Feminism is for Dummies
With the ‘My Choice’ video by Homi Adajania going overtly viral, feminism and women’s rights have been debated upon more openly than ever before. Feminism is now a topic that might as well be accepted on a dining table in a joint family, which is a brilliant development for our society.
Some might agree with Homi and his video without a second thought, but critical thought goes missing when one retorts to agreeing readily. Critical thought is essential, this is where feminism falls short in the recent times, giving birth to Pseudo Feminism.
Feminism though quite simple to start with, has been widely misunderstood in the recent times. Feminism, in simple words wishes to see both men and women treated equally, unlike the popular idea of women being given a free ticket to race to the peak men somehow have conquered. Coming back to the video and its content, Deepika speaks about choices which are rather personal than of the public realm, which needs more recognition. Marriage or infidelity have nothing to do with feminism, and would rather be regarded as choices of a person’s personal life. Confusing such choices with the idea of feminism, which again is coming from a personality like Deepika Padukone, does nothing but add to the already threatening idea of pseudo feminism, like mentioned above.
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Deepika and the other hundred women included in the video follow suit, talking about various aspects of the personal realm, instead of discussing public realm issues like the problem of an invisible ceiling when it comes to women in management positions in the corporate world, or the idea of education at all. This isn’t all, another problem with the video is the language and the content in the elementary level. The content is rather vague and misleading, saying ‘I am the tree, not the forest’ or ‘I am the snow field, not the snow flake’ is rather vague and misleading if not anything else. A layman, who is just trying his hand at understanding feminism and picking a stand might as well be mislead by watching this video, this is where feminism has been loosing its luster. Years of effort put in by activists, all the protests and impeccable hardwork put in by numerous people in the yesteryears is being tarnished by the popular beliefs.
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Feminism has been battling patriarchy, for years now. The true essence of it being the equality of sexes in all aspects, and nothing beyond that. Pseudo feminism in many ways, could even be held responsible for women taking their rights for granted and putting down men, another topic which is hardly even spoken about aloud. Pseudo feminism is an arch rival of feminism, just like patriarchy, and both of them mislead the population from equality of sexes. Feminism, therefore should be handled carefully when being doled out to the masses, by any prominent names are involved, because the reach of these very people is huge and quite unpredictable. To conclude, it is of utmost importance that the true essence of feminism is understood by layman, if not at the first go and rather eventually than being mislead by pseudo aspects of feminism.
