For women by women, huh?

Masculinism, heard of the term?

What is the first thing that comes to your mind after hearing this term? Something concerned about men, right? This is the catch! When children first come across a word like 'feminism’, their immature brains take it as something inclined towards women. For the benefit of women. And in the absence of proper guidance, the real and actual reason behind the term takes a back-stand. If the child is fortunate enough to dive deep, then it comes to the limelight. Else, it becomes another ‘sexist’ term devised to raise and uplift women and degrade men. And this is, in it an issue, which cannot be ignored! Ignorance is bliss, and closing your eyes and pretending it doesn’t exist is even more blissful. Had there been clarity and had the actual meaning and motto of the term been explained to the generation from young, things would have been clearer.

Picture Credits- Guffnews.com

If we look at the past, the first wave of feminism and the first school of thought, had a very simple goal, which is to recognize and consider women as humans and nothing more nothing less than their male counterparts. That was years back, and the focus then was restricted to white women’s rights. Yeah, it kind of segregated groups and led to more minorities. But, this was the beginning, the start, on which the next movements built up. Post that, the next movements were inspired by the Civil Rights movement. More focus was given to bodies and institutions that held women back. Stereotypical gender roles started being questioned. Gradually baby steps were taken to know the main reasons behind the oppression .Positions of power slowly started to be given to women. And, they rose their voices against discrimination. After years of feminist activism, Congress finally passed the 19th amendment in 1920 and gave women the vote. This was almost 30 years after New Zealand became the first country where women could vote.

Picture credits: Teenvoyage.com

Men too came up to support the cause. And we saw the economies of countries which encouraged women to work grow at an excellent rate. This. sort of motivated and inspired other developing nations to do the same in the quest for better GDP and growth. Which is a good sign.

Women leaders came up to take charge and proved to be as efficient as men. In fact, some countries performed better. For instance, during the first covid wave in 2020, Australia outperformed all developed nations in handling covid and Jacinda Ardern’s Government was successful in keeping the counts low. When the health sector of the superpower nations was crippled. She showed the world that with proper management, support and strategy it indeed is possible to battle against the wave.

Today, more and more women are taking up high responsibility roles and are choose their career options independently without being questioned. But the number is very skewed in rural areas. Where due to prevalent illiteracy and lack of awareness, the stereotypical beliefs still persist. And women had to be financially dependent on their men.

Though urban women are ahead in this matter. But, the path is long. We still see a high number of posts being kept away from women and gender-specific job roles. Pay gaps, an unhealthy environment still persists. But hey, the good news is men are coming up to support this. There are no ‘men’ or ‘women’ roles. It's society that created those boundaries. From Virat Kohli taking off from an ongoing test series to support his wife during her last week of pregnancy to Deepika Padukone walking out of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s movie because her demand to be paid equally as her husband playing the opposite role wasn’t met. ‘Not a penny more, not a penny less’ - rightly she had said!

This is what we need! In no way supporting a cause, demeans and undermines another. Crafting a vision that provides every individual its own space to grow and a voice to speak by letting go of boundaries without being questioned is what we should strive for!

~ M.Ayushi

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References: Werft, M. (2017, April 10). 27 Famous Men Who Are Proud to Be Feminists. Global Citizen. https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/27-famous-men-proud-to-be-feminists/ Soken-Huberty, E. (2021, February 28). Types of Feminism: The Four Waves. Human Rights Careers. https://www.humanrightscareers.com/issues/types-of-feminism-the-four-waves/