THOUGHTS_ON_FEMINISM

We remember the day when the nation got its independence. I only remember half the nation getting freedom at midnight under the starry sky when night turned to day because of the glow on peoples’ faces. So what exactly is freedom? Is freedom not being controlled by a foreign government? Or is freedom a choice to make our own life decisions.

I always thought that only half the people in our nation got freedom while the other half were forced into the “safety” of home because the “night” is wicked and there are people out there who want to take advantage of women. So whose fault is it really when women are not feeling secure enough to walk the roads at the time of their choice? When they are not feeling free to wear the clothes they like because men are staring at them as if they are pigs for slaughter. Whose fault is it really when people are looking at India as the country where rapes happen instead of remembering it as a country of rich culture and heritage. Whose shame is it really when half the population is dominated by the other half? Is the men’s fault for doing this to women? Or is it the women’s fault for letting men stamp around as if they are the only people who have the right to freedom of any manner or degree?

Well if I was asked this question a year ago, I would have said it’s the men’s fault but now I realised that it’s not just women who are suffering this gender discrimination. Men are suffering as much as women are in this matter. If not for the need to be socially dominant men would have felt free to express their sorrow instead of playing it cool. They would not have felt the need to go on rattling about their “maleness” if they were free to express instead of snubbing the feelings and emotions down and pretending they don’t exist. When men can be freer to express, women would be freer to choose. When men can be freer to let down their guard, woman will be free to show their strength. When men stop feeling the need to control, women will start living the way they choose. So it’s not really a matter of letting half the population have equal rights as the other half. It’s much more than that. Its fighting for a right to feel the way we want to, a right to show weakness and strength at the same time. A right to feel secure not because we will be rescued by the noble society but because we don’t need to be rescued in the first place.

We blame our chromosomes for the way we feel and behave saying that’s how it has always been and that’s how it will always be. If we chose to believe that a billion dead people can’t be wrong, how can any human being be it a girl or a boy, a man or a woman have any sense of freedom? We are tying ourselves down with the shackles of our mind set and blaming the world, the “other” gender, our ancestors for the way we are living today. Isn’t it the day of mourning when freedom is just a figure of speech rather than a feeling? Isn’t it a day of mourning when freedom is just an expression than an actual choice? Freedom I believe is a way of life. We are going round in circles about the same age old argument about who is better rather than curing the disease of inequality. The way we live should reflect our choices rather than our feebleness to oblige to a certain invisible rules. So whose fault is it really when we have no one but ourselves to blame for the kind of society we created? It is indeed a day of mourning when we celebrate freedom without its spirit.


-DR. N. LALITHA, ASST. PROFESSOR, GITAM INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT