- By: Sunaina Dileep Kumar
For most of the people, the film “Animal” is toxic for the society. Then what about the toxic “Feminism?” Often on social media, whenever we talk about topics like feminism, patriarchy and masculinity, you must have heard people saying that these girls, these women, or these boys are always like this. Such arguments are raised a lot, it’s like as a team Boys and team Girls are opposing each other.
Think about it, is it not strange? That males and females are always divided into two different teams. It doesn’t make sense to group all men into one team and female in another. There are men who throw acid on girls if she refuses them. Would you like to be in the same team with them? No.
The real division that exists here is between patriarchal people and feminist people. There are arguments about how can men and women be equal? Their argument is that men and women have different anatomies. Men can’t give birth to children. So how can we be equal? These arguments are very illogical. It is true that in male and female anatomy 2-3 organs are differ. But there are at least 70-75 organs that are the same in male and female anatomies.
Two eyes, one nose, two ears, it’s the same for men and women. It is true that their gender is different, but it’s not like women belong to a different species. Both are homo sapiens. And In English, two words are used here, similar and equal, to get rights you don’t have to be equal, being similar is enough. Nature creates diversity but it does not create discrimination. it creates differences, not hierarchy, not inequality, and the diversity created by nature is transformed into discrimination and inequality by society. Women give birth to children, so they get maternity leave. but when women work in the office, they should be paid equally to men. how is there any sort of confusion in this? Yes, men and women are not totally similar to one another. But a black man and the white men are not totally similar to one another, a man who can walk on his two legs and a man who is sitting on a wheelchair are not totally similar to each other there is a difference between a smart man and a stupid man because of these differences it is not said that certain kinds of men should not get equal rights. In every human being there are small differences in comparison to other people. But this does not mean that these differences be the reason for not giving equal rights. So, the point is that the feminist struggle is not a man versus woman scenario, rather it is about patriarchal people versus feminist people.
And this is not just a fight for equal rights for women but also a fight for the rights of men. Patriarchy is the reason behind many men’s issues. The patriarchal ideology says that women will work at home and men will have to earn money and if a woman is working and earning then the man will have to earn more than her otherwise, what will people say? they will criticize him as a man. For being a man who lives off of a woman’s money that he should be ashamed. With that Social Conditioning and Normative Conformity, causes many women and girls to be victims of this patriarchal mind set. Even they say that they want a husband who earns more than them. And this same patriarchal mindset is also present in men’s loneliness, If a man cries, society mocks him for being a man who cries. There is saying, ‘men don’t cry.’ forget about crying, patriarchal thinking does not let men express any negative emotion. If a boy talks to his male friends about his problems and stress, he is considered emotionally weak. He is told that he is getting emotional like girls. On the other hand, Girls talk more openly with their friends express their problems. But if a boy does this, society will not accept him. This is the reason why men’s loneliness become an issue. When a boy feels depressed, he is forced to hide his depression, expressing any kind of grief, any kind of emotional problem is not considered acceptable in society. This much emotional castration that he is deprived of emotional intelligence and what does this result in? If you look at global data for people dying by suicide, the rate among man is much higher than that of women. What is the reason behind these problems? Patriarchal thinking and patriarchy. Angelica Ferrara from Stanford University wrote the book men without men. This book explains how men’s loneliness is a feminist issue. Social reformers were not against men or women, but wanted to give equal rights to men and women.
Feminism is divided into three waves: The first came in the 1880s and early 1890s. This was the time when women demanded to have political rights. “Right to vote,” before then women did not have the right to vote. In the French revolution, a political activist, Olympe de Gouges, drafted a document, the declaration of the rights of the female citizen. She is considered one of the first feminist in the world. The second wave of feminism came around in 1960s, this focused on the issue of ending gender discrimination in their households. During this time, a slogan was raised by the famous feminist, Carol Hanisch, “The personal is political” many legal and social rights were given to women. After this, the third wave of feminism, which started in the 1990s, this focused on the issues of intersectional feminism. That is, feminism is not only for upper class white women, rather poor and black women should get the same rights.
Most of the people never talk about real feminism the reason is very simple. They don’t want equal rights for men and women. They want to promote the same Patriarchal mindset and want to discredit the entire feminist movement. These people spread lies feminists hate all men. That feminists want women to leave man forever. But the real feminism will never be discussed. The real meaning of feminism and why smash patriarchy is important. Because we want to see a world where men and women have equal rights to be free, in terms of equal rights and opportunities.