My Take on being a Feminist

Apu started the tag and here it is.

I have never really fathomed why this big deal about feminism and being a feminist.
I do not think we need a separate movement or a war or a symbol or an act like burning a piece of clothing to depict feminism.
To me, feminism is a woman being herself. A woman taking pride in the fact that she is a woman who has been created because God could not be present everywhere.
And as the joke goes- God made man and he was pleased. He then stood back and said, I can do better. And then he made woman.

All of us will have incidents of feminist glory to our name. And in the face of the heavily protest led feminist movement, we do not even realize that we are all feminists in our own way.

Foremost, it is important to be comfortable with oneself- a woman is a feminist when she says that she is happy that she is born as a woman, and she accepts herself, warts, facial hair, labour pains and all.

A girl who insists that she will be the bats(wo)man in the boys team because she is bored of standing in the corner and fielding, is a feminist. The act of defying the norm is not feminism but doing it because she wants to do it despite the norms, is feminism.

A girl who can walk across a group of boys without checking 100 times whether her strap is showing or wondering whether her skirt is too short, or the blouse too transparent, is a feminist not because she is being shameless but because she is comfortable with her body. I have seen girls who refused to drink water in school if there were boys gathered at the water taps. And I have seen girls who say, Come off it, have it? flaunt it!

When a woman’s self confidence is very high she never gets affected with what others are saying or whether some men are sharing jokes at her expense. After all, don’t we as woman take digs at men and bitch about them among ourselves? Then why are we so conscious if men are doing it?

Theoretically, a man can never be sure whether the child is his, but a woman is 100% sure that the child is hers. That, to me, is the ultimate power of being a woman.

A feminist is not ashamed that she loves the stereotypical girlie things like shopping, shoes, clothes, jewelry, gossiping, cosmetics, mahila mandli etc. Albeit she loves being labeled as the typical woman. I would not like to be called a typical man; you know what that would make me.

Being a feminist is realizing that being a woman gave me the power of choice in situations mundane to critical –
choose what to wear from various shades of colours and various types of outfit, unparalleled by the stereotypical palette which a man can choose from
choose how to run my household
choose whether I want to have a career or stay at home
choose partly how I want my child to come to this world and who can witness it (it is largely decided by the baby)
choose how my child will be brought up
well, the list has just begun…

It is a feminist who can choose to put double digit weight in 9 months, carry it all along, get marred by stretch marks on her otherwise flawless skin and turn the washboard stomach to a sagging belly and love doing all of it.

It is feminist to revel in the glory of being the only one who can nurture- she is the one who experiences the joys of being a mother, she is the one who can feed her child and bond in those exclusive moments and she is the one who after all this can wake up and say, yes I want to do it again.

Feminism is to be bold and bashfully add splashes of colour to the dull blues and grays in corporate world.

The attitude of a feminist towards a particular chore is different. When she does a chore, it is because she knows she is good rather better at it not because she is supposed to do it. And when she does not have the ability to do something, she doesn’t mind it being delegated without getting her ego hurt.

Being a feminist is not turning a hair when the husband brings in unannounced guests for dinner. Rather, confidently assuring that the job will be done. It is not un-feminist to be responsible for the kitchen. Rather I find the attitude of being perfect and confident extremely feminist. Well someone has to do the cooking, and since I can do a better job, why not me?

As far as I am concerned, if my car needs to be serviced, my hubby will get it done for me not because I am uncomfortable going to the workshop and not because I find it unladylike but because I know my hubby will do a better job.

A feminist knows that she is not the weaker sex but the better half.

It is not about- “Woman without her man is incomplete” but, “Woman! Without her, man is incomplete. ”