“feminist” : how did this become a taboo word? why was i scared to call myself a feminist before? why do people still feel scared of it? what is equality really?

the first time i ever realised that i did not fully understand the urgency of educating myself on feminism was when i was on a date. the guy, a proud feminist, asked me, “are you a feminist?”. i said no. shocked, he asked me- why? i did not know why. “yeah the damn coffee is taking too long now isn’t it? :)”
i just wanted to run home.

after that incident i asked myself, “how can you have an opinion on something you know absolutely nothing about?”. and i replied,”well, that’s a good question mayuri, time to google everything now isn’t it :)”

feminism: the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.
me: WHAT,,, how is it equality if it’s about women’s rights????
I tried to understand this whole new and very important thing about life but it was tough; when you have already formed opinions about some things it’s extremely difficult to change them.

it was not until the Black Lives Matter movement that I understood feminism as best as i could. when one group of people started with the whole “all lives matter” bullshit i was shocked people could be so dumb. yes!!!! all lives matter but all lives aren’t facing injustice like this community is?????? so we need to help this underprivileged community over others. that’s when it struck me.

the demand for equality wouldn’t have arrived if things were equal. if something is not equal- one thing is less and the other thing is more. to bring equality- you need to give support to the less so that it can reach the same level as more. (SRRY 4 SCIENTIFIC TALKING I DIDNT KNOW I HAD IT IN ME IM PROUD OK)

in simpler terms, we demand gender equality because women are facing injustice based on their gender. to make things equal, we need to give certain privileges to women so that they can come to the level of men. we can’t take away privileges from men (oh what a dream though), so we must give women privileges- or to be honest, rights.

but if people understand this, why are they still scared of calling themselves feminists? (hello to my siblings 😀 )
feminism is anything but cool, have you seen the amount of memes? (some are quite funny, can’t deny that/ doesn’t mean I am a bad feminist if I can laugh on those memes). too many bad “feminists” have ruined the image of feminists in general. what people need to understand is that we are talking about half the world (3,903,066,575 or 49.5% of the human population to be precise). we cant control everything, we cannot control peoples opinion and their actions. we have no power over what people do. let me tell you one thing though: if you keep denying to call yourself a feminist, feminism will be reduced to the fake feminists because people like you who truly believe in feminism won’t be there to say “HEY BACK OFF, THAT BITCH DOES NOT DEFINE FEMINISM, FEMINISM IS NOT LIMITED TO PRIVILEGED PEOPLE LIKE ME AND HER. FEMINISM IS ABOUT UNDERPRIVILEGED WOMEN AS WELL WHO DON’T EVEN HAVE A VOICE. THERE ARE YOUNG GIRLS GETTING MARRIED OFF IN VILLAGES IN INDIA, YESTERDAY A WOMAN WAS STABBED TO DEATH BY HER HUSBAND BECAUSE SHE DECIDED TO CHOOSE HER CAREER OVER BEING A HOUSEWIFE. DID YOU KNOW THAT ONE IN EVERY THREE WOMAN HAS EXPERIENCED SEXUAL VIOLENCE? YES NOW YOU KNOW. I AM A FEMINIST AND I AM NOT GOING TO BE ASHAMED BECAUSE OF THOSE FEW WHOSE ACTIONS AREN’T EVEN IN MY CONTROL. GO EDUCATE YOURSELF!!!!”
yes, exactly. we need you.

and about me, that guy on the date would sure be proud of me now! i’m much more aware about what’s happening, what I must do and the importance of all this awareness. i am not perfect, just like you. i learn something new every day; i am learning to be better at this thing as well, to question everything and to get the answers too. it’s easy to get comfortable in your own life and not have an opinion about anything, trust me i know how convenient that is. but there are young girls getting raped amidst wars, raped in their bathrooms, touched by uncles; who frightened and alone, wonder why no one can stop this injustice, why must they suffer, are people that scared and involved in their lives to see them, to know how their frail bodies shiver at someone’s touch?

just want to end this by something to wonder upon:

we talk about the world being unfair to women. what about god being unfair to women? he gave us the responsibility to give birth. the pain, the periods, the hormones, the aftermath of it in the 21st century. how did he think we’d fend for ourselves when the other half of the world, our competitors in the survival of the fittest (men) don’t even have to go through this? in fact he gave them the power to make us pregnant- they get to decide what happens in our body. maybe this is where rape begun- men must’ve thought that they are superior to us because they can change our entire body. that it is them who can put ‘life’ inside of us- we are just a vessel, a medium. this power must’ve given them unimaginable delusions of grandeur. that they could and they must make these changes in our body, as though we are incomplete without them. almost like God intended: like the egg incomplete without the sperm: how it breaks, how we bleed.