“She is the one with courage. She is the one who speaks her bright mind; she is the one who encourages the young and the old to do the same.” It is from a poem, “She” by Alice Walker.
Alice Walker has focused on the talents or the individuality of women. She, needless to say, is a feminist and has worked and carved her way through racism, slavery and also to say, gender discrimination.
Most of us might look at feminism as an ideology dedicated towards developing a feeling of hatred towards the patriarchal society and making it into a matriarchal one, but that is not true. Alice Walker proves this idea of feminism to be incorrect by saying that even though she is a feminist she does not hold the idea or the feeling of hatred towards men. Feminism is nothing but the range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic, personal, and social rights for women. In simpler words, feminism is a notion to bridge the gap of gender differences and maintain the idea of equality, having no means of making the society in a matriarchal one.
Many in this world might hold the idea that feminist are basically women who have hatred towards men or overreact about the crimes against women. They also feel that these women only highlight the crimes done against women and neglect the crimes committed against men. People might also feel like these activists are there just to make a matriarchal society or let the women have their way and go rampaging through the country. I would not deny the fact that some activists have brought the term into a negative light by working or behaving in an incorrect manner. These activists have done wrong to the whole community as humans by showing the ideology in a negative way. At one time, I recall people being frightened to be associated to the ideology. Kalki Koelchin, a French-Indian activist, broke the stereotype and moved forward to owning the fact publically, that she is a feminist and she was the one to break the rumor about feminism involving hatred thus leading people to believe why we need feminism.
Yet, there has been a lot of discrimination against women everywhere. Let it be between a daughter and a son, where the son of the family is given more food, education and care than the daughter; or let it be between the husband and the wife where the stereotype is of the husband to go and earn a living and on the other hand a wife is supposed to be the homemaker. There is discrimination between a male and a female employee, where in the workplace there is a difference in the wages they receive or let us talk about the movies where we have sequels of the superhero’s movies but not many movies about our superwoman, and here I am not only talking about Wonder Woman but also about Black Widow or Natasha Romanoff. Yes, we can witness such prejudice in our daily lives but do we actually notice them?
Female foeticide or infanticide and crimes against women, etc., are not the only issue, we have to begin taking small step towards the goal by working for the women’s welfare and not forgetting the men. Working for all the three genders, men, women, and transgender, we can harmonize the society. Becoming “humanist” is more important, and equality is all that we need. All of these might seem like a fairy-tale, which can be made true. I believe that is not too much to ask.
Shreya Bhawna Toppo shreya.b.toppo@gmail.com
<저작권자 © 동국포스트, 무단 전재 및 재배포 금지>
