Tuesday, April 24, 2007

F******** -- The G Version

Feminism to the most part is a feeling of equality of men and women. In India, as siblings, daughters are given less opportunities, than sons. Equality of education and basic development strips independence off women. There the parents should try to see their male and female kids as equals. This is not true even among the urban populace in Chennai. Equal opportunity includes, right to live, access to education, encouragement to participate in sporty activities, sanitation, involvement in socio-economic decision, and marital decisions.

Currently, I believe this to be a pressing goal for any feministic movement. Men and women should share these ideas. But only these. Some high profile intellectuals try to milk the feminist cow, by making grammatical changes like "female actor" instead of "actress", and other point-making exercises.

In most other cases, the learned woman who is being affected by a male dominated society should and needs to rise by herself. Every woman can take things into her hands in the household and the locality. But this is not true for female children who are completely dependent the parents for all their support.

I have a classic example of a wasted feminist energy. In our floor, there are about 40 employees, and the floor has 3 identical individual restrooms. However, one restroom is marked as "Men", another marked as "Women" and a third just "Restroom". There are two women who work in the floor, and the department has been traditionally dominated by males. I am not sure if reservation of the restroom is the most efficient thing to do.

There is a dangerous repercussion because of this wasted energy in making such silly feministic pickets. People lose focus, and the energy is dissipated. When a subset of people try to force unnecessary logic down everybody else's throat, it becomes a nuisance. Similar to when Bombay changed to Mumbai, Madras to Chennai, Calcutta to Kolkata, and recently Bangalore to Bengalooru.

Women try to drag everything under the sun and call it feminism. I do not think chivalry has anything to do with feminism. In a trice, the conflicting interests becomes farcical. This is what Pratap tried to tell in the previous post. (Btw, his story was some made up. He does not know that many girls ;-) ) Any act related to courtship, is quite complicated to be branded anything (Good or bad, stupid or charming, rude or smart, Condescending or nice)

Societal roles cannot be eliminated. Some people like to fit into the societal roles. Some women like to be house wives. Some women like to cook painstaking special food for their spouse. Some men like to work with machinery, most women would rather spend time shopping. A true implementation of feminism would only make this place an asexual planet.

I know the above sounds brutal and contradicting to most other views, and this version of feminism from my mouth is not without its sense of irony. If only you know all the things that I know.

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Sunday, April 22, 2007

F********

Disclaimer: Please don't kill me!

A tag I took from ArtNavy.

I have had very strong feelings about feminism throughout my life. I was born and brought up in urban Madras and to my knowledge my parents have instilled a sense of male pride along with a due respect for the female gender. But my opinion is far from what you think it is...

Feminism has just been bad for me. I am a guy but I tell you it has very serious implications in this young and very attractive man's life. It has been confusing at best. You see, in my house, my father always tells me that I should be nice to girls... and my mom says they should be respected and all. I have been doing all that and more. Well, what the hell do you want me to do?

Well, I met a girl once.. a sorta cute one at that. Not really super attractive and all, but I kinda liked her. We were exiting a store, and I was leading the line to the door, when my super-duper mind starts racing... Should I open the door and give way to the girl? because, my father always says "ladies first!"... I pull the door and half way through, I realize that she might be a fire-breathing feminist and might consider my chivalrous gesture to be condescending... you know they want to be considered equal and all... so they would choose to follow my stinky butt than to accept a nice fella's gentlemanly gesture.

While I was busy processing all these complex moderate feminist concepts in my mind and tried to act all modern, she had come from behind me and tried to squeeze herself through the half open door and her shirt had got stuck in some protrusion in the door. Now, she was looking at me very sweetly, and I had forgot all the second degree feminist stuff... and I thought we were looking into each other's eyes and were really communicating. Even though I got the message through her eyes, she also happened to orally re-iterate it, "Can you please open the door a little bit more? I am getting crushed here!" That was my first experience with feminism. I tell you, that was hardcore!

Then there was this other girl, she had really huge eyes and was cuter than the previous one. I liked her too. This time we are in a coffee shop and she was talking about her cousin who was a jerk or something to that effect. It was an interesting session of "really?", "I am so sorry", "Wow!" between her very many stories with this really relevant cousin of hers. Then it struck me! What if she was a feminist? or not! Since there was no way to infer it, I asked her.

Me: Are you a feminist.
Girl: What do you mean?
Me: Are you a feminist?
Girl: why are you suddenly being rude?

Oh crap! I had forgotten that branding somebody as a feminist is rude. But wait, feminism is not like "are you a robber?" or "are you an ass?" kinda like question. I got confused. Does it mean that she is a feminist? or not? How am I supposed to answer her question?

Me: I will tell you why I am rude later, but I asked a question first, "are you a feminist?"
Girl: Well, I do believe that men and women are equal and, women should not be restrained to the traditional roles.

First of all, I did not ask her to make a political speech on feminism. A simple question with a simple "yes" or "no" would have sufficed. This was getting too complicated. Now I have to wade through her politically correct opinion on gender bias and learn what the hell she is. Man, what a crappy situation. Then I pulled my own politically correct rebuttal...

Me: Well, with the urban population of our generation both boys and girls are given equal opportunity and the gender bias is slowly decreasing. I mean, in my class, the topper was always a girl, and I used to copy notes from her.... Ok, I am digressing, but what exactly did you mean by feminism ?

Girl: I already told you that. Gosh! Now, why did you call me a feminist? You know, asking a girl if she is a feminist is rude.

Me: What the hell!

That was a messed up conversation to start with. Trust me. Don't talk about feminism, to a girl directly... you could either end up being rude or condescending or a MCP or in the gutters!

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