A friend just asked me to send her one line on what feminism
is and what it is not. Obviously writing all of that in just one line turned
out to be quite the impossible exercise and I ended up sending in a rather
mediocre sentence. But what did happen is that it got me thinking. What is
feminism? Or as is probably the right way to phrase that question, what is
feminism to me?
In my head, feminism wears a crop top and malli poo. Because
she can. She sports a nose ring, and chuckles at anyone who asks for the logic
of piercing one side over the other. She is quiet but assertive, self-assured
but not aggressive, not because aggression is wrong but because it just isn’t
her. She is the cheekiness that says in response to a blessing of “finding a good
man and having many children” that the two are rather disconnected, don’t you
think? She asks one too many uncomfortable questions, has no problems
whatsoever discussing the gory details of her period and what a pain in every
sense it could be, and silently tracks The Ladies Finger posts on social media.
She chooses her battles, picks her fights, and yet, makes sure she stands her
ground where it matters (to her, of course). Yes, she will most definitely keep
her maiden name. No, nothing will happen to the pickle if you touch it, and no
matter what a genius move that campaign was, Whisper will be frowned upon as
long as it shows blue ink and white shorts.
Feminism is you and me, yesterday and tomorrow, on good days
and bad. It is us with our hair in a messy bun, loafing around in a boyfriend’s
old grey t-shirt looking at PhD applications knowing we will be touching thirty
when we see it through. It is us in silk saris and decked up in jewellery at a
cousin’s cousin’s cousin’s wedding, pointedly telling the neighbour uncle’s
father that sure, the euphemistic next meal might be at your house, but he may
end up starving a while. It is us through all the gritting and grinning,
through conversations with strangers (“no, my father didn’t ‘allow’ me to
study”) and siblings (“no, you can wipe the table clean this time). It is every
day.
The thing is, feminism is fast becoming the new F-word in
town. As adolescents get more and more numbed to the traditionally censored,
this is quickly taking its place. We all know enough, seen enough, hopefully
read enough to know that feminism isn’t about man-hating, bra-burning and
yelling till the cows go home. Sure, there is some amount of it that has
happened, but like most other social movements, feminism has a history, a trajectory,
a moment in time that gives all these things one particular characteristic that
we so often sorely miss out. Context. But this is the thing, this isn’t a
history lesson on the different waves of the feminist movement. I am not here
to write about the suffragette movement and The Declaration of the Rights of
the Woman and the Female Citizen. As I was replying to my friend’s text, I
found myself pulled towards making personal statements. What was it to me? What
was it not? Who was I to commit to universals?
Back in the second year of college, a professor (who then
went on to mould so many of us in so many different ways) asked which of us
identify as a feminist. It felt like a trick question that none of us knew the
“right” answer to. I remember a few people tentatively raising their hands
while the rest of us tried to understand what she asked, what it meant, and
what it made us. And three years later, many of us are still on that path. But
coming back to me.
Feminism for me lies in the small steps, in the everyday, in
the formation of new habits. I became a feminist when, after years of being
told I was too big and fat for shorts, I walked out to my mess hall in a denim
pair that made me feel great. I became a feminist when I decided I wouldn’t change
my last name whenever I got married, because I had spent an awful lot of time
building up this identity. I became a feminist when I consciously stopped
equating unwaxed underarms with tardiness, though I never crossed that line
myself. I became a feminist when we all finally said the words out loud,
accepting what we were all thinking anyway – what a pain wearing a bra is! I
became a feminist when I called out my parents every time they inadvertently
made sexist remarks; ability to describe men, physicality to describe women. I
became a feminist when car conversations slowly transformed. I became a
feminist when I reminded myself to use gender-neutral adjectives when writing
my articles, replacing ‘super-cool Mr. X and gorgeous Ms. Y’ with ‘super-cool Mr.
X and amazing Ms.Y,’ both just as much a stranger to me as the other. I became
a feminist when I reminded myself to dream after a conversation with one of my
thesis interviewees who mentioned how subconsciously we teach girls not to
dream in the long run because who knows what lies on the other side of
marriage? I became a feminist when, so many times through the course of a meal,
the waiter would ask Sir for the order, check with Sir about the food, and hand
Sir the bill, even if the Sir in question was my brother five years younger
than me and broke. I became a feminist when I watched my mother, a woman who
didn’t have the academic vocabulary but still taught me that my periods
shouldn’t stop me from anything at all, that God doesn’t care that I am bleeding,
and that my conscience is my judge. I
became a feminist when a girl in my classroom, faced with a tough essay,
retorted that she would just get married after 10th grade and I
promised myself it wouldn’t be for a lack of choice.
But I also became a feminist when I chose not to apply for a
PhD. I also became a feminist when I decided that the day I get married, I will
not protest the kanya dhaanam, no matter how archaic and patriarchal it may be,
because the romanticism of that moment is too dear. I am as much a feminist
when I open a door as when I walk through it first. I am as much a feminist
when I pay the bill as when someone else does, independent of their gender
identity. I am a feminist because I choose my stances, pick my battles, make my
peace with where I stand on this spectrum. I am a feminist because *I* make
those decisions.
I became a feminist through the days where I lived next door
to girls who were on the same journey as I was, charting their own path through
the wilderness. When I got the words to describe the gnawing inside me, the
strength to rock the boat a little, and the confidence to survive the storm, I
became a feminist.
