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Radical feminism can be defined as a perspective of feminism that emphasises the patriarchal roots of inequality in the society between men and women. It looks at patriarchy as something that oppresses men and gives men more privileges.
Radical feminism emphasises the patriarchal roots of inequality, with men placed as ‘unsolicited Gods’. This poem offers us a deeply personal view of feminism.
My love, we sing a different song,
Born into the revolution of female birth.
We have laboured in war, as your thorn of love
pierced our core, made us bleed.
Oh men, comrades or rhythmic reminders—
Did the thorn pierce your hearts too?
Our radical feminism holds us in transitions,
From the haunted sadness of thwarted births
To the restlessness of love letters and coquetry,
From the Radha led astray by Krishna’s flute
To the Kunti bearing Karna, her first love-child,
Tears, epic-like silences, the wet world of wombs,
Blooming anew with pleasures fought for,
Traded with momentous strife.
Oh men, comrades, we hear you’ve carved our destinies,
Rowed our boats since our mothers have borne us.
We hear your love is our elixir, your scornful abuses
Our poison. Comrades, we don’t know who chose you
As our unsolicited Gods, in this colonised, unaccustomed earth.
Our radical feminism is our desire to be whole,
Between nameless atoms and the magic of our sculpted presence.
Oh men, comrades in our twilight sky of unending love,
We have been scalded by your liberated, sunlit bodies,
The smug embrace of your masculine arms, the pride
Of us love-sick women, cocooning our nihilism.
Comrades, our souls have been nourished by your fire, your ice,
Our radical feminism—the naiveté and necessity
Our grandmothers and their grandmothers never knew,
The skin of sex and the crescendo of our revolution
Our daughters and their daughters and their daughters will adorn.
I crave to fight and make love, comrade, as sports played by equals!
My love, I hope to merge your roof with my sky,
Your temple with my shrine, your water with my earth.
We, the remnants of blood and earth are changing,
Our rivers gushing, forcing down before you.
Our radical feminism is not a style statement of postmodern longings.
Wasn’t the blood of disrobed Draupadi feminism enough?
Weren’t the coarse wars and solitude of the oldest women scribes
The earliest jargons of feminism?
Wasn’t the enraged, trembling body of Sita
Returning to Mother Earth’s core a feminist chanting?
Didn’t the bold strokes of women, and men entering their moist core
In Khajuraho, in Konark sow the earliest seeds of feminism blossoms?
Oh men, comrades, let your mothers teach you to strip your pride
With your first baby steps, to come to us with a new love born within you,
A wet, nourishing love of the Ardha-narishwar, the half-man, the half-woman,
Embracing our spirits warm, our cogent fire, the palimpsest of our scars.
Author’s note: Radical feminism is a topic very close to my heart, and quite a number of my poems and essays are centered on my expressions as a feminist poet and thinker. ‘Comrades of Radical Feminism’ was a theme-based writing prompt given in The Significant League, an online literary group, and I chose to write this poem, inspired by this writing prompt, focusing on a woman’s body, her longings and her expressions as a feminist scribe/poet/artist.
Picture credits: Christopher Dombres, used under a Creative Commons license
Lopa Banerjee is an author, editor, translator and faculty of Creative Writing at Richland College, Dallas, Texas, USA, but originally from Kolkata, India. Her memoir 'Thwarted Escape: An Immigrant's Wayward Journey' and her debut read more...
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If her MIL had accepted her with some affection, wouldn't they have built a mutually happier relationship by now?
The incident took place ten years ago.
Smita could visit her mother only in summers when her daughter had school holidays. Her daughter also enjoyed meeting her Nani, and both of them had done their reservations for a week. A month before their visit, her husband told her, “My mom is coming for 4-5 months!”
Smita shuddered. She knew the repercussions. She would have to hear sarcastic comments from her mother-in-law for visiting her mother. She may make these comments directly only a bit, but her servants would be flooded with the words, “How horrible she is! She leaves me and goes!”
Maybe Animal is going to make Ranbir the superstar he yearns to be, but is this the kind of legacy his grandfather and granduncles would wish for?
I have no intention of watching Animal. I have heard it’s acting like a small baby screaming and yelling for attention. However, I read some interesting reviews which gave away the original, brilliant and awe-inspiring plot (was that sarcastic enough?), and I don’t really need to go watch it to have an informed opinion.
A little boy craves for his father’s love but doesn’t get it so uses it as an excuse to kill a whole bunch of people when he grows up. Poor paapa (baby) what else could he do?
I was wondering; if any woman director gets inspired by this movie and replicates this with a female protagonist, what would happen?. Oh wait, that’s the story of so many women in this world. Forget about not giving them love, you have fathers who try to kill their daughters or sell them off or do other equally despicable things.
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