November 06, 2005

You CAN put it in fewer than 100 words

Do you regard yourself as a feminist?

Very much so. But feminism has so many interpretations. What it means for me is simply that women, like men, are complete human beings with limitless possibilities. They have to achieve social equality, much like the Dalits or the Black Americans. In the case of women, it is so much more complex. I mean, there is the right to walk on the road without being harassed. Or to be able to swim, or write a love poem, like a man without being considered immoral. The discrimination is very obvious and very subtle, very cruel and always inhuman.

Fahmida Riaz, Pakistani poet, in an interview.

5 comments:

wendigo said...

waah! lovely and crisp.

Anonymous said...

what a lady! what feeling and what fluidity of language! so human and so spirited.
may her tribe increase and prosper.

Hornswoggler said...

yes, exactly. and so few of us can put in that way.

Anonymous said...

I agree with her. Feminism is about social equality. But I also think that women's lib movement did more harm then benefit. In our attempt to prove that we are no less than men, we seem to forget that we are women. I think we do the greatest disservice to womanhood when suppress who we really are because we dont want to be seen as feminine and weak. Feminism is about having the right to be who we are while having the freedom to become what we want to be.

richtofen said...

hi inky.
followed the long route to this blog, and then inadverdently scrolled down to this post.
i am a male living in possibly the most sexist region of india, and there are a few takes on feminism [or my understanding of it] that i feel i should share.
i believe in equality of the sexes. i like the notion of feminism as a term. still, there are a few things about it that confuse me. confuse me theoretically - not morally. my morals are clear. i like women. not just because of what they do to my hormones, but because i like the notion of womanhood.
i would like them to be equal to men in the workplace, at home, in the marriage act, and in bed.
but i still like to give my seat to a 'lady' on the bus. i still like opening doors for them [this is a recent affliction - please ignore wendigo's disclaimers]. is it contradictory? is it against women's lib? are women's lib and feminism mutually exclusive? i dont know. every time i see a wonam fighting for her place, i like to stand by her stead. like i would like to stand by any person who is in the right. but, this gives me a strange happines i feel somewhat guilty about. guilty about the place where women stand today - where they need 'help' to find their rightful place. and guilty too because this means i am being inherently patronizing, and therefore being the epitome of anti-feminism...
its all very dilematic...

whatajumble, whatajumble.