<sub>These are my opinions, influenced partly by other men and women with similar views, but mainly by my own experiences. They may not be your opinions, but I'm pretty open to discussion, provided you are too. Also, my beliefs need not be deviantART's beliefs, so all comments about the issues I raise here should be directed towards me and no one else.

This is quite a long piece as I have many opinions on many different things. I take International Women's Week as an opportunity to write this; I have been thinking a lot about the many opinions I've formed over the past few years and this is a great space for me to examine them. You are free to ignore this journal, or skip sections. I would love your thoughts anyway.</sub>


Many (women included) seem to think so. I've noticed a trend in which people feel that it's not important anymore, or that it's wrong:

"We're equal now. We don't need to keep fighting!"
"Feminists are belligerent and hate men."
"Feminists are hairy lesbians." (I quote one of my brother's friends here.)

I've personally been told, "Don't be such a feminist!" after telling someone not to call me a "chick" because I didn't like it. What happened to personal preferences? And whatever is wrong with being a feminist?!

Over the years, we've developed a distaste for feminists because of the radical things some of them have done. I can understand that, even though I understand why, to some extent, it was necessary to burn bras, describe sex as an invasion of female privacy, and so on. Revolutions often begin with extreme violence (verbal and non-verbal) and really, how do you battle the realisation that for centuries women were treated like animals, less than men, or as Schopenhauer put it, "a kind of intermediate stage between the child and the full-grown man"?

Whatever it was, we have to deal with now. Is feminism really a dirty word? Not to me, no. I will happily say that I'm a feminist. I don't hate men (quite the contrary, actually, haha), but I have, and will continue to, speak out against men who ill-treat women or are misogynistic or sexist. I also don't believe that women are better than men, which is another familiar characteristic applied by some to all feminists.

I also don't mind that many women don't want to call themselves feminists. If it's dated, it's dated. But that doesn't mean that those of use who choose to be called feminists are a) stupid, b) unaware of all the amazing strides that women have made (I am more than aware and I am proud of them!), c) unhappy, d) only feminists and nothing else, or e) don't consider other issues or don't work towards resolving them.

Feminism, for me, is a way of looking at the world. It is very similar to the mode of critical thought I apply to various issues, texts and practices that come to my notice. Moreover, I like to find ways to educate myself further on these issues.

The question is not so much whether we need to be feminists, or support feminism, but to consider whether or not women's issues still need to be discussed.


Yes, they are. Many women have overcome gender-related obstacles; laws have been made; people have been prosecuted; we live in a better world. But let's not mistakenly think that all our problems are solved. Many of us belong to contexts that don't place ridiculous restrictions on women. Whether they are visible to us or not, the world is filled with women who are raped, enslaved, sold, insulted and published in public and within domestic and other hidden spaces.

Women's issues need to be addressed in positive environments in such a way as to bring about solutions to those issues.
Addressing women's issues should not replace or silence other issues. While we talk about what women need, we can also talk about men need, what certain ethnic communities need, what the disabled need, the planet needs, and so on.


"Equal" is a difficult word. It's safe to say that neither one is less or more than the other. And also let's not forget the wonderful variety of human beings in this world who don't necessarily consider themselves as only man or only woman.

But while men and women are neither superior nor inferior to the other, the fact is that some get votes and others don't. What am I talking about?

The Indian Constitution advocates a system of positive discrimination, which means that certain people (the disabled, people from backward spaces that have suffered negative discrimination in the past, women, etc) get benefits in certain cases. For instance, one-third of all seats in Parliament are reserved for women. A lot of people seem to think that this is because women are incapable of being political, but that we need to give them a leg up anyway, and so the government, very benevolently and rather patronisingly, kept these seats for them. An astounding section of the urban Indian population (several of them women) believe that "Woman are now equal to men! They don't need the government's help." This would actually be the opinion of one of my (yes, female) classmates. In response to this remark, I burst out, "No! We're not equal." It was very dramatic and also a bit comical, but I stand by what I said. Not because I think women are less than men, incapable, etc -- I believe, in fact, that we make fine politicians and that women are as good or as flawed as men in this field.

The problem is with voters and not with the candidates. Two equally capable people, one man and one woman, could stand for a post, do the same amount of campaigning, have the same number of lobbyists, and have very similar agendas for the country, but the man is likely to win by a huge margin. It's impossible to quantify stuff like this, but I'm pretty sure that a woman has to a heck of a lot more than an equally capable man to get votes. In India, there is a huge population of people that still believes in male superiority. (This belief is not much less prevalent in most other countries, IMO, but I imagine it manifests itself differently.) It is for this reason that we have reservation for women. Reservation allows for a greater number of women to be seen in politics and in many ways, this has transformed the way the Indian public views women in politics. The benefit is that now it is more likely for a woman to get elected without aid than before. Through reservation we keep moving towards a less prejudiced society and when we reach some semblance of "equality", we won't need reservation anymore.

