“Feminism can’t pay your bills”– This statement can be depicted through multiple lenses, but for me, it’s personal & my own living experience in itself.
Today I am writing while I am grieving the loss I have experienced because of systematic oppression. I will not be calling out one person, organization or an institution but the whole structure which reeks of oppression.
I am going to weep, curse & scream about how from a very young age, I didn’t get an opportunity to be a part of a little dance performance, sports day, fancy dress, annual school function, or debates because I came from a certain marginalized community, I wasn’t elite & rich enough to take kathak, Bharatnatyam classes or any other skills which can contribute in my early development.
Yes, my parents made sure that I got the best education which they didn’t receive but little did they know that their best was not enough for the world. They didn’t understand how taking part in school functions would help me grow, boost my self-confidence & let me explore. When I was young, I used to blame them a lot for forcing me to drop out of any extracurricular activity and for not having the time to drop me off for practice or rent a costume for me, but I was so naive that I didn’t understand how it was a marginalised people’s issue along with economic disparity which led them not to allow us to take part; how their inability to understand institutional school hierarchy led us to not pursue anything; how their lack of education, generational wealth & exposure to this upper-class world will cause lifelong harm to their children.
Most importantly how being a Muslim will make their little ones suffer as this marginalization wasn’t limited to me gaining skills but also making friends. When I was a kid, I used to love my locality, but ignorance is bliss & the clear class, caste & religious-based discrimination was always hidden in plain sight in front of me. Children from elite households lived in Porsche colonies, which had access to so many resources & I used to live in a congested area where all the marginalized communities lived together. Now I know why Dalits & Muslims stick together because they have shared some kind of reality. Now I know why no one wanted to be our friend. Being oppressed wasn’t limited to getting opportunities and making friends but the essential task of the day, eating food. I experienced this discrimination at a very young age.
It started when I was in my second standard. My classmates used to shame me for bringing bread & omelette, how this made me not bring lunch and stay hungry for 8 hours straight. All this was tolerated because I was a kid & had very little understanding of why I couldn’t have equal space.
I have felt discriminated against at multiple stages of my life. But when I experience discrimination & disrespect for my intersection in today’s life, it pierces me at a deeper level because now I have worked twice as hard to achieve all the skills & prove myself worthy enough to be accepted by the oppressors. I learnt English (the biggest status symbol), got my Master’s degree from a reputable institution, researched a bunch of topics became skilled to acquire the job I wanted but all these efforts weren’t enough.
I was unaware that I have to relive every trauma I had ever witnessed in my life all over again. When I started the job hunt, I had the scores, skills & experience to land a job which would help me be self-sufficient and free of domestic violence, but I didn’t know that I would settle for jobs that didn’t suit my interest & qualifications. This part of my life is something I can’t even comprehend.
The rage & disappointment I feel inside me in words, the systematic oppression of religion, gender, and patriarchy, has hit me so hard that I am feeling an emotion that makes me question my identity, the reason for my constant oppression all the time while not being able to do what I really want to do because I want to pay my medical bills, support my family & take care of my mental health while doing all of this different kind of emotional & physical labour.
I have seen people coming from privileged backgrounds & different educational streams taking up space in the development sector because they’ve been privileged enough to be wonderful public speakers. They had access to resources, and I had to work twice as hard to learn. Even when I got these skills, I didn’t have a space or a guide to practice those skills, which leads to a lack of
self-confidence & self-worth with an increasing amount of imposter syndrome. This has led to so many mental breakdowns & in the end, settling for a job beyond my qualifications because, obviously, my feminism will not pay my bills, but exploitation of my labour will.
First, I tried to curse my teacher from school for not picking me for stage performances because I was a Muslim kid, but today I look into the mirror & question my existence.
In this contemporary world where people are constantly using words like intersection, inclusion & diversity but how should I tell them that bringing diversity isn’t being inclusive? The development sector in itself has become a hoax of pseudo-liberalism. I have decided to pour my heart out without thinking about my political correctness, as this system failure has turned out to be my
failure. Which is not actually how it started.
I completed my Masters in 2020 & since then, all I am facing is a systematic failure. The development sector’s recruitment process has become & another act of ‘let’s pretend we are woke’. I have been given jobs without job descriptions just because they can, without any guidance. I have been told to be professional in ways no one told me before because I am the first generation in my family who has done her master’s in gender studies & opted to have a job to be self-sufficient and liberate myself from the shackles of patriarchy.
I wish I had gotten a guide to navigating these spaces of privileged people, but nobody talks about the hurdles I was supposed to have before getting a job I actually deserved & was subjected to do all sorts of work for the sake of being professional. To be honest, I feel this happened because I come from a marginalized community with a house full of domestic violence; thus, I never really thought I had the option to bargain or negotiate with authorities about my needs & wants, as I was always taught to adapt & survive within the systematic oppression & not ask but work twice as hard to prove I am worthy enough to look at, recognised.
I was a tokenistic diversity trophy for these people, not a human but an agenda to show how diverse their organisations are.
However, all this discrimination made me more desperate to work for the cause I wanted to, act inappropriately & break the so-called professional norms, which led me to give ideas to other people who were able to get an opportunity in the same field. I have seen people using my ideas, and my knowledge for their benefit & taking credit for it as if it was their own.
All of this impacted my mental health to an extent that today I shiver when I speak for myself, my anxiety has increased, my imposter syndrome shot to the sky, I fear public speaking & avoid applying for opportunities which require this, I hide behind & try to act as if I am invisible, I do all kinds of work to sustain a job because “Feminism se paet nahi palta” (Feminism can’t pay my bills.), I have had experiences where I had to nod along with an abusive authority while they were using sexist terminology, screaming at me because “Feminism se paet nahi palta“, we can promote Feminism in theory, but in reality, these are just theories & power dynamics, different kinds of intersections & marginalized will always force you to surrender in front of the people in power with skills they got from generational wealth & class hierarchy.
In the end, you settle for what you get, not what you want.
In all honesty, complaining, screaming & being vulnerable, I will remain part of the resistance & keep having uncomfortable conversations so that no one should experience what I did. I will not let the systematic oppression grind me & take what is rightfully mine, my will, integrity & spirit to keep fighting for what feels right to me will remain constant, no matter how much the
system wants to break it.