Originally published in The New Indian Express

The Essence of True Feminism

True feminism is really when the female stops taking being a female as her primary identity. If you want to talk of feminism in the context of women's liberation, then this alone is liberation. As long as a female is fighting for her rights as a woman, she is not liberated. She first needs to be liberated from the concept that she is a woman. If she continues to identify primarily as a woman, her genetic conditioning, biological impulses, and physical drives will continue to influence her. And that would obviously make the achievement of her potential as a human being very difficult.

If feminism is true, it would seek to liberate the woman, and in that liberation lies her empowerment. So, if you talk of embracing your feminine traits and such things, that's not doing any good to you.

Identity and Liberation

Before you know whether you are being treated rightly, you should know who you are. Are you a woman? Then you would try to be treated rightly in a womanly way. If you will continue to be a woman and want your due rights as a woman, maybe you will get something. But those would be crumbs, peanuts, not worth much.

Financial Independence and Feminism

If there is one thing that is totally against women's empowerment, women's liberation, and true feminism, it is dependence on the man's money. Curiously, we know several leading feminists who earn nothing at all. If you don't earn anything at all, then you are just playing your biological role. You are confined to your biological role.

The Paradox of Empowerment

Women are becoming educated and empowered, yet many are choosing to stay at home. When they were not so educated and not so empowered, they were going out to work. Even women with great professional degrees in India coming out from IIT and IIMs decide to sit at home, many of them, obviously not all of them.

They decide to sit at home after a point and say, "This is fine." Why is this fine? "Because the husband is earning, and my worth is being determined by several factors other than my economic productivity. So, why do I need to take all the hassles and go out in the sun, break the heat, hit the road, and do something?"

If you visit shopping malls during the weekdays, you will hardly find any men; the men are all busy working.

The Dynamics of Relationship Choices

The man fully well knows how to ingratiate himself to the woman; he knows you do trivial and childish stuff. He gives that teddy bear, maybe not at an advanced age, but when you are in your late teens or in your early twenties, then all those things, they work.

The Question of Motherhood

It's about asking yourself: Why do I want to have kids? What within me is craving for kids? That's the question to be asked, right?

Is this want arising from the female body, cells, DNA, hormones? They are the ones that provoke those wants, rather invoke those wants. And then, if the answer is from the proper center, you may go ahead and have kids.

Gender Relevance in Assessment

We are biased towards the women when it comes to providing physical security, and I think that's quite fair. But when it comes to assessment on how they are doing, gender is very irrelevant, and gender should be irrelevant.

The scary part here is, even the women want the gender to be relevant.

The Illusion of Freedom

Today we have in the current generation of teens and college-going girls a lot of this radical thing: "I'll live life my own way, I decide for myself."

Being unwise and arrogating freedom to yourself is disastrous. There is this education in wisdom that is mandatory for every human being, and much more so for girls.

The True Meaning of Freedom

If you are truly a feminist, then one thing you must certainly do: Never be dependent on anyone else for even a single rupee; especially not on a male partner or male guardian, whoever they may be.

First, try to find the right work for yourself, and if you cannot find it, then create it.

Then there's this behavior that "I'm not interested, so I'll sit at home, now you feed me."

Originally published in The New Indian Express

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