Notes on 'Unapologetic Feminists'

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, I attended an event at the Andheri Social outlet titled ‘She Too’ where the agenda included several women activists and social champions (I don’t know if the term ‘social worker’ is politically correct any more) who were all fighting to make women’s voices heard and more relevant in a society that remains patriarchal. The speakers comprised brave warriors who were working for various worthy causes such as improving mobility options at railway stations for the disabled, encouraging transgenders to contest elections, fighting to eradicate FGM amongst Mumbai’s Bohri community, fighting to curb the practice of unwanted caesarean deliveries in India, etc. 

What confounded me abt these worthies was that each of them opened their talks by offering an gratuitous and redundant-in-that-context ‘I am an unapologetic feminist’ introduction to their self and work. Frankly, I’ve never understood the meaning of that phrase – are there people around who are apologetic about being vegetarian? Or smokers? Or gay? Or Hindu? What is the need for a tag that adds nothing to the noun? Anyway, the event made me realize a disturbing fact that had been taking root in my mind since 2013 when I worked in a large Indian pvt bank and was part of its Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) dealing with issues of gender discrimination and sexual harassment.

It is this, dear unapologetic feminists – you do a great disservice when you focus your narrative solely on instances of patriarchy and its exploitative impact on women; on the ways and means by which women are held back from realising their true potential. By doing that, you are as guilty of perpetrating gender bias as anybody who claims Girls should learn to adjust.

 

But let’s rewind a little to my bank days. One of the eye-popping revelations of that experience was the considerable number of sexual harassment cases the ICC heard which later turned out to be motivated by two broad instances – first, the age old jilted-lover syndrome where the male had promised marriage to the female employee; the second, the refusal of the male reporting manager to grant promotion to a female employee who had embarked on an affair on the promise of a promotion. This is not to say that there were no instances of genuine harassment. Unfortunately, most of them were resolved by transferring the offender to a remote branch rather than summarily dismissing him. In the rare instances where dismissal was suggested, the respective zonal authority often stepped in to stop the process, recommending a transfer instead as the offender was a star performer, with a great sales record. Yes, this is the unfortunate fact of corporate POSH policy implementation which not many people talk abt.

Hell ! I digress. Coming back to the Andheri #SheToo event, the sad fact of most such events is the way women come together and make a mockery of a very real, burning issue – gender inequality. In fact, Feminism for me is nothing but the continuous struggle to ensure gender equality; to sensitize people (not just men), even the ones who believe they are permissive and modern, that we are caught in a mesh of stereotypes and unfair expectations, too tangled to work our way out; that there can be no emancipation for either sex without breaking away from the unrealistic expectations that both sexes have dumped over the other; that equality means ‘sameness’ not difference, hence gender-based reservation is not the right answer.

If we were to look at Feminism from the above lens, one would see that it is not abt constantly bashing men or designing feminist-label line of clothing  (I kid you not !), or calling out men only for eve-teasing. It is as much abt these things as encouraging women to earn a livelihood and share their husband’s financial burden (Shadi ke baad kyun kaam karna; pehley to ghar var set karungi); it is abt listening to those husbands who are unprepared to become fathers (After all it is my body and I have decided that I want a child now!!); it is about supporting our spouses and brothers who wish to stay at home to pursue an unremunerative initiative (I am fed up supporting his mad passion for art and am moving back with my parents); it is about learning to drive (Papa uss party mein nahin janey denge kyun ki voh itni raat ko leney nahin aa sakte); to create assets so that there can be complete autonomy over its use (my husband does not allow me to send money to my parents); or expecting our boyfriends to look like Salman and behave like Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man (Kya chomu hai yaar ! Ma ke saath album dekhkar, rota hai). You can add, your own line of instances.

Which brings me to my last point – that of choice. Most card-carrying Feminists define choice as the freedom to work, to attend college, to wear a bikini, to stop attending church, to have an abortion, etc. These are indeed valuable and must be guaranteed to all. However, for some it is abt the choice to wear a bindi, to take their husband’s names after marriage, to talk proudly abt their roles as mothers/daughters/wives without necessarily being made to feel like cave women who were slung over men’s shoulders and left to tend to the home fires.

In a PEN event early this year, award-winning author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie criticised Hillary Clinton’s then-Twitter bio (Clinton has since changed it) which read “Wife, Mom, grandma, women+kids advocate, senator, SecState, hair con, pantsuit aficionado, 2016 presidential candidate.” Adichie claimed that she felt just a little bit upset , more so after she went and checked Bill Clinton’s Twitter bio where the first word was not husband. In return, Clinton explained abt the internal conflict one faces when one is committed to relationships and also their own work and identity, and have to describe themselves. That Clinton subsequently changed her bio smacks of the tokenism that characterizes so much of current activism.

As a mother and a fiercely independent woman who is respected at work, doesn’t depend on her spouse financially, often sports the symbols of a Bengali married woman, goes for drinks with friends in the evenings, cannot cook to save her life or drive, depends on her spouse to invest her money, manages the grocery and taking the elders to the doctor, if you asked me for the truest and most unequivocal definition of myself, I’d reply – I am D’s mother. And I see nothing un-feminist or patriarchal abt this.

I cherish this definition as much as I groan abt D’s incessant demands sometimes; I celebrate this definition each time she confides her latest crisis to me; I am true to this definition when I teach her how important it is for her to work and learn to drive.