Renjanthung L Patton
‘The measure of any society is how it treats its women and girls’ -Michelle Obama
In 2014, Emma Watson delivered a powerful speech at the United Nations General Assembly spearheading the ‘HeForShe’ campaign. She spoke something profound that stayed with me for a long time. It empowered my roots of feminism to my already existing thoughts on it.
I thank whatever the actor spoke with her conscious mind because it gave me a crystal clear concept on feminism ever since.
Feminism is a modern concept which aims to establish equality amongst all genders of the society at all levels and fields across the globe. In simpler term, believing in equality of both the sexes makes you a feminist, regardless of your gender.
Gender equality is a subject that we see most people dance around with these days. And, over the past decades this issue has finally surfaced to the national and international spotlight as a sign of progress and a march for the society's betterment.
Just as everyone has a story to share about their beliefs on gender equality and how various situations and life experiences shaped their beliefs on it. I have my own story to share therefore.
My roots on gender equality started to grow when I was 16 years of age. It was the drum beat of the horrifying story of a young girl named Malala Youzafzai who was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman for speaking the simple truth that girl around the world has the right to go to school. The moment when my heart first broke when I discovered that 62 million girls of this world are still not in school. To worsen the already heated situation, the focus on feminism grew more when I realized that my mother and my sister soon became the subject of conversation in my locality for wearing modern outfits. And my dear friend's situation, where her pregnancy before entering adulthood, was labeled as ‘slut’ by the society with no scrutiny towards the man. To count more, the humiliation and bullies received by my male mates for wearing a pink cloth could not be seen as an excuse for simply teasing.
Further, the realization that the Naga customary law is based on nothing but a blatant sexist established law encouraging traditional gender roles in the society. These are just a fraction of the reasons but, it formed my foundation on feminism. All these casual yet impacting stories stood as my base in making me become the feminist that I am today.
As every path is considered coarse while marching for the right thing, the exposure of my feminist identity made me face volley of shots. I soon became worthy of comments which represented nothing but, profound bigotry and labels of dehumanizing slanders because of the fact that my feminism also includes minorities like the transgender community or the women struggling with gender identity. I would be labeled “homo” “sissy” or according to them “girly” because of the beliefs that I exhibited. I felt the sting of subtle bullying and teasing, mostly from the male folks falling on the top gender level- 'male'. They act as if name calling is an acceptable substitute for a thoughtful debate. And, it made me wonder how afraid we are of each other. The diversity of thoughts and beliefs that exist are seen as threat to who we are. We shouldn't be afraid of our differences and thoughts and ideas because our differences are what make us who we are. If we cannot have respect for one’s beliefs and thoughts, let’s make an effort to at least have a sense of tolerance towards it.
The reasons of the outrage that was existing could simply be because of the few following reasons;
a) They believe in hyper patriarchal masculinity or have deep beliefs in the socially constructed definition of a man.
b) Their ignorance to what feminism actually is and what it stands for, also the unwillingness in them to learn this subject, and
c) Their failure to have deep beliefs in the values of equality and freedom of every human being.
Each time I echoed my feminist beliefs, I've been stood up by people, especially men, who bombard me with the same question saying, ‘You’re a man’ and ‘Man cannot be a feminist.’
Also, there are some self identified feminists who are uncomfortable with the view of men being feminists. And so to this, I believe that this thought is totally 'Not Ok'.
I would argue that we need as many people as we can who would advocate for equality and encourage people to live a life that embodies equality and social justice. Feminism is increasingly needed in a society like Nagaland where people are so ignorant, including most of the women folks who are not aware of their rights and unknown to the injustice they have no idea exist. If such is the scenario, feminism is important and it is a necessary concept that needs to be promoted and not diminished purely because of ignorance and intolerance from its people. Feminism is a pretty cut and dried term that simply refers to believing in the political, economic and social equality of all sexes. So, in that spirit, I cement this argument by saying, 'YES, Men can be a feminist.'
