I've been hearing a lot about feminism these days. I've searched here to find the exact meaning for feminism. Our society is a society based on discriminations. We have caste system, wealth system, position systems etc. those which are efficiently evolved like a hierarchy and destroyed the true essence of life. Professional criticizers will be tired of criticising the above discriminations. Beyond these, there are some other discrimination techniques too. Humans and animals, Man and woman, NRI and RI(Resident Indians ;)), fan of Shahrukh khan and Amir khan (or may be vijay and ajith of tamil industry) etc are some of the major discriminations which are so fragile and may collide at any point of time.But, still this power to discriminate is considered to be the best quality of a human being.
It sounds weird when I hear people quarrelling with the name of celebrities. I have witnessed some similar incidents that I've mentioned in this blog before. All such quarrels were meaningless and there is some sort of weirdness in the discrimination of man and woman. I wonder why there is a word 'feminism' in the dictionary. What is so special about woman? Why do some people believe that this is a 'male dominated world'? In the previous era, I understand that there were some troubles that kicked out females in some aspect and it should have paved way for the evolution of feminism. Its time to remove the word from the dictionary. Today's world is not based on muscle power alone it depends more on intelligence. Basically, every human thinks different in different situations. If someone else could live my life instead of me, I'm sure that he would be entirely different from what I am. As every human is supposed to have a brain, what possible difference does it make by the discrimination of man and woman? If you think that Indira Gandhi was the best prime minister of our country so far, its not because she is a woman, its more likely because she is a human. Still, if we could check the percentage of participation from woman's side, it is nearly pathetic.
It sounds weird when I hear people quarrelling about woman and man domination as well. If you believe that a woman is not as good as man, its because they are under utilized.We expertise on things we practice. If someone believe that a woman can't rule a country, its because they have some lack in practice. If you believe that a woman can cook better and write recipe blogs well, its because men lacks practice in that field (But, I haven't seen much woman cooks in hotels in my life!I assure you that I'm a disastrous cook anyway). Somehow, its all about how a human life is lived or how the problems are faced. In my personal opinion, I have no problem to work under a woman in my future, if she deserve it. Its better to stop allowing the men to dominate. It is time to realize that human values should be given more priorities than the gender of any human. Maybe we could remove the word feminism from the dictionary someday(I have checked the wordweb 6.0 in my computer and the word was still there in the dictionary)
Sincerely,
Raghu
NB: I would like to recommend a new word that can replace both "Mr." and "Ms.", because, I want to completely eliminate man-woman discrimination from the world.
Feminism has a political angle to it, which means it has an economic angle to it, which inturns means, feminism would not die soon. Atleast so far as India is considered.
ReplyDeleteI think that explains it all.
I endorse each and every word of your wonderful post. And the thing you said about Indira Gandhi is quite a sensible thought.
Women haven't explored certain areas, and men have explored many - this state of affair is incorrectly being interpreted as a male dominated society. I think it's just a matter of time when women would soon explore the unexplored.
@ victor
ReplyDeletethanks buddy!
The author is really cool. But some of the commentators are just posting stupid words.
ReplyDelete@ anonymous
ReplyDeleteactually, i have received about 5 spam messages for this post! unfortunately, it includes yours also! :(
Interestingly written! [b][url=http://DKGS.INFO/Stripes.html]Stripes[/url][/b]
ReplyDelete@ all anonymous
ReplyDeletenow, this is a spammer's arena
Interesting post. Simply put, I think the idea of feminism will cease to exist once society decides to treat both genders with the due respect and dignity they deserve.
ReplyDeleteexactly right!
ReplyDeleteAhha! This was one more good post. We cannot remove femism until people warm up to it. It is just like the caste system in India.
ReplyDeleteWhy should there be caste based reservations now? It should be merit based? Or even financial potential based!
The whole laws should have been scrapped after 30 years of constituation formation. But are the people willing to do? No, they wont. Why? they are vote banks.
There should not be reservations for females. If they are getting education equal to men, they should fight they way out.
BUT, Sadly there is still female foeticide, dowry deaths. And many people STILL consider females to be a burden and bane. In such scenarios, feminists really help (if they have some power. I know they are toothless though)
@ Sweety
ReplyDeleteI want everybody to think like me. I know, I can't say anything about what you said. Even if I could, I am pretty sure that I cannot convince you by any means. Actually, I can't really say that the feminists are toothless. They have some power for sure. Sometimes, I feel that they are not coming up to the front as if they are kept aside for some reason. I know that they have great role in making a family, but it need not always affect their other aspects of life.
