Why I Am A Feminist

My grandmother loved me very much, she passed away a few years ago and everything I remember about her and about us is wrapped in a blanket of good memories, filled with laughter and warmth. But she did not want a granddaughter - she wanted my parents to have a son. She loved me very much, but she didn’t want me in the first place. This piece of information never came as a shock to me as we live in a world whose history and existence is deep rooted in patriarchal beliefs and systems, and not everyone is ready to challenge the normalcy of it.

Since the very beginning of civilization, women have been considered inferior versions of men. Aristotle characterized a female as a mutilated male. Women have been historically excluded from even the most scientific field of study i.e Medicine. The definitions of female and male bodies were observed as distinct but not equal, and analysis of medical texts throughout history revealed the male body to be constructed as superior. Due to the fact that women can bear children, medical discourse associated women with the body and men with the mind. Hippocrates, known as the father of modern medicine, theorised the concept of a ‘wandering womb’ which linked all of women’s mental and physical suffering to a ‘uterus that just would not stay still.’ This condition which he called ‘Hysteria’ was a diagnosis that was delegitimized in the year 1980, that is just 40 years ago. Society has always seen women as primarily reproductive bodies, female reproductive organs were the greatest difference to male bodies and because they were different, they were mysterious and considered suspicious.

Women were reduced to their reproducing abilities since the very beginning of civilization and the need to control their sexuality developed simultaneously. A belief as strong as this dominated early formations of societal structures and as our societies developed and became more complex, this idea grew along with it. It was not until the 19th century that feminist movements started erupting all across the world, and New Zealand became the first self governing country to grant voting rights to all adult women in the year 1893. The three waves of feminism gave way to huge levels of progress, and the problem of gender inequality became increasingly prominent.

We have come a long way since then. The fact that I am being able to write this article is a result of the countless fights fought by generations of women before me. But the fight did not stop with them and it cannot stop at us. It is not as simple as eradicating an insect with a pesticide. What we are fighting against is a mindset which has been systematically socialized into our existence. The gender binaries of our society are gradually breaking down as a result of the growing number of social movements all around the world. However, the deep rooted patriarchy still dominates the collective conscience and the majority of people in my country are yet to figure out the basic difference between sex and gender.

The intervening gaps between these social movements should not be barren. Gender identities are constructed, negotiated and contested in everyday life and resistance in everyday life is complex and multilayered. The idea of resistance fashioning everyday social relations is relatively new but is absolutely crucial in our present day society. To fight a battle as deep rooted as patriarchy, we need a bottom up approach, targeting the roots or the mindset. Microscopic efforts to change a seemingly little irrelevant idea of any one of your family members will go a long way. Revolution resides in our everyday, even wherein it is seemingly contradictory, less dramatic and least visible.

I am mostly tired by it all, to correct my family all the time or to even stop my friends from casually using sexist slangs. But four million girls are at a risk of undergoing Female Genital Mutilation, annually. Marital rape is still legal in thirty four countries. In thirty nine counties, daughters and sons do not have equal inheritance rights, and in twelve countries, rapists go free if they marry their victims. Every day, a hundred and thirty seven women across the world are killed by a member of their own family and I am still afraid to walk outside alone at night. So no matter how tired we get, we cannot give up.

“ For when you will be born,

It would not be the birth of just a girl;
It would be the birth of a revolution.”

• Mahin Ismail

Authored by : Ananya Chatterjee, who is a postgrad student of Sociology at Jadavpur University. An unabashed feminist and wearer of many hats, Ananya is constantly committed to deconstructing societal notions about gender, identity and privilege, through theoretical work and rights based activism.