Feminism is not about making women victims. It’s about empowering women to challenge pre-
existing expectation which oppress their freedom whether social, economic, religious or
cultural. It’s not about painting ourselves as victims, but it’s about recognizing when someone
has some part of their humanity taken away and acting on this. Feminism is about equality and
having a voice. Without feminism women couldn’t speak freely and publically about these sorts
of opinions let alone any societal opinion. Contemporary women wouldn’t be where they are
today without our foremothers who achieved freedoms such as being able to vote, being able to
have a career, justice in the home, workplace and in society. Feminism is a belief in an active
advocacy for gender equality. If one truly believes in equality between men and women then one
is a feminist regardless of the gender. We should believe that gender equality is simply an
important subset of feminism and that it is women’s birth right. It is a fundamental human
right. It ensures that anyone regardless of their gender, race, cultural and religious beliefs, age,
sexual orientation, ability or disability, have equal opportunities to reach their full potential and
lead a productive life with dignity.
Defining feminism as an ambiguous ideology of “equality” may destigmatize the movement and
get more people on the bandwagon, but doing so also neutralizes its power. Patriarchy, power,
and privilege will certainly go unchallenged. If feminism were just about equality, many could
argue that women and men are already “equal” under the law. Women have been overlooked all
these years. Their achievements, ideas, and accomplishments have been historically attributed to
men. So, women need to be seen, women need to be heard, and women need to be named.
Feminism centralizes the female reality. This centrality is a necessary rebellion in a world that
constantly overlooks women. It is a challenge to a culture that prioritizes the narratives of men
and white people. When we say “all lives matter” instead of “black lives matter” or “equality”
instead of “feminism,” we erase the experiences of the oppressed group and we refer the
conscience of the privileged group for the sole purpose of palatability. This problem is evident
in how we talk about men’s violence against women. We make men’s violence appear as if it is
an isolated, random event that “just happens” to women. Men’s violence against women is
political, calculated, and functional. Because patriarchy requires control, patriarchy also requires
violence. Violence is the ultimate weapon that keeps women in fear, codependency, and in
submission to men. Ending men’s violence and abuse is the most basic foundational goal of
feminism. Justice for women will never be achieved as long as patriarchy is the way of the
world. Feminism is a threat to patriarchy. Although patriarchy negatively affects both women
and men, it places women in mortal danger of bodily harm and even death. In a patriarchal
society, men are not permitted to express the full range of their humanity. They are discouraged
from showing vulnerability, emotion, and empathy. On the other hand, women are not
considered human at all. Globally women are denied their most basic freedom of agency, safety,
and in the most severe cases their very lives.
In the streets of India one finds the ratio of men to women is comparatively more. In classrooms,
streets, and homes too we notice that the number of female children is in fact diminishing.
Although a female minority is not a new thing in India, the percentage of women to men has
declined steeply. It is not that female babies are less frequently conceived or more susceptible to
disease but rather they are killed upon birth or in some cases not born at all. It has been estimated
that there are 11.2 million abortions per year of which 6.7 million are induced. In rural areas there
are 3 illegal abortions for every legal one and in urban locations that number can be as high as 5.
These violations against women exist all over the world especially in less progressive areas such as third
world countries, one of them being India. Violations against women in prison go largely unnoticed
because these are things that happen behind closed doors and are mostly invisible to the public. Things
like rape, groping during body searches, shackling during childbirth, and sexual assault are all common
practices that have existed within prisons in India. Economic independence has exposed women to
sexual exploitation in offices and other working places. They have become a saleable commodity in
advertisements. In a society where about half of the total population of the females are illiterate
according to the latest data based on National Sample Survey organization what rights have been
assured to women through various social laws? Though we do not hold that the awareness of rights ipso
facto raises women’s status yet we do raise a question that if males deny due rights to women because
either women tolerate it and do not revolt or because no punishment is given to the violators of the
social laws, or because the advantages of denying rights out-weigh the costs, how do we break this cycle
of injustice on the part of males? How do we protect the interests of women? What programs and
policies will make males liberal and just? The remedies appear to be legal, social, and economic.