Human beings dominates because they are strong in their intellectual power not their muscle power. So, I just want to remind feminists that they can always use that power to do what every human can do in this world. Being a female doesn't mean that you have to be different from men. You are still a human. You sound more like a discouraged feminist!(Just joking)!!
Thanks again for your interest in my blogs and subjects. It looks like this is what I really expect from my blog and comments like this will always be an inspiration in 'typing' new posts.
Raghu
Raghu,
ReplyDeleteThere is one striking problem. Every issue, if tackled will be used by few and misused also.
I am not a discouraged feminist (I know you were joking)First of all, I am not a feminist. I see only right or wrong of a situation.
If you see in my comment, I have told both positives and negatives of feminisms. Which to choose? Again is a hard decision.
Toothless because, they try making name where help is not much required. Like in cities.
I recently got to know of a family who burried a baby girl ALIVE! How INHUMANE act is that? And the mother died of guilt.
Disgusting.
I tried calling up the police (anonymously though). They came. They went. Matter end.
Who will bring light into such lives?
@ Spicy Sweet
ReplyDeleteYeah!! Even the media is treating it as if it is a usual case!! They do not care about the relevance of the subject!! They need money and political support. That is the reason why even a Cricket game is more important than these subjects. Sometimes, I feel like the readers are tired of hearing such news in the paper. I still remember a page in a malayalam newspaper that was dedicated to 'rapists'! All the news in that page was about them. But, it is not a good reason for me to close my eyes and act 'blind'. It is the attitude which should be changed!!
You seem to have a lot of experience about such issues. I read a post about an 'autorikshaw' incident in your blog and it is nice to see people who still care about these subjects.
Sorry for calling you a feminist!
Sincerely,
Raghu
Chill.. I like the intellectual posts in your blog. Rarely do we find people on internet who can discuss issues objectively.
ReplyDeleteI was not by any chance offended. I just told you my point of view.
You blog. I will read!
Nice meeting you in this blogging world
@ Spicy Sweet
ReplyDeleteSometimes, to be an intellectual man, all I need to do is to watch the world. I was about to stop writing posts here as I was not sure whether this is making any difference or reference!! Comments like this is always an inspiration to post new posts. So, I would like to express my gratitude to you for your support.
This is the most important advantage of blogging. Meeting new people and sharing thoughts!! It is my pleasure to meet you!
Raghu
I think you have seriously misunderstood the meaning of feminism. Feminism is a movements aimed at establishing equal political, economic, and social rights for women. Do you think that removing the word feminism from dictionaries will give women equal rights in our male-dominated India? Remove feminism and you just remove the word. Gender discrimination still remains.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'm a humanist. But its not possible to be blind to the problems that women face in "modern India".
"What is so special about woman?"
Dowry and feoticide still exist in India. Women get gang-raped and molested in the streets. Even in the classy areas of India. Thats whats special about them.
"Why do some people believe that this is a 'male dominated world'?"
Why? Coz it is. Just open up the news papers.
"In the previous era, I understand that there were some troubles that kicked out females in some aspect and it should have paved way for the evolution of feminism."
Which era do u live in, man? I suppose the Guwahati incident completely escaped your notice. And I also suppose you will say that women are given equal rights as men in Kerala, where gold is heaped on girls so that she gets a decent marriage.
"Still, if we could check the percentage of participation from woman's side, it is nearly pathetic."
Every working woman today in any industry would have faced twice the number of obstacles that a man in her same stage would have faced. Believe me, I have seen. And yet they participate. And yet they work. And yet they try to come up in every male-dominated field.
"If you believe that a woman can cook better and write recipe blogs well, its because men lacks practice in that field"
I have male friends who are wizards in the kitchen, and women friends who can't boil water. But frankly, how many families in Kerala would let the men in the family cook while the daughter-in-law watches TV. I have seen homes in palakkad where the daughers-in-law going to work would bring the wrath of the entire family down on her.
The idea of feminism is not to give women a position higher than men.. its to maintain equality. True feminism should not cause discrimination, it should erase it.
If you feel that's not necessary, then we have a difference of opinion.
The only thing that I can agree with in this blog is the "celebrity wars" thing, which I too think is completely pointless.
