feminism

I read this article by Amit Varma – I am a feminist. You should be too. I follow Amit’s blog for a few years and he has written articles that gave me good perspectives about a few things over the years – like Modi’s rise, Trump election, opportunity cost etc. I shared this article with a few friends and the reactions were quite varied.

• About feminism in India getting a bad rap – one felt this is not happening due to extreme forms of feminism and people misusing feminist tag to take advantage. I tend to agree with that due to some of below reactions.
• One friend asked me straight up “Why are you biased” and that I should be a humanist instead. I think this illustrates the common misconception. People think feminism is about female domination, just like male chauvinism – two ends of the spectrum, rather than feminism being a centrist position in sexism that stands for equality. I think due to this the word feminism evokes distinct aversion in some of my friends. Instant reaction about feminism is that they are haughty (“ahankari” in Malayalam).
• Another reaction was that it was not really about equality, but more to get attention and publicity. That there are natural roles for men and women and it is stupidity to say men and women should be doing same things. There was no clear answer to the question about whether he supports equal pay for equal work or equal opportunity for a boy and a girl.
• One said many women also object to feminism – could be conditioning through generations which is hard to come to terms with, sort of like Stockholm syndrome. One perspective was that for women to join the workforce and succeed, it needs more social support (maternity break and reentry to work etc). Also the business leaders would prefer workaholic men who don’t take breaks which is more profitable. The glass ceiling is harder to break and many will fail trying to break through.

Nevertheless, these views should be shared. Current situation should not become an equilibrium and it needs more conscious effort to change. I wish more people would read articles such as this. I wish I had learned these lessons while I was a kid.