Perhaps the most sparkling definition of feminism — one of 21st century’s most misused, abused and misunderstood words — was given by critically acclaimed Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In her TED talk on feminism, she defined a feminist as a person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. In an analytical essay on feminism, Mark Manson, an NYTimes best-selling author speaks about three waves of feminism dealing with political equality, legal and professional equality, and finally, social equality. And social equality is something we cannot achieve unless every person fights for it irrespective of gender.
By its very essence, the International Women’s Day will truly be successful when we don’t need it anymore. Feminism needs more foot soldiers and it is time, the world took note of how men, for their own sake, can be feminists too; should be, rather? A while ago, Emma Watson’s HeForShe campaign asked for exactly that — men and boys advocating gender equality; a slew of male celebrities joined her openly.
It is a complex issue to talk about because sometimes, in this argument, the intentions don’t matter. The final words do, the final act does. Many a time, feminists are called out by other feminists because of misinterpretations and misrepresentations of spoken word. There are men for example, who practice feminism every single day. They would be the first to acknowledge that their niceness need not be rewarded or appreciated because propagating equality of the sexes is not so much a favour to anyone as it is a principle worth fighting for.
Ranjani Sivakumar, a Carnatic vocalist and playback singer, puts it beautifully when she explains how her husband Venkat structures his conversations — focusing on the idea and thought rather than the gender of the person. His objectivity is what most men can adopt, for so often our subjectivity towards genders leads to cognitive-biases which influences our decisions.
Priya Tolasariya, a CA from Hyderabad, calls her dad a role model for telling her not to use gender as an excuse, and instead go out and achieve whatever it is that she wants to. In a society, where there is no paucity of examples of toxic masculinity, there is a reasonably rich sprinkling of men who do the right things, say the right things by being good dads, husbands, brothers and bosses.
The million-dollar question, however, is — where are we as a society. Are we still so depraved in gender treatment that we need to celebrate our male warriors, or are we ready to move on to a new order, where nice men are the expected norm, and not the exception. The aura around it is still muddled but the world needs its Tom Hiddlestons and Justin Trudeaus for simply reminding other men that it takes plenty of introspection and a conscious collective effort to let women their space, while not thinking of it as a privilege or a favour. There will always be men talking about equal pay, glass ceiling, or #MeToo. But, are there enough? Maybe someday, when there are enough, even language will catch up and give us gender-independent pronouns!