The Indian Constitution provides to women the right to equality, freedom, property, education,
constitutional remedies, and protection from exploitation. The state has also been enacting
special laws for safeguarding the interests of women. In the social field these laws relate to
various aspects of marriage (like, mate selection, age at marriage, plurality of partners, divorce,
alimony, dowry, restitution of conjugal rights, and remarriage), adoption of children and
abortion. The economic laws pertain to right to property or inheritance, equal wages, working
conditions, maternity benefits, and job security. The political rights provided to women are
female enfranchisement and eligibility for the legislature. Are women conscious of these rights?
Do they actually enjoy these rights? Women’s movements and some measures taken by the
government give us a feeling that some structural and cultural changes have been brought about
as a result of which women have been provided equality of opportunities in education,
employment, and political participation. Further, these changes have reduced their exploitation
and oriented them to develop organizations which take keen interest in their problems. But the
fact of the matter is that these changes are only cosmetic and superficial and in actual practice
due rights are denied to women and they continue to be victims of male domination. The reasons
for the denial of rights may be related to individual, economic and demographic factors. The
individual factors refer to the personality characteristics of those males who possess low
intellectual ability, who suffer from immaturity, depression and frustrations, who are alcoholics,
or who have unrealistically high expectations from women and expect them to remain docile and
passive. As regards the economic factors, non-earning women are more frequently denied rights
than earning women. Women in the low and middle-income families are more generally denied
rights than the upper-income families. Lastly as regards the demographic factors, women in the
upper castes are not so frequently denied rights as compared to women in the lower castes. The
older males deny rights to women more generally than the younger males. Further women who
are denied rights most may be identified as those who have feelings of helplessness, suffer from
inferiority complex, have poor self-image, lack social maturity.
In order to succeed, feminism needs to work within the very systems women want to change.
This means that women must reconsider their relation to power and power structures. Feminism
in the digital age has positioned itself as opposed to power, whether manifest through the
consumerist vein of “fempowerment”. Women are more comfortable with protesting and
resisting than leading because leading demands that we actually try to work with, in order to
reform the very structures that oppress us. To be equal, women have to show they are strong
enough to live up to men’s standards in a man’s world. When women enter the male realm
whether law, politics, or a construction site, they find themselves in a repugnant world in which
their only means of survival is by undergoing a fundamental transformation leaving them with
little opportunity to make any change. It is impossible to alter male spheres because women are a
minority that could be cut off anytime and men have vested interests in preserving the status quo.
The Equality Act 2010 which replaced the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, was designed to give the false
impression that women’s subjugation had been legally acknowledged. Political support was gathered
because politicians knew no great changes would ensue. Equality legislation exists throughout Europe
but nowhere is the equality. The attitude of the legal profession to equality is best shown by the number
of women Attorney Generals over the years. The Act is barely enforceable due to extortionate legal
costs and severe costs to time. Out of 89% of women health care workers who experience sexual
harassment, barely 1 per cent initiate legal actions because they know that regardless of whether they
win or lose them will be branded a troublemaker and all hopes of a promotion will be dashed.
The Act is a handmaiden to equality as it strikes down attempts at positive discrimination.
Equalists refuse to support positive discrimination, instead they believe in equal treatment and
equal outcomes. Here, a contradiction emerges, equalists support 50: 50 men and women in
institutions but women will not be recruited in large numbers because ‘equality’ laws have made
quotas illegal.
The inaccurate caricature of feminism has been used to undermine feminism as well as actual
gender discrimination. Given that the objective of feminism is to advance gender equality, not a
particular gender, it not necessary for ‘embrace masculinity’, nor femininity, for that matter. On
the other hand, advancing gender equality requires the participation of both men and women, and
it’s imperative that initiatives targeting gender inequities embrace the role of boys and men, and
that men claim gender equality as a personal issue. If we continue to subconsciously segregate
like this amongst our genders, our future generation will most definitely suffer for it. If we
believe in basic human rights, then we believe in feminism and we are all part of the same
movement and it should no longer be an option for anyone to reject feminism. It is not a burden
to bear, rather a duty we owe to our suffragette ancestors before us. They did not tie themselves
to railings for beliefs such as this to still be upheld.
