Has Feminism Got Way Too Mainstream?

Okay ladies, lets be honest and admit how many times have you played the feminist card. Don't you try to deny it because I know you have, well, we all have. 

May be that time on the bus when all the ladies seats were already full, and you try to give this little guy an angry stare down or when you tried to grab the last piece heavenly rainbow pastry at the bakery by giving the 'I am a woman please let me have the pastry face' ( Okay, that might have been me)


In a nation that still struggles to completely define gender equality and feminism, we have somehow found our own definition to it. Some do get, and some absolutely don't.Now make no judgements, I am a feminist myself and I believe women are superior to men but then isn't that just male chauvinism ?



But you know what really irritates me is people sharing these stupid, pathetic posts about feminism and calling themselves a feminist. These are the same women who do not even help any other woman if they see someone getting eve teased on the streets, these are the same women who would blame the girl for her rape because she was wearing short clothes and these are the same women who would leave no chance to tell you how fat or unhealthily slim you have got.


I was reading this article about Saudi women, when it hit me - no matter how much we try to parade the feminism in people's faces, its just never going to be enough.

According to this article, women in

• Saudi Arabia aren't allowed to drive ( Fine by me, I hate to drive! ) But hey, women should atleast have the choice to drive, liking it or not liking it is their choice. And no, I am not trying to quote Deepika Padukone here.

• Women are not allowed to leave the house alone without a chaperone, a male chaperone. Why ? Seriously, why ? What if I lived in Saudi and I was in my house alone but my dog needed to poop. Would I have to make him poop inside the house? But seriously, what if there was an earthquake or a much awaited alien attack? Would they be compelled to stay at home and hope for the Men in Black to arrive on time?

• No gyms or sporting events for women. Again, completely fine by me but what the government (or the king) of Saudi don't realize is, the future Williams sisters are being escorted to the market right now with their male chaperones, wearing burkhas and buying nice clothes so that their family can wed them off soon

• Okay, here comes the weird one - no wearing red or giving red roses on Valentines day or celebrating Valentine's day at all (Shiv Sena would go ecstatic if that rule was implemented here). But who is the government to tell women what they can't or cannot wear. And all this over a colour? Seriously ? This is like the US government trying to decide if a women can have an abortion or not. Seriously, no uterus no opinion. And there, I just quoted Rachel fucking Greene.

• But the worst one - women cannot work. They can may be in education and medical field but hey nothing too fancy and nothing to major because well, you are a woman and you are never supposed to forget that. You are not expected to have any dreams

But then comes the agony of the Indian woman, no the modern Indian woman who lives by her own, has a nice job, can definitely travel alone, has a nice guy hanging on her arm but hey - she needs feminism.

• Don't you dare tell her she is too weak to pick up those heavy boxes because that is chauvinism but if you don't offer to help her out with the boxes you are a jerk.

• Don't you dare tell her she is a bad driver but if she hits something while trying to park, its your fault for not warning her

• Don't you dare tell her she can't cook. Its 2015 and not all women spend their lives in the kitchen but when she finally makes something and it tastes hideous, you are expected to gulp it down like its the best meal of your life. But hey, she is going to criticize that chicken you made all day long.

I know and I understand women need to be empowered ( Just to clarify, I am not quoting Rahul Gandhi. I am quoting whoever he stole those lines from). But empowering a gender doesn't mean making the other gender look bad, what we need is gender equality and not feminism.

Women often complain about not getting paid as much as men but men aren't expected or in a lot of cases not allowed to take a maternity leave too. Now I understand the guy doesn't have to push the baby out of his womb but he is having a child too and shouldn't he be entitled to take a few weeks off to spend some time with his kid and help her wife out? The wife could play the feminism card over the husband here for not being there for his baby. But hey, its still the guy's fault right ?

I know that women have still a very long way to go when it comes to achieving gender equality and I know its not an easy road but I also know not all men are against gender equality. I have met a lot of men who respect women like they should be and believe women should have an equal status as men but they do not believe in feminism. They think a feminist is someone who gives more preference to a woman over a man and that;s not we want. We need an equal society. Just like our constitution says,

The constitution of India not only grands equality to women but also prohibits discrimination against any citizen on grounds of gender,race, caste or religion

or, we could always go the Ryan Gosling way