Feminist-To Be or Not To Be
Dwelling among us is a concept that distinguishes, demoralizes and discriminates the human race on the basis of biology, how one was created. This demoralizing discrimination could be based on the choice of chromosomes, should your chromosomes be paired XX, you are definitely bound to be frowned upon with or without due reason, for that would mean you are a girl! Another discrimination could be based on the choice of Melanocortin 1 Receptor (MR1C) to secrete eumelanin or pheomelanin and should the genes choose the former instead of the latter, you are destined to go through hell, for that would mean you’re black. While being black does not do any harm to an individual in this part of the world because most of the people in South Asia tend to be varying shades of brown anyway, being a girl does not bode well for you neither personally nor professionally. For if you are a girl you might not be able to live as freely as a guy, for if you are a girl your future choices have already been laid out for you, for if you are a girl you are destined to make “gol rotis”, for if you are a girl you are just plain unfortunate. While for some well-heeled privileged women the concept of gender inequality is a little farfetched, they live in a cocoon protected from the world’s harsh reality. They are the new age princesses and in the case of a silly few “papa’s pwincess” or so they claim. For the other less fortunate women gender disparity is an upsetting, distressing, harsh reality, a version of their very own personal hell they wake up to everyday, a nightmare they must endure. Even though underneath we are all the same, the same red blood cells, a similar heart that keeps beating, a mind that tends to overthink almost always, a stomach that demands being fed, lungs that help breathe in oxygen, limbs that help us move about and a backbone that helps us standup straight head held high but at the end of the day a mere difference of hormones plays the game, because should your estrogen levels be higher than your testosterone levels, your head will be bent for you will be deemed as the lesser being.
It is very important to acknowledge that gender is not just limited to rural areas inhabited by people with primitive thinking, no no now that is just the tip of the iceberg. Gender gap tends to exist everywhere, statistics in fact show a higher graph for gender inequality in big metropolitan cities as compared to small cities or villages. Women are not treated as an equal being, they are looked down upon. While in a black and white world there exists a general list of dos and donts, in a gender biased world the list is labelled things not intended for women and that’s not because it’s bad it’s just so because you just cannot, you’re a girl! Gender disparity is also not limited to strangers, it dwells in our homes. When it comes to families, in most of them if not all, them lassies are not just unequal they are unwanted ones too, because not just men but even women prefer sons over daughters, brothers over sisters. If a girl should hail from a less privileged family and she has a brother he gets the better of everything, be it education or healthcare or food or love, the mere fact that he is a boy makes things a whole lot different. The entire perspective of the parents’ changes. In ancient Arab, female children were buried immediately after birth. In most parts of India and Pakistan this practice still exists. In India sex/gender determination was declared illegal because a lot of fetuses were killed while still in the womb. The extent of hatred for a female child would at times be so high that the in-laws would persuade the girl to undergo an abortion in the second and should she be really unfortunate third trimester, on such a delicate time a surgical procedure of the nature of an abortion could prove to be fatal even for the mother, and in most cases it ends up being so. Female feticide became a red flag for India, when according to the report of a consensus the number of female citizens was far less than male citizens and girls were being smuggled across states to be married off against their will. Funnily enough everybody wants a mother, every mother is on the lookout for a “gori chitti pattli bahu” for her son and every man needs a wife, yet when it comes to bearing a female child she suddenly becomes highly unacceptable.
Free will is usually just a fragment of an innocent imagination, because if you’re girl a lot of the decisions are made for you with or without your consent. Education, the birth right of every child is snatched away in the blink of an eye. Even though our religion clearly states “To gain knowledge is obligatory on every Muslim man and woman” but our pseudo Muslims follow their own version of Islam. Should she express the desire to pursue a career or express the desire to be married off to somebody of her own choice, all hell breaks loose and a full-fledged family oriented melodrama follows. You just cannot do that! Oh think about what people will say! You are going to sabotage the hard earned (pseudo and falsely acclaimed) respect we have in the society! A few rote learned and might I add well enacted lines that beautifully conceal self-interest and selfishness that is the base of the evil and display deceitful, fabricated emotions and the sad part being that the hard work does not go in vain. The blackmailing strikes home almost every time, and if the drama fails to persuade the girl she is mercilessly murdered-honor killing they call it, as if that makes it ok. Why one would gladly be labelled a murderer instead of a supportive family member is beyond realms of reasonable comprehension. She, the daughter of Eve (Bibi Hawwa) is not allowed to say no to a man for she may disrepute him and that never ends well because a respect that never was has lost value, the ego is bruised and battered and the man will go to all ends to avenge himself he may rape her or throw acid on her killing the soul and leaving behind a body worthy of being mocked, a body to be deemed damaged goods, a body meant to stay away from or he may just well kill her after all she said NO, she does not deserve to live a good life or for that matter a life at all.
If the girl is blessed enough to have a supportive family and she does end up pursuing a job along comes gender biased criticism. Her potentials for being a team member and a problem solver are seriously doubted. In the acting fraternity, female stars are paid less than the male stars. There is such a thing known as the PINK TAX. Any commodity, any healthcare product, any drug even sanitary napkins and other products intended for the same use cost more because a pink tax is added to the overall cost. So it’s not just that women are paid less all items intended for females cost more too.
It is said that once upon a time, women would be the heads of the tribes and men would be their subordinates, how true is the statement no one knows. There are however a few tribes in Africa presently that are led by female chiefs. The number of female head of the country be it a president or a prime minister is far, far, far less than men. Our religion, Islam, asks men to respect their women, their wishes and their desires. A hadith “Heaven lies under the feet of the mother” says a lot about how Islam vies women. Other cultures Romans, Greeks, Hindus view women as revered beings deemed goddesses. Over the last decade or so the term feminist or feminism became rather popular. It was aimed obviously at filling the gender gap, that women were just as capable as men. Along with feminism came the concept that only women could be feminist and not men. Something most men don’t agree with but peer pressure makes them state otherwise because being feminist would mean your masculinity is being reconsidered by the highest fools in the society. How our society views women can be explained by one statement alone, should we find a guy gossiping, crying, backbiting or doing anything along these lines we almost automatically respond with “kya larkiyon jesi harkaten hayn”, such is the travesty! May be it’s time we men became supportive of our women, viewed them with respect and not as an object and treated them as an equal. May be it’s time we stopped and looked back on our mistakes and see how they reflect on us as a person. At the end of the day the question really is, feminist-to be or not to be!
SUBMITTED BY: SYED SHAH RUKH ALI
CLASS: M.Sc MASS COMMUNICATION
SEMESTER: 3rd
CMS: 23271
