“Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, “She doesn’t have what it takes.” They will say, “Women don’t have what it takes.” – Clare Boothe Luce
Although intellectual feminism is very important when it comes to identifying the pedagogy and mechanism of patriarchy it is very complex and often unavailable to the masses. All of us have been born into a patriarchal society and inherit traits from the family and institutions to uphold and live by it, even if the next generation brings about some meager changes in it to adapt according to the contemporary world, its patriarchy nonetheless.
According to the All India survey on higher education, the share of girl students is lowest in institutes of national importance, followed by deemed universities under the government, and state private universities. The survey also found that female participation in professional courses is lower in comparison to academic courses.
Very few of us are privileged enough to get accepted in institutions and courses with an excellent faculty to be introduced to feminist and Marxist theories (as I type this the word Marxist is autocorrected to the capital letter while the word feminist remains in small letters) theories to understand how exactly patriarchy works and we feel enlightened. You have been weakly questioning many things and there, you find answers to the reasons for your subjugation and subordinate position. The ones who start questioning the authorities from that group of “privileged” ones are very few and the rest merely take it as a syllabus that needs to be crammed up and passed to get good grades and offer themselves promising career options hardly questioning or even acknowledging the problem of women inequality (specifically talking about feminist theories).
Digression
Employment does offer independence in terms of money but it does not guarantee freedom from oppression. In fact, a working woman faces immense pressure and stress to balance her domestic and professional life. Working women especially married working women have to tackle the office work pressure along with the domestic work pressure while their male counterparts offer little “help” when it comes to domestic chores and child-rearing.
India’s female labor force participation has dropped from 35% in 1991 to 27% in 2014, a rate below the global average of around 50% and the East Asian average of around 63%, according to a 2015 IMF study. As incomes rise, women’s labor force participation often falls, only to rise again when female education levels improve; consequently, the value of women in the labor market increases, the IMF study said. That is not happening in India.
95 percent of the very few left are intellectuals and they would have answers for everything, they would have questions for everything. They would write articles and a thesis that would show the profundity of their knowledge and it would be widely circulated amongst their circle, read in it, and passed on in their fairy circle with esoteric terminologies that is Greek even to the moderately educated individuals. Period.
The problem is that they do not have solutions for anything outside their circle, most of the articles are not even translated into the native tongue for better access. They would talk about the privilege of men, savarna society, capitalists, and government the worst of all is criticism for the ones who did not have the same prerogative. Talking in the context of women they would be very right in the objective classification of the superstructures of patriarchy BUT they would fail to impact the lineaments of the structure and instead of working within it to change it they try to abscond it, which again is a privilege that most of the women do not enjoy. Their presence has little to no impact on the actualities of the system and are instead seen as a threat because the masses feel threatened by whatever they do not understand.
Now, who is responsible for educating the masses, specifically women? This is where feminist activism steps in, you have to work from within the system to change it though it is easier said than done. There is a particular need to reverse the clock and see how did it all start for you, the struggles that a feminist intellectual have to go through to be where they are numerous and inescapable, and yet when they reach the position they tend to do nothing but be cynical and catastrophic is the criticism for another woman without taking into account the realities of an Indian Woman. Realities that worked on you before you stepped out and everyone may never get that lucky. It is not very different from the criticism faced by the #metoo campaign when the question posed was why did you not do this or that when it happened? It is always more complex than that and an intrinsic active option or action is often unavailable. Very much like the theories that everyone understands but very few practically apply.
Feminism has different definitions for different women, it will be different for a savarna woman juxtaposed to that of a Dalit woman, same goes for a tribal or a Muslim woman. It’s impossible to fight the system until we unite for some common grounds. This may seem not very radical in approach but bringing together women from all over the country to protest against male domination is the need of the hour. One step at a time and soon things will go to a different level but the main point is unity. One cannot unite a movement until and unless minorities are in inclusion. The intellectuals have to learn not to digest but have patience with things that are obviously patriarchally imposed.
Beginning a fight for some of the following elemental needs for Indian women and then moving on to more radical demands is the key to the growth of a mass movement.
- RESERVATION FOR HALF THE SEATS FOR WOMEN IN PARLIAMENT AND THAT TOO WITH INCLUSION OF THE MINORITIES ACCORDING TO THEIR PERCENTAGE IN POPULATION. (India ranks 20th from the bottom in terms of representation of women in Parliament)
- INCLUSION OF MEN IN DOMESTIC WORK AND REARING OF CHILDREN, EQUAL WAGES, FLEXIBILITY IN MATERNAL LEAVE, AND MENSTRUATION LEAVE FOR WOMEN.
- INCLUSION OF GENDER STUDIES IN SYLLABUS RIGHT FROM PRESCHOOL OF EVERY STATE AND CENTRAL BOARD, ABOLITION OF DRESS CODE IMPOSED ON GIRLS.
- ZERO TOLERANCE FOR SEXUAL HARASSMENT AT HOME OR AT THE WORKPLACE. SAFER PUBLIC SPACE FOR WOMEN IRRESPECTIVE OF TIME AND PLACE.
These are some of the basic demands that we need to get fulfilled before aiming for more radical issues. If we are able to bring the women of the country together to fight patriarchy if will also fend off casteism and Brahmanical hierarchy.
