Recently one of my friends commenting on a TV series said, “I didn’t like it because it was too much about women.”
Oh, did I forget to tell you that this friend was a woman?
Whenever I ask people about their views on feminism I get very extreme responses. There is a set of people who would stand by how women have been oppressed for so long, how hundreds of years of patriarchy have led to this, and then, there is another set who would say that they don’t like aggressive arguments about feminism or ‘anti-men’ arguments. Both sets include people from all genders.
So, what is feminism all about? Why this noble idea is dividing humans instead of uniting them? To understand this, we need to begin by tracing the difference between ‘gender’ and ‘sex’.
Sex Vs Gender
‘Sex’ refers to the biological differences between male and female bodies, such as the genitalia and genetic differences. ‘Gender’ refers to the prescribed role of a male or female in a society. For example, a lot of stereotypes existing in our society are because of gender constraints and not because of biological constraints.
Feminism in itself talks about equality and has nothing inclined towards women or against men. However, we often see feminist arguments in favor of women, because for years they were considered as a weaker gender, hence it includes fighting gender stereotypes and seeking to establish equal opportunities for women.
Feminism is all about equality and it opposes any prejudice or stereotypes associated with gender. So, feminism would oppose someone pointing out that a woman’s body language is ‘manly’ and it would also oppose pointing out that a man’s body language is ‘girly’.
The Process Of Gendering: How It All Begins
Gendering is the process of associating something specifically with one of the two (common) genders. No girl wants to hear that she looks manly. No boy wants to hear that he looks girly.
Gender has been so deeply embedded in our world that right from our childhood, we are trained to ‘behave’ in a certain way because we are a ‘boy’/‘girl’. We are made aware of the gender attributes, choice of clothes, toys, body language, gestures, pronouns, voice, hair cut, makeup, physique, mannerism and what not. We were learning chauvinism in the name of manners, sanskaar, and tehzeeb.
I grew up with two elder sisters and at times I was discouraged to play with them because they were playing girls’ games. I remember my mom pointing out to ‘correct’ my walk because it was ‘girly’. My parents were not wrong, they didn’t want me to become an odd one out and hence, they constantly trained me for it. In my school, boys with long hair were punished in the most humiliating manner, they were made to sit among girls with their hair tied in a ponytail. That was a difficult situation because we badly wanted to cry – but had to control it to avoid further humiliation because boys don’t cry.
Gendering is a rigorous two-decade-long training process which we say is natural. What order does it bring into society?
If you take any random attribute it will be placed somewhere on the scale of gender consisting the two common genders at the extreme ends. We constantly force ourselves to reach one of those extremes. I remember around 7th or 8th standard, boys of my school suddenly started acquiring machoism. Everybody around us suddenly expected us to be brave, courageous, strong and what not. I was shit scared of dogs and insects, but I was more scared of the humiliation that I will face if my schoolmates found out about my fears. It was difficult to sustain the immense pressure of ‘being a man’. Many of us must have struggled at least once in achieving those extremes at the gender scale. But the society is so gendered that it’s a nightmare for any parent that their offspring will land somewhere in the middle of this scale.
We see a lot of feminists aggressively attacking, slamming people here and there for the gender stereotypes. Are they making any positive contribution towards this movement?
The problem here is that, no matter how much we consciously try to talk about gender equality, un-gender ourselves and become ‘politically’ correct, but subconsciously we ALL are strongly conditioned to this polarization of gender and react accordingly.
If you meet a person who doesn’t acknowledge patriarchy or gendered society. Don’t start blaming them. They just have strong conditioning of years. Try to accept the fact that most people will not easily realize what’s in the air, because toxic masculinity and patriarchy is not a conscious decision of today’s men, for most of them it has been the ‘right’ way of living till now, which has suddenly become ‘politically’ wrong. You can never change their mind by attacking them, it will only make them more rigid.
If something is legally wrong, we must make full efforts to get the culprits punished as per the law, but if there’s something which isn’t exactly illegal, then there is a long way to go, and attacking or slamming is the last thing we should do. This gendered society is like a disease. We all are suffering from it and the worst part is some people don’t even know that they are suffering from it. We should help each other rather than attacking each other.
My idea of feminism is that each one of us is different and let’s not label people around us. Let us try to create a world where we don’t engage in teaching our kids what a boy or girl should do and rather focus on how to be good, non-judgemental human beings. They are free to do anything they want, as long as they are not hurting others. They are free to express however they want to express, they are free to love whoever they want. That’s feminism for you!
Road To Feminism
1. Change starts from within, my road to feminism starts by gradually un-gendering myself as much as I can. Different people can have different limits, but extend your boundaries. It will have its repercussions, it might make you the odd one out, but that’s how any great movement works.
2. Educate others, politely tell them about how the gendered society is embedded in our lives. Don’t attack them for their stereotypes.
Nobody is a perfect feminist today. It’s not possible to undo thousands of years of gendering in a few months or years. The perfect state of feminism is still a thing of the future. Feminism cannot be achieved aggressively, it’s a marathon, you have to be patient and polite. It’s my Gandhian way to feminism.
PS: The above article is based on limited knowledge and limited experiences of my life. Happy to hear contradicting views and learn something new.