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It is at times like when I get misogynistic comments from those who I think are friends, that I tell myself why I am a feminist. A personal POV.
I work. I earn for myself. I speak. I have a voice that I raise when I see an injustice. I write. I find opportunities to express myself and I use my words to cut through these.
I love. I express love. I express my needs and wants. I can demand my rights.
I can do all this because women before me fought. They fought hard. They took to streets to demand a say. The voting. The economic rights. The social rights. They stamped their feet down in protest and stood there without fearing for their own lives till someone took notice.
And because of them, I stand firm on the ground despite it being perpetually shaky. Because it still quakes under me, often, reminding me that the journey isn’t over. That I still have to empower myself in many ways by throwing off the shackles of internalized misogyny and years of conditioning. Consciously. One angry moment at a time. One thoughtful moment at a time. One debate at a time. And sometimes one toxic relation at a time.
I am a feminist for all those little girls and boys who are looking at a new world, who are trying to make their own place.
I am a feminist because those little girls and boys still have to be told that you don’t belong to the kitchen or to the husbands, that you can cry and be sensitive without being scolded or beaten up for being sissies, if that’s not what you want. You belong to the skies. You deserve to be respected.
I am a feminist for all those women who are still bound by the chains of patriarchy.
I am a feminist so that I can use my position to fight for them, to give their stories a voice, to bring them to the fore, so that they can also have their rights without anyone else ‘allowing’ them anything.
I am a feminist because we still have to fight for silly stereotypical things that create a huge opaque wall between opportunities and vision.
I am a feminist for those women who died fighting for my rights.
I am a feminist. We need more of them. Raise your voices.
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Being a writer, Nivedita Louis recognises the struggles of a first-time woman writer and helps many articulate their voice with development, content edits as a publisher.
“I usually write during night”, says author Nivedita Louis during our conversation. Chuckling she continues,” It’s easier then to focus solely on writing. Nivedita Louis is a writer, with varied interests and one of the founders of Her Stories, a feminist publishing house, based in Chennai.
In a candid conversation she shared her journey from small-town Tamil Nadu to becoming a history buff, an award-winning author and now a publisher.
Nivedita was born and raised in a small town in Tamil Nadu. It was for schooling that she first arrived in Chennai. Then known as Madras, she recalls being awed by the city. Her love-story with the city, its people and thus began which continues till date. She credits her perseverance and passion to make a difference to her days as a vocational student among the elite sections of Madras.
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