Skip to main content


Here’s to strong women; may we know them; may we be them; may we raise them – anonymous.

During a typical sophomore year in college, our English Professor asked us to raise our hands if we were a feminist. I waited for the class and since not many students raised their hands I decided to be the sheep. Our professor stated every one of us are feminists by nature, some of us feel strongly about what we believe equal rights are and some of us, well we have other priorities. That day I didn’t feel strongly about anything in particular. 

And because I started blogging sometime back I realized I feel strongly about my rights as a woman and that for my daughter. So if you happen to read my blogs you will read a lot about what I think an idealistic Nepal/world should be for my daughter to grow up in. You will also read a lot about me shunning the worldly rituals rightfully reserved for women. Ours is obviously sourced from the famous shastras which makes it even more significant. So here I am thinking loudly - I am a feminist.  I am proud that I feel strongly about how a woman should live her life and I will fight to ensure that my rights aren’t violated. 

Being a feminist isn’t about whining or complaining that the men have it all, and well, we are still struggling to break that glass ceiling. I get it. When women are excluded from decision making positions we will continue to suffer. It helps when women, powerful women like Sheryl Sandberg and others like her, unlike her telling us we can and should have it all too. I do read them all just to make sure I don’t get off track. Just kidding. I read them because their words support us in our daily struggles big or small.

It is never about claiming one’s gender’s perceived actions. I know I want to fight a fair battle and I certainly do not expect to be treated in a certain way just because I am a woman. In fact while I was heavily pregnant, I would often stand in the doctor’s waiting room because the men didn’t leave their seats. I simply shied away thinking men have a lot to learn in this country. They can’t help themselves; they weren’t taught any better. Education starts at home. Our behavior in public space reflects how we were brought up our homes. 

When I see a successful woman I will fully credit her success solely on her merits. I am sad defending a woman’s success. Because well, women aren’t supposed to get to the top on their merits alone. They must have had an affair with the boss is the famous one liner I hear often and it is mostly the women who spread these rumors. It is sad defending women with men but it is pathetic defending women with women. We fight the battles not just with the other gender but sometimes our gender is the strongest monster we have to deal with. 

Sometime back one of the relatives we knew left her husband and her two children. She was young, beautiful, and educated. All the family members pitied the husband while the wife was called names and immediately treated as an outcast. The kids were turned against her. At home, I opined, we don’t know the whole story. We have to hear from the wife too. Why did she run away? Being a woman and a mother I know a mother will never leave her home or her children unless she has been burdened with pain she cannot bear. A couple of weeks later we found out the husband abused her physically and mentally and she couldn’t bear to live with him any longer. I reminded all those women who had shunted her. Despite knowing the truth none of these women sympathized with the poor girl. That day I learned a valuable lesson. No matter how right a woman is she will always be wrong if she leaves her husband – because it’s only a woman’s job to hold her family together.
What the women don’t understand is when we stand up for this one woman we make a difference. And if it is one of your own or for that matter you, let me tell you, it will be easier for others to fight it for you and for us.

One of my male friends never fails to point out how strongly I portray myself as a feminist. He was surprised when I didn’t hesitate to ask a male salesperson for a sports bras. I tried them on and asked him for another size because it didn’t fit right the first time. Now, what is a girl supposed to do if a store only has male salespersons? Would you walk away just because there were no female staff? I didn’t. Another male friend asked me to start volunteering recently. Excuse me, my life is pretty meaningful to me. I don’t need a male friend to judge how I should live my life. Being a feminist isn’t always about doing what the just society sees fit. Being a feminist isn’t about dressing up in khadi kurtas and attending each and every street procession. I am a feminist and I love doing my nails, I love wearing girly dresses and it gives me immense pleasure when I spend and splurge and stock sales online. Phew! 

Being opinionated has its own perks. People will think twice before they portray their chauvinism naturally. It also them (mostly female) and I love it when they have to rephrase most of the sentences they are about to speak. But seriously, our struggle to live with equal rights starts from our homes. And because our culture rightfully romanticizes the fact that girls must leave their birth home to live with their husbands and their families - we have already lost half the battle. 

And hence, the battle continues. We fight our demons everywhere, every time. We speak up, we are labelled a feminist, we don’t and we are dumb. We are labelled constantly. I have decided, if one has a label for me – let it be feminist.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A letter to my future teenage daughter

My dear daughter, you are only seven today but you will soon be seventeen. And when you become 17 I know the world will no longer be the same for you and I. We will be together in the same house but we will be distant apart in our heart and head. I was once 17 you know. And like everything else nothing is constant so before you grow up too fast I am writing a letter to you and the million other 17 year olds just like you. Love life - you are going to fall in love - hard. So hard that you are often dizzy with love. A love that is insignificant but withholds you from achieving all your dreams. Dreams that you dreamt when you were barely ten. Dreams that your parents dreamt for you when they first held you in their warm loving arms. Dreams that your mother dreamt for you when you were just a tadpole in her growing tummy. You are 17 and you have just graduated high school. At the verge of becoming an adult. You think you are big enough to make decisions and that you know the best f...
14 comments
Read more

#mymetoo

The first time I saw a picture of vagina was when I was in grade three. The vaginas would always show up in our bathroom walls. Drawn with coal, often the pubic hair sprouting in every direction. I went to an all-girls boarding school and the only males we had in our school were cooks and bera dais. There was also this son of a housekeeper in charge and an unknown lunatic who would flash his nuts from the back of our dormitory which was situated right below the pine trees, occasionally. Of course, we never saw his face or the fact that he was never caught didn’t surprise me even back then. These were the kind of things I believe weren’t considered dangerous. I was too young to think about the perpetrator. I had never thought about those vaginas scrawling for almost three decades and suddenly I now realize that those drawings were in many ways the first kind of sexual assault for me or for my friends. I and my friends would stare at the scrawling quickly and never talk about it l...
Post a Comment
Read more

Leave the girls alone

Recently I read an article written by an Indian woman on how she forgot to raise her son well while she paid particular attention to raising her daughter to be an equal citizen. When we talk about gender equality we often focus on girls. How we should raise them - encourage them to fight for their right; admit them to the best schools; never tell them ‘they can’t do it’ and raise their expectations rather too high. I am a mother to a six year old girl and I often cringe every time I tell her – she can do anything if she wants. While we focus too much on raising our girl’s right we forget to pay attention to our sons.  I lived all my life in a boarding school, the first ten years in an all-girls school. Life wasn’t smooth. We felt foreign to the other gender. We giggled and burst out crazy if a boy approached us. We acted nonsensical at times. We didn’t know how or what they were. They were exclusive – all we saw was the other gender – foreign - boys. We lived in our own b...
Post a Comment
Read more