thoughts@23
This little piece is not for a whole lot of people, for they may not relate to it.
(BTW, listening to Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, because English is my second language and middle grade novels are on my TBR lately!)
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Let’s discuss Feminism.
More precisely, lets discuss a strain of thought of Feminism which has been widely misunderstood and convoluted in the public domain – very efficiently due to this age of the internet. I’ll do examples first and theory later – so this becomes more readable!
Have you come across a nasty incident on a metro one day where a man does not give up his seat for a pregnant lady because we are all ‘equal’? Have you seen that viral video a couple of months back where a middle-aged lady is shouting away – on God knows what – yelling, “who here is a gentleman enough”. This too, takes place in a metro. Such incidences are becoming more commonplace now that everyone is ‘woke’ of larger socio-political issues with the bombardment of knowledge on SNS. But these consequences of semi-percolation of ideas of higher academic thinking were bound to occur – sooner or later – especially as in the past decades there was a considerable absence of unified feminist movements. (The #METOO movement was an isolated phenomenon of an issue about consent and access – which albeit brought many stories to the front – failed to elicit a larger public discourse and engagement as was seen in the second wave of 1960s.)
These are examples of half-understood notions of ‘equality between the genders’ address of feminism. For you see, it’s not about Physicality. It isn’t about how many kilos you can pick up at the gym or who can open tighter jars, its about whether you are at your best physical state at a point in time. Therefore, offering a seat to a young man in crutches is equivalent to offering one to a frail, old person or to a woman heavily pregnant; by the only virtue of them not being at their physical best.
There are inherent physical differences between a male body and a female body – as more than 20,000 years of evolution has guaranteed us. But this does not then state that there must be any form of discrimination between the bodies which are perfectly healthy and/or fine; (discrimination not being a negative term here, per se). For women don’t want their chairs to be waited upon in restaurants, nor do they want men to curtly open cars’ doors for them. Allocating such petty ‘gentlemanly’ behavior as looking out for the weaker sex is hypocrisy at its best!
What we want and what is required today is the idea of equality in such overtly fashionable society of behaviors. Simple thing – if you can do it, I can do it too! But in return don’t come at me citing this particular contradiction in the theory and practice of feminism.
Pointer: Such mannerisms of what makes a gentleman in public are medieval. To stick by them is to live in nostalgia – as one enjoying tea parties in Victorian fashion in the present day. It’s a one-time thing – for fun (unless you’re into that sort of thing…) But to emulate it on a daily basis and swear by it as characteristic of your behavior, must be something done on a very individual and gender-neutral level. The society and culture don’t warrant it anymore – especially against the ‘weaker sex’. Quoting it on the larger idea of behavioral equality between men and women, is even more ghastly!
Hence, it is imperative that one doesn’t think of these behaviors as concrete reflections of our attitude. Humanism is what should define these acts, if at all. What matters more to me is that my voice is heard at my workplace and my pay check equal to my male counterpart. If that is achieved, I could hardly give a care of how chivalrously my partner treats me.
For ultimately, such exaggeratedly civil attitude and subsequently the behavior stemming from it, though sweet and nostalgic, if serves to fan a more toxic fire of misogyny and discrimination based on fickle conceptions, I’d rather steer clear!
