Hey Mira Rajput, You Might Want to Read Adichie’s Idea of Feminism

Attention! World, you need to read this!

We should all be angry.

We should all ask questions.

We should all be subverting labels.

We should all support equality of all genders.

We should all be feminists.

“A man doesn’t have to worry about looking too masculine, BUT a woman has to worry about looking too ‘feminine’”, larks Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

A boy and a girl are different, but only biologically. Our society exaggerates the differences and creates water-tight constructs of ‘gender’.

Gender colours the way we look at the world: women have to fit into the role of being submissive, un-ambitious, homely women; men on the other hand have to subscribe to a very tight jar of masculinity.

And that’s where the problem lies: we raise boys and girls differently. Boys are taught to be independent, bread-winners, money-chasers. Girls have got to get home early, be ashamed of their sexuality, and never talk to boys.

However, they have to miraculously bring home a boy, who will marry her and whisk her from her own family to his.

This system reeks of inequality and unfairness. Secondly, this is passed off as culture. A culture that is created by us and is mouldable. Yet, it is not questioned, probed. And, that’s why ‘We all should be feminists’.

Feminism is about being self-reliant, it is about giving all genders equal rights. It does NOT emasculate men. In fact, it gives them freedom to speak out of their masculine constraints and experience life without being judged by their gender.

Author, and activist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, lists these simple notions on a placard for the uninitiated. Consume and don’t assume:

Why do men assume that they don’t need to cook? Isn’t nourishing yourself the most basic human instinct? And yes, cooking is not ‘pre-installed’ in my vagina.

This has been specified more than enough, I think.

And the following should be obvious in our ‘culture’.

Being a ‘feminazi’ is ‘uncalled for’, according to Mira Rajput. But who has coined that term for us? Culture, or men? We need to unpack words before passing statements like these. Hope you and the world reads Adichie’s words, and learn a thing or two about feminism.