The title itself speaks a lot about feminism. Last year I had a chance to attend the talk titled “Bad Feminism vs Factual Feminism”, where Roxane Gay (American author , self-proclaimed feminist, professor and social commentator) and Christina Hoff Summers (American author) were to talk about the topic.
Till that day, I had always been a bit confused with the word “Feminism”. I didn’t know if feminism meant fighting for your rights. But as Roxane said that if you think men and women should be paid equally at the workplace, then you are a feminist.
Feminist doesn’t mean you are aggressive or you scream from the rooftop or you argue with someone if they have a different opinion on feminism.
You are a feminist if you know what your rights are. Men and lot of women have been raving about how privileged women are these days but they fail to understand that what women are demanding today are the basic rights which have been mens’ privilege for decades.
Why a woman if she wants to explore her sexuality is called a slut. Or if a woman wants to be in love with a rich man is termed as gold-digger. Or if a woman just wants to do binge drinking, she is supposed to get enrolled in a program first where she is taught all the repercussions of binge drinking. Why do people raise brows when a woman says she loves whisky on the rocks. These whys’ just don’t stop.
Roxane totally nailed the talk when she said that men really need to stop talking for sometime and start listening to women.
But what about women who are totally against the idea of feminism or who think that today’s women have been given too much of liberty. Women who think that a man’s career is way important to a woman’s. I think these women never had a chance to grow, to fulfil their dreams, ambitions.
They forget that they are feminists as well. its just that they were never given a chance. But why are we waiting to be given a chance. Why cant we grab one, take one that is ours.
Girls today really need to be taught to be resilient, not to setlle for less, to move forward, to do what they like to do even if its binge drinking. They should be taught about consent before sex, rape, physical assault, emotional assault and even marital rape. They need to learn about their legal rights if they or any other woman they know gets into any of these situations.
Teaching them to be independent, well-read and being well aware of women rights and laws makes them prepared for the future. But at no point, should they be stopped just because they are girls.
Girls need to be Bad Feminists as this is exactly what the world needs today.
The Ecstatic Maverick 