new rule: you must share just one of your apples with me in order to have fairness. I am then suddenly a threat to you and your apples, aren’t I? If you have to let go of something that’s been only yours and share it with me, that’s a threat to your power, your ownership, isn’t it? My demand for equal rights is a threat to you because so many of the privileges you were simply born with are being taken away/shared with others. It’s normal for you to feel momentarily attacked because you’ve been so used to living life with more apples than me, but should I be sorry for demanding the same equality as you? No. Should I give up? No. Should I be violent or arrogant? No. Is it your...

“Am I enough? Can I ever be enough? Yes, I can be. I am enough” is a great place to begin. “I know I am enough. A lot of people may not be right for me, and maybe I’m not right for them, but I’m not going to let their expectations of my body, my life, or my achievements bother me. I will filter out toxic people because I am enough” is just perfect. “I am enough. In fact, I am more than enough. Why should I change anything for any of them? Why should I listen to what they’re saying or care if I’m hurting them? I am enough, and I never need to change anything in order to love” is self-centred.

Having a job, dreams, money in our accounts, and short denim shorts doesn’t change the fact that we as womxn are still conditioned to seek desperate approval from a man’s family.

make sure you choose someone that loves you for who you are, someone that supports you and agrees with you, someone that takes your side when the whole world doesn’t, and is not intimidated by your strength and your strong sense of individuality. Because how far you go, who you become, and how you raise the future generation has a lot to do with the kind of person you marry/spend your life with. Choose wisely and know that this journey is still going to be tough.

The reason men have a choice whether or not to do unpaid work is because womxn don’t.

But it isn’t the same when you oppress the already oppressed because you are validating and reinforcing the inequality, contributing to the injustice certain people face on a daily basis.

If the choices you make are actively contributing towards the oppression of groups of people, then it isn’t just a simple choice anymore; it’s a choice you must be more aware of while making it because you’re part of a bigger problem and will eventually be held accountable for it.

even though so many of them are ahead of us in this war, they are still at war, and on most days, they are fighting for the same rights that we might want to fight for in the coming years—freedom of choice.

catcalling, pay gap, inequality, unpaid labour, domestic violence, sexual harassment, rape and/or death threats in person and on the internet, abortion rights, being disrespected for simply being a womxn, unfair gender roles, lack of control over their own bodies.

just because they’re more privileged than us doesn’t mean they aren’t fighting the same fight.

In many villages, womxn don’t wear a bra. Bras are an unnecessary luxury a lot of them can’t afford/don’t care for. Think about it, some womxn are in awe of lingerie, some are fighting to remove it, some want to normalise it, others want to erase the taboo around it, and some just don’t understand what all the fucking fuss is about.

One woman’s battlefield is another womxn’s love boat, and it’s not my job to decide what’s what for any of them.

we as womxn are all fighting different battles and that is a point worth focusing on.

Why is it that a woman’s parents after marriage automatically consider themselves a liability for the couple, while a man’s parents consider themselves to be a responsibility?

Choose to talk about why you’ve chosen to be the person you are, where the desires come from.

Breaking rules, changing norms, altering social structures requires courage, and courage requires you to not give a fuck about what people say to/about you… Because people will say things, and you won’t always be able to do anything about it, but if you let their words get to you, then you have already lost half the battle.

your pain is yours to feel. No one else can decide what is painful to you.

Feminism isn’t about you and me, and it sure as hell isn’t about the people that identify themselves as one yet do nothing but cause harm. Feminism isn’t the people that take advantage of the system, nor the ones that pretend to care about lives while they abuse their own rights. Feminism is equality and equity for all. For womxn, for men, and for everybody else. Feminism promotes uplifting womxn and gives men an opportunity to be more vulnerable. Feminism says why shouldn’t we have more stay-at-home dads and househusbands if that’s what men wish to do with their time? Why shouldn’t we have two people earn in a relationship to take the load off of one? Why shouldn’t queer rights be the same as heterosexual rights, and why don’t we give equal respect to the trans community? Why shouldn’t people be allowed to identify as they instead of him or her? Feminism—because everybody deserves more than just the right to speak; they deserve an audience, they deserve to be heard.

feminism.

It is this hole that men and women have dug for decades and generations before me, and even though I don’t want to be in this hole, as a womxn, I was born in it, and every day I just keep digging deeper and deeper. It’s almost like I’m not digging to get anywhere, I’m digging because I don’t know any better.

It’s one thing to understand these sacrifices, and another to admire them. There is nothing admirable about letting go of yourself and continuously putting up with abuse. She shouldn’t have had to, and yet she did. She surely deserves an award for doing it, but what she also deserves is support and help. What she deserves is for you to remember to give her her voice back. She deserves for you to treat her with the same respect as you treat your father instead of occasionally snapping at her because mothers are soft-hearted and god-sent, unconditionally loving creatures that love their children and would give up everything for the happiness of their family. Mothers, unfortunately—to be damn good ones at that—are required to stop seeing themselves as individual human beings with passions and desires and opinions, as working womxn, as bosses, as human beings. Mothers are set up to fail because once you’re a mother, everything else doesn’t seem to matter. In order to be a good mother or a good wife, a woman has to first let go of herself.

We don’t respect mothers for the same reasons we respect our fathers. We don’t respect women for leaving a loveless marriage or for working late nights to build their careers. We don’t respect womxn for getting remarried as many times as they fall in love or for standing their ground/leaving when they feel disrespected. We encourage women to have no identity outside of being a wife and a mother. How often do you see boys in an Indian society growing up daydreaming about their weddings and becoming dads? No, they’re being told to be masculine, be strong, get a job, and be successful. Women are being conditioned to be good wives and mothers. Most conversations around the house are “learn this, beta, one day when you’re a mother, you’re going to need it,” but we’ve conveniently skipped the whole section of upbringing where we teach the same things to men because one day they’re going to be fathers and husbands and should they not know how to cook, clean, change diapers, wash clothes, respect womxn, stay hygienic, learn to stitch a button, be vulnerable, and forgive with compassion, maybe?

Once womxn are successful and actually hold enough power to implement a change in the system, once they have a voice, we tell them that they aren’t one of us anymore, that they’re hypocrites, that their voices don’t have any credibility because they sold out and cashed in on it.

Feminism for me is as minuscule as a girl demanding to wear shorts at home, or spreading her legs as she binge-watches TV with her brother who does the same. Feminism is a girl demanding that she be allowed to play volleyball, football, or whatever the hell she likes, instead of being forced to learn to make round rotis. Feminism is her desire to feel an orgasm, to learn more about her vagina and what turns her on. Feminism is about her right to education, her own body, as well as her contraceptive rights. Feminism is her basic right to life—the same right to life that we celebrate when it’s a boy. Yes, feminism is intersectional and racial and political. Feminism is radical, and feminism is the equality of sexes. Feminism is educating womxn and eradicating female foeticide. Feminism is body positivity and sexual awareness. But in which world did we decide that feminism can only be one or the other?

“Why feminist? Why not just equalist?” even though no one questions why our entire species is called mankind. You’d be a drama queen then.