Just like any other ‘–isms’ that label people and make them fit into a certain category (either/or), feminism is another West-inspired, culturally-alienating ideology that has sucked the feminine out of the female! So much so that the male and the female have come to be constructed as two distinct and opposing categories under the imposing influence of the West that it is.  

Tracing its roots from critical theory in sociology, the basic premise of feminism that sex and gender are two disparate concepts in themselves is an utterly ill-informed one. It is on the basis of such a falsely-inspired binary notion of the masculine and the feminine that the feminine eventually has been robbed of its basic nature. India, that is Bharat, the land of Ardhanarishvara and Shiva-Sakti Parampara, does not need a borrowed intellectual discourse in the form of feminism to teach us about gender equality! Because, gender here is very much about the male as much as it is about the female. They co-mingle, co-exist, and are co-dependent on one another to reproduce and create life. Sooner we accept this fact, the better it is or else, it results in distancing oneself away from one’s basic biological nature, thereby negatively impacting the mental health of people in an overtly individualistic, technology-driven world.

The ancient Hindu sages believed that Shakti is a part of Lord Shiva himself and they co-exist. In Sanatan Dharma, it is believed that when Shakti is separated from Shiva, she assumes the form of Rudrani or Kali performing a destructive dance indicating an impending natural disaster. A beautiful explanation indeed! This is the Bharat where the feminine is worshipped during the annual Ambubachi festival in the form of the yoni of Devi Kamakhya, an incarnation of Goddess Parvati herself. Worship of Shakti/Devi is famous in the Tantra tradition of Sanatan Dharma in which gender has never been a binary concept. It believes that the Aadishakti (eternal energy) is present everywhere, in all forms, from humans to the snake to the little sparrow in our backyard. The universe is a living cosmos in the Dharmic framework where all lives are to be respected, because life is about nature and nurture both.

This is the very idea that feminism negates. Whereas feminism ends at equality and a one-sided understanding of patriarchy, the Dharmic notion of equality penetrates all aspects of lives in this universe equally, and not just the female. There is no conflict. A claustrophobic notion, feminism today stands for everything that is a blind and copy-cat version of the West. It has implied acquiring a false sense of superiority over Indic values, practices and belief-systems. The issue of Sabarimala or that of Shani-Shingnapur temple entry being understood only through the lens of gender equality alone is a case in point. Unfortunately, this version of “liberating feminism” has confined Hindu festivals such as Teej and Karva-Chauth within the narrow precincts of patriarchy, without bothering to look into their history and significance in the particular regions where they are being celebrated.

Ideologically speaking, the premise that women are an inferior sex never really existed in the Vedic tradition of Bharat. With the dark pall of Islamic invasions looming large on the Indian subcontinent, the social position of women came to be relegated within the four corridors of the home and the family. However, instead of looking at and understanding the problem as it was, especially in the Northern belt of India, an overly Westernised model of fake feminism has painted it in the colours of male dominance and oppression over women.

In the name of equality, feminism has overturned several ancient traditions that celebrate womanhood or a girl’s first menstrual cycle across several regions of our country. It has established strict gender roles that have alienated women from their basic physical and emotional instincts, besides bringing about unhealthy and negative shifts in man-woman relationships, culture, the family system and the institution of marriage, and the overall societal structure itself. The hormonal and bodily needs of a woman are vastly different from that of a man. Unlike the man, the woman is the creator and accordingly, she has to respected for who she is.

A toxic and hyper-masculinist version of ‘women empowerment’ has resulted in appropriating a woman’s freedom in the name of a distorted meaning of equality that has created major rifts in the society. The traditional system of the Indian joint family has massively borne the brunt of this adverse phenomenon. A false sense of liberation has come to be associated with free sex, free drugs, free alcohol, etc. which has taken its toll more on the physical and mental health of women, besides ruining marriages and families.

In fact, the first wave of feminism in the West or Liberal feminism as it was called, was a genuine call for empowering women in the public sphere of life, e.g. the demand for the expansion of voting rights, equality of opportunity in employment, etc. The problem started with the second wave of feminism or Socialist/Marxist feminism which gradually began attacking the institution of the family as patriarchal and oppressive. The essence of all oppression and discrimination in the society now came to be confined within the realm of the family. The third wave of feminism or Radical feminism went a step further by beginning to question other integral identities linked to womanhood, such as motherhood, child-birth, child-rearing and women’s control over their bodies, all of which eventually came to be associated with the “patriarchal” institution of the family. This was when contradictions started to unfold within the feminist movement. For instance, a version of feminism called Black feminism is very much in support of the family system, especially the joint family.

Since the period of the evolution of human societies, hierarchies have been developed as part of nature itself, and these hierarchies need not necessarily be always equal. The entire traditional Left scholarship with which feminism has come to largely identify itself, is based on the notion of hierarchies, e.g. caste hierarchy, gender hierarchy, etc. and ways to eliminate them. However, the Left has continuously failed in this endeavour because the reality is that since people are constructed differently, their hormones and bodies being different, hierarchies will always exist as an integral part of life.

It is not patriarchy but hierarchy of competence, because certain things are evolutionary the way they are. Unlike the Left which has always understood equality as the principle of ‘sameness’, this is the intrinsic beauty of Dharmic thought. It is only when these same hierarchies become rigid over time, because of various factors, that problems start to emerge. But, instead of solving the problem the way it is existent, feminism in itself has become the source of many problems in Indian society today. No wonder, one of the famous studies that was conducted in the Nordic country of Sweden on toy-preferences of children belonging to different age-groups is never discussed in feminist circles!

Scholars and intellectuals need to shed their ideological elitism and engage themselves in an honest and rather constructive debate of whatever that is wrong with the heavily Left-inspired feminist discourse today. Is the label/tag ‘feminism’ so much necessary to define me when I say that women too should have the opportunity to educate themselves or earn for themselves?

Female characters from the Mahabharata such as Satyavati, Kunti, Gandhari, and Draupadi were strong, dignified women who fought for their rights and equality, much before the emergence of the narrative called ‘feminism’. Brave women warriors of the past from the north to the northeast and the deep south who died protecting their motherland such as Rani Lakshmi Bai, Rani Velu Nachiyar, Rani Gaidinliu, etc. did not declare themselves to be feminists to prove their fiercely protective nature about their land, faith and country. Although these women also became the victims in many situations, but that did not deter them from taking upon themselves the challenge of changing the course of their destiny, and that of the people around them.

We need to understand that ‘woman’ as a social category is not homogenous in itself. Hence, there cannot be one dominant way of understanding women’s social position in a society where race, class, gender and other individual characteristics “intersect” with one another in their own distinct ways and overlap (Crenshaw, 1989). Man and woman both are one and the same species called homosapiens, but biologically made differently. This means that fundamentally, there is nothing called superiority or inferiority as has always been espoused by feminists.

Professor Kimberle Crenshaw brought about the concept of “intersectionality” to draw our attention to the fact that the social context in which individuals, both men and women, are situated defines their position in the society that might create new and different advantages and disadvantages as a result of the combination of several factors. Hence, it is not through the lens of gender alone that human relationships can be comprehensively understood. Also, we need to restructure many other societal aspects and not just gender, so as to provide equal space for both the masculine and the feminine to grow naturally in their own distinct biological ways.

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