The eight-letter 'F' word

Something about the word is much too feisty and altogether problematic. So, I may not be just one of few to have cautiously skipped the optional 4-credit “Feminism 101” for fear of being tagged the dreaded angry, unreasonable, bitter man-hater. Or perhaps women of today had the fruits of previous generations’ labor within easy-enough reach that to demonstrate against “inequality” and “injustice” as sexism and discrimination meant we had more to lose than to gain.



Still, what is it about being labeled a feminist that has us squirming inside our skin?



Even when presented as a compliment to the confident career-oriented woman of today, between a wavering smile and a forced laugh the quick denial is certain, “Me? A feminist? Oh no… I’m not one of those bra-burning types you know.” Yes, we know.



In fact, we also know that there were no bras that were actually ever burnt – a fabricated reference to a nonevent where a small group of women protested the 1968 American beauty pageant, crowned a sheep and in symbolic gesture dumped make up, heels and bras into a trash can.



No “feminist” tore off their bra but, indeed, that is the flag of militant feminism. If history is different to present – as in more women today enjoy opportunities and equalities as never before, it would be expected that we at the least revere “feminism” which just in recent decades has been able to usher in what we enjoy today.




Feminism, the radical notion that women are people, is hardly contested in most parts of the world and the country of Nepal too. A simple farmer in the mid-western region will agree his daughter deserves an education just as a middle-class Kathmanduite will nudge his son to scout for a bachelor-degree wage-earning buhari. So, where and why  is it that  we have come to take issue with being termed feminists?



Maybe, it is the flavors of feminism that frighten us – from the Marxist Socialist Feminists to the Radical Libertarian Feminists to the Ecofeminists (or, perhaps it is just the daunting task of divulging the objective and process of each faction) that have us waving feminism, at large, away from our faces.



Sure, we live in a country where lola, eve teasing and gender-based discrimination are part of our "culture." And yet no one will deny a woman is a human being.



So, we have something we agree on. We have somewhere to begin.



Of all the forms of feminism debating and discussing between themselves, out there in academia and in activism, perhaps it can all be boiled down to the simple point as made by Jane Galvin Lewis when she says, “You don’t have to be anti-man to be pro-woman.”



To be a feminist is perhaps thought of as someone who is yelling and screaming and not making sense. To be making demands that are reasonable is, in fact, not illogical.



Refuting them on the pretentious and fallacious grounds of culture or religion or to maintain the status quo on the other hand, is very much so – both, illogical, absolutely unreasonable and hopefully in my lifetime, illegal too.



As I mull over why it is that I wince at being described as a feminist, I wonder why I dare reject being associated to those that fought for a revolution, so that I could declare I deserve equality today. When and why did feminists get a bad rep when they were doing nothing more than struggling so our generations’ had it simpler? Perhaps, somewhere between is it getting old and irrelevant?



Once the first lot of us benefited from their struggle, did we decide we were better off reaping the rewards than ensuring it is available to more?



To be for women is no different from to be for other socially marginalized groups - from the Dalits to differently-abled to impoverished and the grander whole lot. Furthermore, there is nothing to guarantee that women are always the victims and men always the perpetrators. If you are a man or a woman who will not deny the human factor of a woman, you are a feminist.



We can get into the nitty-gritty of it later - if we are Ecofeminists or Radical Feminists or Post Colonial feminists. For now, let us not fear being called feminists, as those who protested and demonstrated so all would agree women were also humans.



Almost a hundred years ago, Rebecca West famously said, "I have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is. I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat”.



If you believe women are much more than doormats and no less than man – you are a feminist in my book.

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