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Feminism seeks to deconstruct the gender roles that have been around for many years. It is an active movement of self-transformation which envisages a change in the larger society.
Feminism is not a new concept; it has never been. It has always been present as an instinct among women. But women have been taught to conceal and keep it hidden for the fear of being deemed unacceptable within the society, as it challenges the widely dominant patriarchal society in the world as we know to exist.
It is not an easy conversation to have as it tends to make people uncomfortable, sometimes even irritable. It is important to understand that feminism is about social, economic, and political equality of the sexes. It is not just about rebelling against the status quo but about an active movement of self-transformation which envisages a change in the larger society.
Feminism strives for equality of the sexes, not superiority of women. It seeks to take the gender roles that have been around for many years, and deconstruct these to allow people to live free and empowered lives, without being tied down to traditional restrictions. We should not just empower the female gender and denounce the male gender, but rather focus on the two to be treated equally.
The worst thing we do to men is to make them feel that they have to be hard and leave them with very fragile egos. Due to this, girls are then raised to cater to the fragile egos of the males. Girls are taught to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. They have to always pretend to be weaker and less ambitious than men around them.
Though patriarchy takes different forms in different cultures, its belief is the same. The man is superior by nature, born to rule in all works of life, the woman, an inferior born, to be ruled and to serve the man. In fact, she is meant only to be seen and not to be heard. It underscores all forms of oppression where one set of human beings sees self as the norm and evaluates others as existing only for self. It looks at how the system leads the female characters into solitude, voicelessness and a loss of their identities.
Women and men are equal and should be treated as such. A big step for the equality between the genders is to have equal opportunities for both genders to develop, to have equal access to financial comfort and personal safety.
Image credits: Gayatri Malhotra, Unsplash
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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