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Feminism seeks to deconstruct the gender roles that have been around for many years. It is an active movement of self-transformation which envisages a change in the larger society.
Feminism is not a new concept; it has never been. It has always been present as an instinct among women. But women have been taught to conceal and keep it hidden for the fear of being deemed unacceptable within the society, as it challenges the widely dominant patriarchal society in the world as we know to exist.
It is not an easy conversation to have as it tends to make people uncomfortable, sometimes even irritable. It is important to understand that feminism is about social, economic, and political equality of the sexes. It is not just about rebelling against the status quo but about an active movement of self-transformation which envisages a change in the larger society.
Feminism strives for equality of the sexes, not superiority of women. It seeks to take the gender roles that have been around for many years, and deconstruct these to allow people to live free and empowered lives, without being tied down to traditional restrictions. We should not just empower the female gender and denounce the male gender, but rather focus on the two to be treated equally.
The worst thing we do to men is to make them feel that they have to be hard and leave them with very fragile egos. Due to this, girls are then raised to cater to the fragile egos of the males. Girls are taught to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. They have to always pretend to be weaker and less ambitious than men around them.
Though patriarchy takes different forms in different cultures, its belief is the same. The man is superior by nature, born to rule in all works of life, the woman, an inferior born, to be ruled and to serve the man. In fact, she is meant only to be seen and not to be heard. It underscores all forms of oppression where one set of human beings sees self as the norm and evaluates others as existing only for self. It looks at how the system leads the female characters into solitude, voicelessness and a loss of their identities.
Women and men are equal and should be treated as such. A big step for the equality between the genders is to have equal opportunities for both genders to develop, to have equal access to financial comfort and personal safety.
Image credits: Gayatri Malhotra, Unsplash
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This post has published with none or minimal editorial intervention. Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
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