Yes Queen!
Monday, March 8, 2021
It’s March 8th, which means it’s the day my family stays away from me lest I call them out about their misogynistic approach they shared with me 20 years ago.
Kidding. It’s Women’s Day!
Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I’m a feminist. It infuriates me when I watch old movies where a woman’s tied up by the bad guy, yelling and screaming for help, and the hero bursts into the room on a motorbike, beats up the bad guys and rescues the woman.
Okay, I’ve just described almost every 80s movie ever, but why?
Now the situation’s much better. We have woman-centered movies and shows. Any discriminatory approach by a person is immediately called out by the public. Women are given enough freedom to pursue what they want in life.
That does not mean that it’s a paradise for women now.
They (I’m not a woman yet) have to constantly look over their shoulder and stay on their spider senses whenever they go outside. People won’t let a woman do what she wants without commenting, or as the kids call it, mansplaining about her choices. They’re constantly made to feel ashamed about their ‘rebellious’ life and are made to believe that they don’t have a scope outside of a circle.
Most people, even if they respect women, don’t respect feminism. In today’s age and time, feminism has become synonymous with man-haters or feminazis. The feminism that most people have in their mind is a disrespectful woman who plays the victim card, calls out people on things that aren’t her concern at all and treats people like garbage. I assure you. That is not feminism.
Feminism is asking for respect and change in the community. Feminism is educating people on things that they have a wrong perception about. If you don’t treat men the way you want to be treated by them, you’re not a feminist. I hope you understand the cold hard truth now, Karens.
To quote Tumblr: Feminism should be renamed to something else, like common sense.
Let me give you a recent example. We all know that harassment and abuse is wrong.
Maybe a 100 years ago harassment was done for amusement and entertainment, but now no one is entertained by this. Almost everyone knows it’s wrong, but why it’s wrong, that differs from person to person.
50% of the Indian population is enraged by abuse because it’s , well, abuse. It’s wrong to treat a woman like she’s an object of entertainment and it’s super wrong to subject her to things without consent. This is why rape and abuse is actually wrong.
The other 50% is enraged by abuse because it brings down the respect, honor and pride of their family legacy.
No, this is not something that only happens in movies. Families go great lengths to make sure that whether or not their daughter or son is fine, nothing happens to their reputation. They will blame their daughter for the completely ordinary dress that she wore, they will blame her for going outside in the first case, they will blame her for roaming around in places she wasn’t supposed to be
in, but they will never consider the fact that it wasn’t their daughter’s fault and the person who is at fault is still at large, facing no punishment. They’re so engrossed in stopping the neighbors from talking about them and stopping anyone from shaming their family that they forget that their daughter’s justice comes first.
In fact, victim shaming is still a huge problem everywhere.
Girls can relate. Every single one over the age of 10 can. We’re constantly told to stop ‘asking for it’ by random people who have nothing to do with our life, we’re stripped of our individuality and lose our choice of dressing the way we want to.
Even the ones reading this right now will go, “Prevention is better than cure, Krithika”. And I agree. It is better than cure. So educate the men that you find and put them to justice instead of asking women to change out of our leather jackets and jeans. That is the only way we can make a difference in consent and rape.
Coming back to the Supreme Court case.
This case happened in 2014-15, so it’s almost 6 years that the assaulter wasn’t brought to justice. The assaulter was 17-18 at the time of the incident and the girl was in the ninth grade. The. Ninth. Grade. She was assaulted by the man and was threatened by him by informing her that he would pour acid on her and kill her brother if she didn’t oblige. Now, the girl, six years later, is married off to someone so she refused the remark made by the Supreme Court judge if she was ready to marry her assaulter.
In this situation, is the man brought to justice? Is the woman free of her burden? Will it benefit her trauma and the trauma of those around her?
No, no and no.
It’s 2021, for heaven’s sake. We can believe in metal cans that fly us around the world, talking to someone from 200 miles away and life on Mars by 2030, but somehow it’s so hard for people to believe in the fact that women deserve the same rights as men.
And if a woman gets all strong and powerful and rides motorbikes and works a job, she apparently gets too empowered and gets frowned upon by literally an entire community. Forget about my career, I want to become this kind of woman when I grow up.
I’m tired of boundaries. If you’re still misogynistic in 2021 that’s your fault. You may be raised in a discriminatory environment but that doesn’t have to play a part in what kind of person you become towards the other gender. Being a misogynist is wrong, but being a feminazi is equally wrong. Feminism isn’t fighting to be a rebel or fighting to be a jerk, as many people think of it. It’s simply a fight for equal treatment, which can improve the lives of many girls around the world. Boys are expected to get a job after education and stabilize themselves financially, while women aren’t even given a chance for education. You may think your misogyny is right, but just sharing your opinion on how women are inferior disrupts the dreams and goals of so many girls. Think about this the next time you watch Wonder Woman and want to tell the theatre how Diana can’t be this strong because she’s a woman.
Not only this Women’s Day, but in every Women’s Day, educate yourself. There are so many websites that you can look through and work towards restoring equality. Whether you’re a man or a woman, we can always make the world a better place to live in. It starts with the small steps you take.
And hopefully, with these small steps, Indian industry actors make a movie where they’ve got to be rescued by a woman. We’re terribly short on that, don’t you think?
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