Feminism

FEMINISM is related with the answer of some questions such as who is a woman? What characteristics does it mean to be a woman? Is she a sister-mother-wife-daughter? Or is she more or less than that? What is her role in society at present and how does it play out in different organizations? Does she really face domination? If so, how? Is Feminism really an answer to her problems? And does she need liberation? Who will bring about this liberation and how? Basically Feminism is a range of views and social movements that share a common goal and political movements to define establish and achieve equal political, economic, personal and social right for women.

In reality there are three broad themes in the support of feminism:

The first one is the conceptualization of women as a socio-political category, second one is the various ideas of women’s oppression, and third one is the idea of emancipation.

This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment. Feminist typically advocate or support the rights and equality of women in every field.

Feminism is a broader term that continues to campaign for women’s rights which includes right to vote, to work , to earn fair wages, to own property, to receive education etc. It promotes autonomy and integrity and to protect females from rape, sexual harassment and domestic violence.

Although Feminist advocates mainly on women’s rights which does not mean that feminism is about suppressing male from their right which they already uphold.

Feminism is not supposed to be popular. It’s supposed to attack deeply ingrained social structures that, obviously, people are going to want to cling to. If the only stances you ever take are the ones that you know everyone’s going to agree with, you are not changing the world. Feminism didn’t teach us to hate men but it did teach us to stop prioritizing them over women.

Since feminism is against gender stereotypes, so generalizations like "men are bad" would actually fall under the category of "anti-feminist," since it is itself a gender stereotype. But in actual, the cultural views of men as more aggressive, impulsive, and cold are just a few of the stereotypes feminism aims to combat. So feminism does acknowledge is that men (not to mention white people, able-bodied people, and other advantaged groups) have privilege, and that this privilege can be used for good or for bad depending on your choices and behavior.

A number of people argue that by calling themselves "feminists" rather than "equalists" and bringing attention to the way people's experiences differ based on gender, feminists are actually reinforcing gender rather than striving toward a post-gender society. Feminists may have differing views on what gender is, but most of us can agree on is that nobody should feel like they have to behave a certain way because of their gender. We can maintain this belief while acknowledging that we live in a world where gender is very, very real. A post-gender society (or at least a post-compulsory-gender society) would be great to live in, but we can't pretend that exists already.

Dr. Ruchi Singhal

Associate Professor

Dept. of Management Studies