It's not always about black and white it's also about grey

 “The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.”

Pat Robertson famously said this in the 90s, and the sentiment still rings as true in the ears of many today. 

One day A person called me and asked me are you a feminist ? I answered “yes”. It was a normal question though but his facial expression said something else to me. ok so I thought lets just reframe the definition of the term ‘FEMINISM’ .  Feminism is fighting for the equality of the sexes.  Irrespective of gender. It is the fight for equality  in terms of opportunity and Human rights.

With time the concept of feminism for people has changed a lot. It's less of a fight but more of converting women into a misandrist. Whenever they meet a feminst  the first thing comes under their mind is that the men but its not at all true. And one major reason  behind this type of Thinking is  pseudo feminism.

 pseudo feminist : A person that claims to be a feminist yet ignores the main point of feminism, equality. Pseudo-Feminists will tend to blather on about how terrible men are, or assume how men do not face social iss
ues in regards to their gender. Do pseudo-feminists really want equality? No, they want to create a world ruled by just women. A woman gets away with any wrongdoing? She shouldn’t just like a man shouldn’t. Women labeling themselves are feminist on social media wants empowerment and respect for women they think deserves it. They will bash a woman if his  wife or sister is less like a politician but they will support a woman bashing the same political leader. And because of them people consider feminism as misandric in nature.

For example take a real life incidence of  Myntra logo which has suddenly become the country’s most important problem.  A brand is being opposed to change its logo just because of an overactive Activist who thinks the logo is somehow is offending to women  and it's very important,  I'll tell you why BECAUSE we are so happy, so content that we have no big issues to fight for and no problems whatsoever– the economy is on a roll, jobs are crawling out of the woodwork, there is no poverty, no dearth of essentials, the farmers are on a picnic,  right ? Why else would we raise such a logo ? A simple harmless logo? 

 It's not only a fight for women, it's a fight to achieve overall equality  regardless of gender, age, position and wealth etc. Not only women have been affected because of  patriarchal society But also men have suffered because of toxic masculinity, less freedom to express their emotions etc. 

 

Ways in Which Men are Victims of Patriarchy (Without Knowing It)

1. One cannot grow into their own individuality : In the name of culture, tradition and heritage women all over India were forced to live under  restrictions and  shamed into living by society’s sexist code. But did you know that backward social norms don’t just box in women, they severely limit males as well?

For example a person who believes women should only consider a household and family  related issue as their work not allowing them to step in the outside world and live a life according to their own terms and dreams.  And they will also  think that doing  chores  ( eg cooking ) is not “manly” enough. This  thinking will quickly extend to all the aspects of life and will leave men with only few choices to decide - from the colour of the shirt they want to wear till the career choice they want to make. 

2. Men should have a very low emotion range :  men should express a very low spectrum of emotion mainly anger or a little bit of happiness can be allowed according to the society norms of how a man can express himself. They are also encouraged to be loud and dominant beings that solve all their issues via aggression. And on the other hand a woman should be a rainbow of emotion according to our “ SOCIETY”. And that is a shame, because men have a variety of feelings as well. The only reason they cannot express themselves is because doing so is considered unmanly, reserved only for the weaker.

 

3. Little or zero emotional support for sexual abuse :

 

Sexual abuse or rape has to do nothing with gender. Men also get sexually abused too and they also suffer from the same mental trauma and depression as females go through. In the media you might have heard about sexual abuses faced by women. But how many crimes do we hear of in the media which are related to men ; in fact, how many get reported? Male victims often don’t speak about their violation because if they did, they would be mocked, called weak, or accused of being a homosexual who enjoyed the act. To avoid judgment and character assassination, they suffer in silence. 

 

 

So we need a world where everyone has a right to live their life in a way they want regardless of their biological sex or the gender they perceive themselves as without any boundation and fear of getting judged by the society. 

by : Kevin Giri