Thirty 3rd graders on a field trip to Coyote Hills Regional Park, I was expecting hiking, tiredness with lots of giggles and laughter. Instead I came back in awe of the Ohlone Indians who understood, respected and explained the essence of womanhood so beautifully. A simple lesson learnt during the field trip gave birth to this blogpost. I look forward to your comments.
Let us go back into an era when urbanization was not a word, an era when we wandered and hunted for food, an era when we made our own houses, weaved our own baskets and lived harmoniously with The Earth. In this primitive era, the natives led a simple life governed by the simplistically complicated notion of the women being the Life Givers and men being the Life Takers. Yes, the men went hunting, not because the women were incapable but because their naive native minds could not understand how a woman that gives birth can take a life. So the task of taking lives, or hunting became a man’s job. It was their belief that nature has made us as we are to keep the balance. Fast forward to the modern 2016, we have lost the meaning of feminism. Feminism in the modern world questions the very essence of womanhood.
What is womanhood?
What makes us a woman? Is it our physical bodies that the media is so fixated upon? No of course not. We are more than the big breasts and curvy figures that characterize the beauty of womanhood by the world. We nurture and that is our identity. A woman brings order to chaos, a woman grounds the irrational and the woman anchors the astray. Modern feminism, says men and women are equal. Bar a few anatomical differences, women are identical to men and need identical treatment. In our fight for equality, we agree to become men. We give birth and yet we work hard to learn how to take life, in doing so , we tire ourselves and lose the very essence of our being.
Do we need to label ourselves?
If we believe in the simple fact that every human being, irrespective of gender, race, caste, color, creed, sexual orientation, preferences are all equal, then do we really need to label ourselves? Shouldn’t we all make a conscious effort and become Humanist? If we can do that, then the need to be a feminist goes away, right?
Feminism eludes the common woman.
2016 will go down in history as the year of learning and surprises. November 8th, 2016 the stage was set, the proverbial glass ceiling was about to be broken. We were so close and yet so far. What happened? How did 44% of the women vote for a demagogue who judged, ridiculed and mocked woman of every shape and color? How did this happen in an era where women are leaning in on each other for support and getting stronger? It happened because only the elite are leaning in. The average Jill has no one to lean on. She is the cleaner, the cook, the average day care teacher, the bus driver who gets paid hourly and does not see the might powerful woman helping her. How does one build a feminist movement that appeals to the underpaid and unappreciated?
Accepting the differences will help bridge the gap.
Modern feminism talks about reversing gender roles and ignoring the simple fact that men and women are made differently. We cry for different reasons, we laugh at different reasons, we eat differently, we analyze differently and we love differently. They why are we the women forcing every woman on this planet to believe that yes, there is no difference and if there are differences, it is only because we were raised to think so. Really? Nothing can be more illogical. When a dad refuses to change a diaper, we scorn. When a woman refuses to learn to cook so she can feed herself, we say it’s okay. She is allowed not to cook. Isn’t being able to feed oneself a more primal need than wanting to change a diaper? The sooner we accept that men and women are different, we have different styles that compliment each other, the need to scream “war” goes away.
A woman is her own worst enemy.
Most successful women will tell you stories about that one woman at work who created roadblocks for her. It was her male boss who helped her step over the roadblocks and onto the road to success. Yes, we are more judgmental of our own kind. If every successful woman in the corporate workforce willingly agrees to hold the hand of the “average Jill” and bring her at par, inequality would disappear. We need to stop screaming and actually start to lean in on each other. And I am not talking about leaning in on your own kind, but lean in on those who are not your peers. Lean in to those who don’t have a ladder.
I find myself to be a part of the group that is annoyed at the noise of feminism. Feminism is about promoting the dreams, aspirations and well being of a woman. Modern feminism today is an ideology of the elite, and I am struggling to identify with it. Do I want equality? YES! I DO.. I want equality for my daughter and the million of daughters in this world. I want equality because every human deserves the same opportunity. Do I think it is possible? Yes, it is but it’s an elephantine task. It’s going to need rewriting the history textbooks so they include the Suffragette movement, It is going to need rewriting the science textbooks, so they include Mary Anderson alongside Tesla.
Rewriting history is never a good idea, a better way albeit expensive, would be to abolish the old textbooks and give the kids new books. New books that echo the modern world and its philosophies.
New books that teach kids how to respect the “Human” being and not the woman or man.