I bring this up because we can draw parallels to other situations in which women are "given a leg up". As long as we know why we do it, and as long as we don't do it patronisingly, it is a good system. I will also add that those who do not want to avail of aid/reservation, don't have to.



Recently someone was discussing the molestation of girls by Indian male mobs. They happened to be scantily dressed, which allowed for various people and organisations to identify the wearing of a certain type of clothes as a source of violence against women. In the words of my aunt, "Just look at how they were dressed! I don't blame those men?" I was most disgusted.

This is one of the biggest problems I have with our world. We still blame the woman for getting raped. I'm not making this up. I find that there are two ways in which this happens.

The first is the obviously ridiculous, in-your-face ignorance displayed by a wide range of Indians. (I speak for only my country here, but it could be happening elsewhere.) It is the belief that women are raped because they tempted men, either through "immoral" behaviour or by wearing "immoral" clothes.

One the major purveyors of this belief is the Shiv Sena (political party full of fundamentalists), according to which women who wear jeans and other Western clothes are responsible for the breakdown of Indian culture (because, get this, we can confine the meaning of culture to one narraw definition) and that it is because women dress like this that men get tempted and therefore the women get raped. :/

I don't know how to even begin arguing such a ridiculous claim. One study (unfortunately, I cannot find the link) showed that women were raped in all kinds of clothes. Basically, female rape victims were asked to send in pictures of the clothes (or maybe the actual clothes, I don't remember) they were wearing when they got raped. All kinds of entries came in: salwar kameezes and saris and even burkhas, along with a few Western/"immoral" clothes. Truth is, all kinds of women get raped: big, small, thin, overweight, dark-skinned, fair, old, young... Ever since I heard about this study, I started paying attention to what I was wearing whenever I got any undesired attention (if you're laughing, I will be very upset; this happens to women every day, and since I travel a lot by bus and love to walk alone, I get it even more, and I'm as plain as can be). Here is a list: jeans and big sweatshirt, traditional salwar kameez (no plunging neckline or sexiness of any sort), several of my very ordinary kurtas and jeans, messy school uniform back in school, and once, a sari. So there. Clothes don't matter!

The other argument is one of safety. Why wear "immoral" clothes if it's going to get you raped? Er, because I shouldn't get raped either way.

As I said before, "equality" is hard to achieve or describe. There's always going to be someone richer, smarter, with better connections, stronger bones, who knows what. So I consider equality in terms of choices and resources. If a whole bunch of people have x number of choices and resources, so should every one else. Or at least, there cannot be a huge discrepancy in the value of x. If men can walk around wearing pretty much anything they like with significantly fewer chances of getting raped, then that means they have more choices than we do. Also:

There's no such thing as "immoral" clothes. Hence the quotes.
Prostitutes/sex workers get raped every day; yes, they often wear revealing, lewd, whatever you want to call it, clothes; this still does not justify rape. Many are forced into prostitution, and those that choose to sell sex should be in control of who they want to service.

This argument about clothing must seem irrelevant to some -- or many (I can't tell) -- but the safety argument is seen differently in other spaces. I remember reading something about how it's stupid for women to not carry pepper spray or some sort of weapon and to not learn self defense. I agree, we should do what we can to protect ourselves, but these methods are not foolproof. The man can have a weapon of his own, be physically stronger, smarter, prepared to meet with pepper spray, experienced, and oh... what about gang rape? (Also, lots of women cannot afford to pay for self-defense lessons or pepper spray.)

That said, I would also not blame a woman who got raped and had not taken any measures to protect herself. It's like telling someone who didn't wear a bullet proof vest and got shot that they were stupid and deserved to die/be injured badly. It's an easy way to shift blame and it's disgusting.

Rape is the ultimate violation of a person's privacy. Eve teasing is no less of a crime. We have few things that we can truly call our own; our bodies are ours.


I don't demand, I only ask that:

we not be complacent.
we get rid of our stereotypes.


I was going to begin by mentioning all the wonderful women I know on deviantART, but there are too many. I also risk leaving out someone's name and I will regret it later.

So I will only mention Jayanti* and Smita*, who changed the way I saw things. Jayanti* and Smita* are two sex workers that my friend, Juhi, and I met while researching our article, Selling Sex. I am unlikely to meet them again, but that one hour interview will never be forgotten.