When the pearls of my mangal sutra and the glass bangles I wore around my wrists were mistaken for my inability to break the glass ceiling.I was called a bad feminist.
When the tender finger of my newborn daughter encircling my hand gave me more happiness than winning any case in court. I was called a bad feminist.
In a world like ours, where one’s social awareness is represented by one’s awareness of liking the most “woke posts” on their social media, we are bound to mistake Matriarchy to be the opposite of Patriarchy. Men too as the opposite of me too. We are bound to make peace with a blurred definition of feminism.
When I objected to the use of objectifying terms like ‘ prima donna ‘ or ‘queen bee ‘. I was called a feminazi.
They said I was God Laxmi, with me came prosperity. I was worshipped with rose petals sheltering each part of my body, yet I felt like a mere carpal between the rose petals caging me, a carpel whose presence was for nothing but fertilisation and birth. This is what I fight against, every day every moment and yet I am but a thing to be protected, a thing to be owned. A thing.
My methods of fighting this war have been judged. My methods of living my life have been judged. I have been judged.
And I have had enough
I am tired of this scam to be the right kind of feminist. This constant race to prove my want for quality. This irony of being told what I should want in order to be a woman who fights for her right to choose her wants.
Feminism is the notion to bring us a step closer to equality, to treat me neither like goddess Laxmi nor the Durga but just a human in this society plagued with male supremacy. Feminism is not motherhood, neither is it breaking off my mangal sutra. Feminism is me and all the facets of myself I choose to show the world. Feminism is allowing me to choose how I want to be a mother, wife, sister, daughter and most importantly myself.
So, I am a bad feminist, I am a feminazi, I am a person born on this planet with the ‘wrong set of chromosomes and, I ‘manipulate’ you, I ‘force’ you, I ‘beg ‘ you to allow me to live my life by my own ideologies.
