An Introduction to Feminism

Why are some people incapable of accepting gender equality at work but not inside the home? 

Why do some people see gender equality only as economic parity? 

Why don’t they see the need for positive discrimination for women? 

The answer is, they don’t know what they are doing. What we can do best is to accept it and forgive. However, we should not stop the resistance. 

I understand why feminists are angry. The reason is that basic things are not understood, accepted and appreciated. This is because people just follow what has been happening in every area of life without questioning. Einstein found gravity when he questioned the obvious. 

Somewhere there is a huge chasm between community and society. Community supports but society pressurizes. However, if the force of the bigger of the two is higher (which is the case mostly) then, the community cannot support its individuals. They are too small. 

This is why the feminists said, “Personal is political”. They said it because it is impossible to break though these historical chains without organizing ourselves and fighting for our rights as a group. We cannot focus on only changing the mindset of a few individuals. The change has to be massive for the mindset that has not changed for eons to bend.

Those who aren’t feminists often ask, “why do we need to fight and why are we aggressive”? My response is, that screams reflect the pain. Non- feminists, try to convince the feminists to ignore those aspects of gender discrimination which do not cause any physical harm. To this my response is, a title doesn’t cause any harm, what is in a name, idol worship doesn’t make sense; however, words create reality (Sankalp se Srishti) and that you can’t spit on a god’s idol. Things might not cause harm evidently and crudely, but why let unnecessary practices which harm subtly and which are based on gender based discrimination exist? It is better to follow the constitution rather than blindly follow traditions that are discriminatory and unnecessary. 

Non- feminists either don’t understand feminism or are unempathetic. Not being a feminist is not justifiable in modern day constitutional democracy. This I say to those who want to agree to disagree. They cannot afford to and should not be allowed to either. 

Also, it is necessary to mention that feminism extends to valuing feminine attributes that are in humanity as much as the masculine values. At present the world is quite lopsided. Feminism also means no gender based discrimination against men as well. Feminism is not at all anti-men. It is only about equality, justice and freedom. However, it sure does make non-feminists men and women uncomfortable.