Criticism for an educated feminist woman who gets arranged married to a brahman is a housewife, bears children, puts a bindi and sindoor, and keeps karvachauth fast seems like an antagonism of the entire idea of feminism but blaming the person is like blaming the rape victim for getting raped. It is much more complex than that taking into account the different situations and circumstances that every individual is put forth to. An intellectual feminist would criticize this action but an activist would try to comprehend the ambiguity of “choice” in her action and what can be done in society to minimize such examples and their impact on the particular individual. Likewise, a Muslim feminist wearing a burqa quoting it as her “choice” seems inedible. Did they really have a choice, was the annihilation of everything an option that they could or should have taken?
While an intellectual would take the mother-in-law as a perpetrator of patriarchal norms, an activist would see her as a victim of such patriarchal norms and would try to empathize and understand her phycology and what can be done to emulsify it.
I would like to quote an example of the idea I’m trying to put forth by following an extract from an essay by Kristie Brewer called “The day Iceland’s women went on strike” on the “day” which saw a mass protest of almost 90%of woman population quoting the experience of an Icelandic professor of that time. “The Red Stockings movement had caused quite a stir already for their attack against traditional views of women – especially among older generations of women who had tried to master the art of being a perfect housewife and homemaker,” says Ragnheidur Kristjansdottir, senior lecturer in History at the University of Iceland.
But when the strike was renamed “Women’s Day Off” it secured near-universal support, including solid backing from the unions. “The programme of the event itself reflected the emphasis that had been placed on uniting women from all social and political backgrounds,” says Ragnheidur.
Things went back to normal the next day, but with the message that women, as well as men, are the pillars of society,” she says. “So many companies and institutions came to a halt and it showed the force and necessity of women – it completely changed the way of thinking.”
Five years later, Vigdis beat three male candidates for the presidency. She became so popular that she was re-elected unopposed in two of the three next elections.
While an intellectual tends to work in an isolated manner an activist would try to work on the grassroots level by bringing small baby steps towards change that would come with empathy and without gaslighting the said perpetrator/victim.
“If you want to go fast go alone but if you want to go far move with a group”
It is very difficult but the only way to bring changes in the superstructures of patriarchy is by questioning, empathizing, explaining, and uniting. The woman in the house needs to side with the woman in the house. There is no fighting patriarchy without unity among women and that is something absolutely impossible to achieve without reaching out to the grassroots level of society and its psyche. We need to start a wave that reaches every household and every woman. One absolutely cannot keep the housekeepers, Dalits, Muslims, Adivasis, and yes not even the savarna women out of it. While all three waves of feminism have been led by intellectuals working on individual level goals of a woman this time we need the activists to take over and work like Savitri Bai Phule and Fatima Begum Sheik keeping aside the differences in society for a bigger cause to emulate the structures without discrimination. Instead of working on the top, we need to work on the roots. The first goal of such a wave is to unite the mothers and daughters, savarna, Dalit, Adivasi, and Muslims, women of the lower, middle and upper class, and mothers and daughters-in-law.
Patriarchy would come crashing down on its knees once we enable the mother and the in-law mother to become the shield of their daughters. The solution always lies in the problem, the men were able to establish their supremacy by dividing and ruling, and to annihilate patriarchy the women need to UNITE AND REIGN.
This is where the role of intellectual feminists comes in, the intellectuals need to unite with the activists and the former would produce a framework on the feasibility and requirements for a mass protest while the other would work on those parameters to accomplish it. Of course, an intellectual can work as an activist.
I would categorize myself as an activist still working on elemental levels of my family and surroundings. But we really need our comrade intellectuals not to judge us with why but unite with us and tell us how.
History has it that when women unite for a cause in a movement the chances of its success improve.
- Protests are more likely to remain nonviolent when women participate, according to a United Nations report.
- Women effectively take on many roles during protests and mass movements, from organizer to caregiver to protector.
- Women playing visible roles in protests have become symbols of freedom and progress.
Some practical examples to justify the aforementioned points:
The Chipko movement: With the help of activist Chandi Prasad Bhatt, women mobilized in large numbers across various villages. From Gaura Devi, who organized the women of Lata village, to the women of Dongri Paintoli and Gopeshwar, there are many examples of this eco-feminist movement led by women in the 1970s. Chipko Movement sparked similar protests in India in the 1980s leading to a ban on cutting of all trees in the forests of Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Bihar, Western Ghats, and Vindhayas for 15 years.
Times, the metro edition of The Times of India, invited women from all walks of life to the campaign #NoConditionsApply to break the patriarchal practice of allowing just married women to celebrate Sindhur Khela. The #NoConditionsApply hashtag and the two-dot selfies became viral, showing support for the shunned part of society that they too belong and that they too can celebrate, coming together as one.
Will Go Out Since the New Year–2017 celebration came to a stop, newspapers and TV channels were filled with the news of mass molestation that happened in Bengaluru, Karnataka on the Eve of the New Year. What started as a celebration, turned into a nightmare for the women in the crowd who were molested, as their cries fell on deaf ears. The Nation shook when the news fell into their ears, and the women were not taking the blame upon themselves for celebrating. Abu Azmi, a politician from Maharashtra, ignited the anger in women by commenting on the media blaming the women for getting molested in public. On 21st January 2017, a march was organized by a group of people who thought that women had equal rights to public places as men, and with the help of social media, thousands of women joined the march across 30 cities and towns to reclaim the public places. The movement slashed the idea that some public places are not for women, especially after sunset. #shaheenbagh#metoo#farmersprotest show that there is nothing more threatening than women in solidarity with women.
References
https://www.axios.com/2020/03/09/women-protests-around-the-world-womens-day
https://www.womensweb.in/2018/11/mass-movements-led-by-women-in-india-womens-movements-nov18wk1sr/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34602822.amp
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