Honestly, I didn't mean to literally remove the word and destroy the feminists in this country. I do not know how to express my point better than how I did in my blog. I accept every single word in your comment. That was the point I was trying to make. I think, you got it the wrong way. I was not trying to degrade or destroy feminism. I do accept that there are gender discrimination, I would like to be a humanist too.
DeleteI'm disappointed by the way the society treats woman and my idea was not to discourage them but to encourage them to stand up to what they are. "what is so special about women?" is not supposed to question their ability, but to make them believe that there is no need of such a question.A few days before, I saw a post in facebook in which a few young girls are having beer and smoking in public. If the photographer had tried, he could easily find men at much worse condition in a lot of other places in the country. I was thinking that there is no need of any special tendency to share that picture just because they were girls. I want them to do whatever they can do. I'm terribly sorry if I made a mistake in expressing it in a bit metaphorical way. I wouldn't say that I'm good in English, but it really surprised me that my ideas were taken in a wrong way.
About 'male dominated world': As a humanist, you might be able to understand what I tried to imply. This world is not a male dominated world, it is a 'human dominated world' and women are also human. I cannot request everyone in this country to be fair to woman. I have seen women who have restricted themselves from what they want to be. I have seen women, who are highly qualified, doing the job of 'home making' just because they are women. I am a man and I am not pretty sure whether I could look at this world from a woman's point of view.
I accept that I'm sometimes wrong. After writing this blog, I came to notice that in the previous era, there were families in Kerala, who were managed and ruled by women. Irrespective of gender, humans can do a lot of things. In the previous era, there were a lot of severe difficulties for women. Rituals like sati was intolerable and they didn't have a lot of opportunities to be 'human'. I believed that things have changed a lot recently, but paved way to some other problems as well. Even today, there are people who consider women as a piece of meat. I accept that those changes were not enough.
I cannot guarantee anything, but I wish if I could change such an attitude towards marriages. I don't want to marry a girl for money or ornaments and I would like to do the same to my daughter, if I am going to have a daughter. I don't want my wife to be a burden to her father. I want everyone in this world to think like me. One more thing, I wrote this post a long time before the Guwahathi incident,but it was not hard to note such incidents.
The percentage of participation doesn't imply the enthusiasm and courage to reach to a position. If I look into the Parliament, there would be a great difference in the participation of men against women while almost half the population of this country is supposed to be women. I didn't mean that it is women's mistake, I appreciate and respect their work. I didn't mean to write anything against women.
I think I have made a terrible mistake in using that example.Honestly, I was trying to encourage women to do whatever they can. I was not criticizing women's cooking. The idea was to implement a thought that "If there is something which a woman believe that they can't do, they can achieve it by practice". If there is a woman, who believe that they can't rule this country just because of the fact that she is a woman, she doesn't have to think like that. My father is a pretty decent cook too.
(continued)
I do not recall what I had in my mind when I was writing this post. The core idea was not to criticize women, but to criticize the society who consider women different. My idea was not to destroy or hurt any woman but to encourage them to do the right thing. My idea was to not to ignore the inequalities but to make an awareness that there was no need of the thought of an inequality among us. What if you could stop mentioning your gender if you go for an interview? What if the women could be respected and accepted as men so that they didn't have to jump twice the amount of obstacles to achieve what a man achieved?
DeleteSometimes, I mix my ideas with my dreams. Today, I wish if we didn't invent the wheel,money or machinery in our life. Practically, it might not be possible but in this issue, I do not see that kind of an impossibility to look back to the history and realize that it doesn't have to be like the way it is. European's invaded our country and ruled us for 400 years, what if they hadn't invaded us? They did and we fought back get back our freedom. When they ruled us, our people was practically 'unequal' to them.That freedom fight was over and may be we could forget it and I want feminism to be destroyed like that. I do not know whether I am right or wrong, I have seen some situations where women blame themselves by saying "I'm just a woman" and I always wanted to say "so what?" to that response, which I couldn't. I feel that the women should come up and make others believe that they are worth more than the dowry,meat or anything. I'm still not sure whether I expressed my point, but I would like to say one thing. "I will never feel uncomfortable or shy if someone call me a male feminist".
I do not know whether you will see this comment or not but I know that I should have hurt your feelings and I am extremely sorry about it.
Sincerely,
Raghu
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/23/why-india-bad-for-women - Still think we don't live in a male-dominated society?
ReplyDelete