Skip to main content

Flames of feminism

 

‘I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is,” said Rebecca West, well-known British writer and thinker. She went on to say that people called her a feminist whenever she expressed “sentiments that differentiated (her) from a doormat or prostitute.”

The very concept called ‘feminism’ underwent much evolution from the time it made its presence felt in the 19th century. A leading feminist, Elaine Showalter, identifies three phases in that evolution. First, there is what she calls the “feminine” phase [1840-1880] during which women writers imitated the dominant tradition. The feminists of this time did not dare to stand up against the men but showed that they were no less than the domineering men as far as capabilities are concerned.

In the second phase which Showalter calls the “feminist” phase [1880-1920], the feminists asserted their rights and protested vehemently against oppressions by men. It was followed by the “female” phase [1920 onwards] which focused on a rediscovery of women as they are instead of as enemies of men or as social constructs or something of the sort.

A woman is as much an individual as a man. She has all the rights that the man has. She deserves every good thing that the man gets. Real feminism should be about those rights, dignity, equality, and so on and not about childish reactions to silly men on social media or elsewhere.

Recently some women artistes in Kerala took feminism to one of its primitive phases by posting their own semi-naked photos on social media as a mark of protest against some men (boys probably) who had apparently questioned one particular artiste’s baring of her legs. This was a rather silly and very girlish reaction. Of course, the reaction came from people who looked rather like girls than mature women. When it comes from boys and girls, there is fun in it and one need not take it too seriously.

Coincidently at the same time I came across the following post on the Facebook timeline of a serious thinker and writer.


It attracted quite a few responses the most interesting of which came from a woman whom I once described as “the rage of a wildfire” after a very brief association with her on Facebook and no other connection. There is a fire in her soul which might not be “so poetic” as I described, she responded to my comment. In one of her responses to the above FB question she said candidly that she did wage a “war against patriarchy and rules for women” but added that the war is not feminism. She calls it “rebellion, women’s liberation, etc…”

What the above artistes did was just that: rebellion, and rather girlish too.

My FB feminist friend above makes it lucid enough in another part of her comment: “Feminism… is the proud embracing of femininity, and claiming its rightful place in the world, which is neither above nor below anyone or anything else.” A few pregnant lines down she says, “Looking through a wider, more holistic lens though, there exists femininity and masculinity in each of us regardless of our gender. Sometimes one is amplified and sometimes the other. This separation of womanly behaviour, feelings, etc or manly behaviour, feelings, etc, are constructs of what we have come to call the matrix… in order for the powers that be to enforce their agendas on us.”

There is fire in this feminist. But it is not the wild fire that burns one’s own clothes according to one’s own convenience [to show off beautiful legs, for example]. This is the fire of the real feminist – the real rebel a la Albert Camus. This fire is seasoned and tempered by storms and deluges over years. The young artistes may take a lesson from that. I rest my case.

 

PS. I have absolutely no issues with girls showing off their physical charms. I’m not questioning the baring indulged in by the girls in the above picture or anyone at all. I admire beauty including the feminine version of it. My concern is whether this new gen artistes will grow up from girlish rebellion into the mature rage of a wildfire.

Comments

  1. In my humble opinion, both feminism and masculism are totally discardable. Humanism only should be embraced by all the human-beings considering the fellow human-beings as equals may it be males or females or transgenders.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, that's what it should be. No one is superior to the other. Man and woman are complementary, not binary opposites. Then as you have pointed out, there are the transgenders too who have their place.

      Delete
  2. Very insightful article on feminism. This new form of feminism could be just a publicity stunt for self promotion rather than bringing attention to the gender inequality which is still prevalent in our society.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have argued in quite a few places that too many good things are spoilt because they are popularised. When too many unthinking people take over good things, the greatness will surely be lost. This doesn't mean that good things should remain elite. It means that the people need to start thinking a little more seriously, deeply.

      Delete
  3. It does seem like everybody has their own definition of the word 'feminism.' I think I'll stick to that which talks of equal opportunities despite the gender. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For the rightly informed people, feminism is about equal rights and opportunities. The rest is aberration.

      Delete
  4. The way and the means being adopted to portray or fight for feminism equal rights etc has gone so wrong that the word feminism seems to be trying to creep out of the dictionary these days! Because of all these silly portrayal of feminism the real issues related to the cause are somewhere dying a thousand deaths!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is the real tragedy. Because of certain immature and silly people, the real issues get sidelines.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Prelude to AtoZ

  From Garden of 5 Senses, Delhi [file pic] Hindsight gives an unearthly charm and order to the past. There can be pain too. A lot of things could have been different, much better, if only we possessed the wisdom of our old age back in those days. As a writer put it, Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear and a lot of those guys must have thought, “I wish I had known this some time ago.” Life is a series of errors with intermittent achievements. The only usefulness of the errors may be the lessons they teach us. Probably, that is their purpose too. We are created to err so that we learn, I dare to put it that way. I turn 64 in a month’s time. It’s not inappropriate to look back at some of the people whom life brought into my life so that I would learn certain lessons. No, I don’t mean to say that life has any such purpose or design or anything. Life is absurd. People come into your life as haphazardly as vehicles ply on your road or birds poop on your head. Some of these people change the chemist

Why I won’t vote

From Deshabhimani , Malayalam weekly Exactly a month from today is the Parliamentary election in my state of Kerala. This time, I’m not going to vote. Bernard Shaw defined democracy , with his characteristic cynicism, as “ a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve .” We elect our government in a democracy. And the government invariably sucks our blood – whichever the party is. The BJP and the Congress are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee though the former makes all sorts of other claims day in and day out. BJP = Congress + the holy cow. The holy cow has turned out to be quite a vampire and that makes a difference, no doubt. In our Prime Minister’s algebra, it is: (a+b) 2 which should be equal to a 2 and b 2 . There is an extra 2ab which is the holy cow. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm , the animals revolt against the human master and set up their own nationalist republic. Soon politics develops in the republic and some pigs become leaders. The porcine

How Arvind Kejriwal can save himself

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have a clear vision. Eliminate all opposition. Decimate them or absorb them. My previous post [link below] showed a few people decimated by them. Today let’s look at the others: those who are saved by joining the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]. 1. Himanta Biswa Sarma  This guy was in Congress and faced serious charges related to the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam. He also faced corruption charges related to drinking water supply in Guwahati. His house was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI]. Then he switched over to BJP and all his crimes just vanished. It’s as simple as taking a dip in the Ganga and all your sins are forgiven. Today he is the chief minister of Assam. Nothing is heard of all the charges that were levelled against him. 2. Amarinder Singh  This former Captain in the Indian Army was a Congressman until Modi’s Enforcement Directorate [ED] started raiding him, his son and his son-in-law. He put an end to all those raid

The Good Old World

Book Review Title: Dukhi Dadiba and irony of fate Author: Dadi Edulji Taraporewala Translators: Aban Mukherji and Tulsi Vatsal Publisher: Ratna Books, Delhi, 2023 Pages: 314 If you want to return to the good old days of the late 19 th century, this is an ideal novel for you. This was published originally in Gujarati in 1913. It appeared as a serial before that from 1898 onwards in a periodical. The conflict between good and evil is the dominant motif though there is romance, betrayal, disappointment, regret, and pretty much of traditional morality. Reading this novel is quite like watching an old Bollywood movie, 1960s style. Ardeshir Bahadurshah, a wealthy Parsi aristocrat in Surat, dies having obligated his son Jehangir to find out his long-lost brother Rustom. Rustom was Bahadurshah’s son in his first marriage. The mother died when the boy was too small and the nurse who looked after the child vanished with it one day. Ratanmai, Bahadurshah’s present wife, takes her

Kejriwal’s Arrest in Modi’s Kurukshetra

For some mysterious reason, Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest reminded me of Haren Pandya. Maybe, because Pandya’s 21 st death anniversary is approaching (26 March). Have you forgotten Haren Pandya? He was the Home Minister of Gujarat before Narendra Modi assumed dictatorial powers in that state. Modi chose to teach humility to Pandya by making him the Minister of State for revenue. Pandya chose not to learn humility from Modi and resigned from that post in Aug 2002. Remember Gujarat of 2002? You should. A fire engulfed a train on 27 Feb 2002 killing 58 Hindu pilgrims who were returning from Ayodhya where they had gone to discover their god, not very unlike Christopher Columbus undertaking a voyage to discover India and messing it all up. What caused the fire in the train? Lord Ram knows probably. The upshot was that there was a riot in Gujarat by Hindus against Muslims. Haren Pandya is one of the BJP leaders who gave statements in many places indicting Modi for the riots. He asser