Am I a Feminist? :|

Last weekend I met a group of friends, all girls! Yaay! So we somehow always end up talking about women harassment when we meet. So, I was talking about how in an arranged marriage men should stop their parents from asking dowry and then we were talking about men beating up women when I said, “If the man slaps a woman why can’t she just slap him back?” This was the moment one of my friends told me, “Gayu, I am afraid that you are becoming a feminist!”

I stuffed a mouthful of vada pav (Oh yea! I was having vada pav after a long wait and craving! Yumm!) and didn’t open my mouth after that. My mother although over protective about me is a woman with a forward thinking. So after I came home I asked her, ‘mama, what will you do if papa slapped you?’ She said, “You see what happens when he raises his voice when we are having an argument” What she does is she walks off from the place and never bothers to talk to him until he apologizes. I got my answer she would definitely slap him back or leave him. So there! I am not a feminist and I am not becoming one. I am just a woman who has some senses? Still I have been thinking about this for a quite some while now and I really pity the situation of few women in our country. I have few questions that we should ask ourselves - Why are we so afraid of the society? Why are we so bound by what others think about us and our life? If you are in your late 20s or early 30s and you are still not married you are looked at like you have a fatal disease. People start pitying you. Why? Maybe I am not married because I have not found the person I want to be with yet.

We are all so bound to what the society might think about what we do! When I was reading the news about the Mumbai gang rape I read a comment from a man that goes like this - I have a question to ask these women why do you want to be in an isolated place after 6 PM? Women should go back home before 6 in the evening so they can be safe! Hello! Where am I Afghanistan? Anything happens women are the ones to be blamed.  When men can have sex before marriage and not talk about it, women are not supposed to lose their virginity before marriage if they do it is a sin because she is the one who have the chances of getting pregnant. We were taught to tolerate everything and guys are allowed to bully women. I wouldn’t blame them because that’s how they are brought up! Teach your boys to go to the grocery shop, ask him to clean and wipe the house, do the dishes. What are women the specialists in these areas? In early days, women did the households and men went to office and earned for the family so men don’t work when they come home. Fair enough! Now women earns for the family too so you men better learn to support them and dear mothers please teach them how to do it! Your sons did not jump from heaven so Stop pampering you boys and make them bullies of future!

Girls are also to be blamed. The girls who are in a relationship are dependent on their boyfriends for their choices, he controls her from what to wear to, where to go and whom to talk. Why do we hand them the remote control. So he has a life and he lives it and now he has another life too, yours! I am not saying that they should not discuss their choices with their partners but don’t you think we are the ones who should make the decision end of it? Don’t you think you should have individuality in life? Why do you have to be dependent on him for every single thing? Do you know women are emotionally strong as compared to men? Yes we are. We get over things easier than them and we think faster than them. Men don’t want to accept it because it touches their ego. So be it, Men are the strongest but women have the most willing heart in the world that she can make anything happen.  Eat that! Please carry this attitude. Don’t let your boyfriends/husbands take over your life. Plainly, get a life!

If the man beats you beat him back pulp! If he keeps insulting you in a relationship get out of it! Be respectful enough to walk away from a relationship that takes your happiness. Don’t give dowry, real men don’t take money from women and don’t get married because you are getting old and you are afraid that you might not be able to find one at all. You will always find the person that was born for you J Do not compromise on anything because you deserve better. You are special.

Well, if this is how I think am I a feminist or I am just independent and has a forward thinking or am I arrogant? Whatever it is, this is me and this is how I will be! Eat that too! J