“A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions…”

Pride and Prejudice

‘Feminism’ is among one of the most discussed topics in our world today. It has been defined as “ a range of movements and ideologies that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal, and social rights for women.”

So whether it’s ‘The Suffrage Parade’ in New York City in 1912 or a woman choosing not to wear her tampon during a marathon in London to raise awareness for women without access to sanitary products; the boundaries Feminism seems to be expanding exponentially on a daily basis.

However looking at it more deeply, would it be right to say that Feminism has reached a static standard everywhere on this planet? I beg to differ. It has a different meaning in what we call the First and Third world countries. Let’s momentarily focus our attention on a briefing of a woman’s life in the past to understand the roots of necessity for feminism.

1.) 16th century Europe: Women had limited roles which mainly included household work focused primarily on their family and its growth from a domestic front. Education was not a prime requirement as it was thought to be against the main idea of ‘innocence and morality’ for women. Women who chose to speak against this or unmarried women were either exiled or murdered under the cover of being called ‘Witches’.

2.) 18th century Europe: Rise in the power of the middle class allowed women to expand their roles. Lower middle class women started assisting their husbands in work outside of home yet were still seen incapable of understanding business. However, education provided to women being unequal to that given to men and highly biased marriage laws towards men started becoming points of debate in the general public.

3.) 19th century Europe: Victorian era: Women were defined as physically weaker yet morally superior to men. Terms such as ‘blue-stocking’ were given to those who had devoted themselves enthusiastically for intellectual pursuits. They were considered unfeminine and off-putting in the way that they attempted to usurp men’s ‘natural’ intellectual superiority.

Universities opened their doors for women for higher education yet families refused to send their smart daughters there in fear that they would become ‘unmarriagable’. During this period many women such as Florence Nightingale, Charlotte Bronte etc poured their frustrations in rough outbursts of anger or on blank sheets of paper with words to explain the emotional turmoil inside their minds. Charlotte Bronte wrote:

” women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags.”

Then…. The 2nd World War happened: millions of men were now dead, factories emptied and the nation’s economy was in a mess. During this hour of extreme need, women were called upon to leave the confines of their homes and contribute to their nation. Women left their fatherless children home and rose to the role and what did the world get to see? The fact that women were fully capable to meeting the task and in fact even did it better. Countries like America witnessed some its highest rates of production post World War.

The desire was deeply rooted in the hearts of women for centuries to be something more than just a domestic help. However such emotions were quickly wiped away by the people around them as unnatural or shameful thoughts. It took a World War and an act of utter chaos for people to finally open the narrowness of their minds and allow a concept lingering on for years to actually come into existence. Women now were working among men though still seen with a skeptical eye by the testosterone driven world, but at least the straightforwardness to object or bully their efforts was somewhere diminishing.

Today Feminism in the west is beyond the stage of bringing women out of their homes. They’ve already achieved that however chaotic the reason was. It focuses on equalizing the salaries of both men and women, improving the concept of maternity leaves and its effects on the future of a woman’s profession and many such issues.

But let’s take another halt here and focus our attention now to the third world nations. The countries that never aligned themselves with the great war; the countries that weren’t affected by it to such extreme degrees. What about the women here?

The matter of fact is that each nation if handpicked from the world today has its own unique history that has shaped it into the nation it is today. So is it fair to compare something like the rights of women here to those in some other part of the world? Can we really keep them on the same scale and compare them?

The west takes pride on their way of life today and rightfully so. No matter how chaotic their past, they have achieved great standards of living and economies. However, is it deserving of them to pass judgments on developing nations for matters such as lack of civilized behavior, inferior human rights,crime rates etc? In retrospect, they might be amazed to see the similarities in the experience of their past generations and that of third world countries today.

Let’s take the example of India. It was ruled by the British up to 1947 when it finally got independence. There we no repercussions by the World Wars ( though Indian soldiers were sent to fight by the British but it can’t be compared to an entire generation of men being wiped out), no holocaust, no atomic bombs and no sudden stagnation in economic growth. India was functioning in its own way based on its own circumstance which was mainly the British Rule.

Indian women were also limited to domestic roles.Though if we go further back in history a change is seen.

1. ) Up to the Vedic period: women shared equal rights to men. However in around 500 B.C. their roles started deteriorating.

2.) In the medieval period: child marriage and a ban on remarriage of widowed women came into being and so did the Mughal empire with its Muslim rule in India. During this rule, the pardah ( covering of the head or face of women) became a common sight. However, some women in the higher ruling class such as Razia Sultana, Durgawati etc ruled kingdoms and were in prominent places.

The concept of ‘Sati’ was first recorded in the 4th century and surprisingly existed up to the British rule period and was only made illegal in 1829. It’s where a woman willingly (or forcefully) was burned alive on the death of her husband. By committing such an act, she was venerated or respected to the highest degree and was considered a righteous person. It has been recorded to be practiced up to regions of Indonesia.

There was a concept called ‘Jauhar’ where wives and daughters of the higher ruling classes willingly committed suicide publicly to motivate their husbands or fathers going to war to return victorious. The men would smear their heads with the ashes of their women and initiate their fight.

Such acts of self-sacrifice probably appealed to women as they associated it with pride knowing that they would be revered as God-like figures and vice versa if opposed.

3.) Dowry: one of the biggest issues existing till date in India. It’s a ritual where the bride’s family are obliged to give the groom’s family various kinds of gifts and cash along with carrying the expenses of the wedding to commemorate the holy union. It presented a reason for exploitation with an air of arrogance lingering if one is from the groom’s side followed by self-oppression if related to the bride. It was made illegal in 1966 via the ‘Dowry Prohibition Act’. However, lack of enforcement rendered it ineffective. Again, in 1985, the dowry prohibition rules were framed where both parties were asked to make a legal document stating all items being exchanged for future reference if required. However, this act was useless too.

The financial burdens of dowry metamorphosized into other grave issues of female infanticide and gender inequality in the hearts of the general population.

Giving birth to a son is still considered more advantageous than a daughter in even the most educated of families simply because of the expenses that having a girl carries plus the obsession of sons furthering the lineage and inheriting the property. In earlier times, some daughters were asked to sign legal documents at the time of their wedding shunning all property rights from her parents. They did so for the mere satisfaction of being seen as obedient with emotional acceptance it carried. Guidelines to being a good daughter and wife are defined yet lesser so for sons and husbands. Although most upper middle class families are now opting for more practical measures such as sharing wedding costs and bringing up more independent daughters, it’s still a difficult cultural change to expect in the rural or lower socioeconomic strata.

Now let’s compare shall we? Or can we really compare anything?

‘Sati’ and ‘Jauhar’ rituals in India led to women dying prematurely and in the west, mass woman genocide rituals such as ‘Witch-hunting’ were practiced where outspoken women tagged as ‘she-wolves’ or ‘unnatural’ were burned alive in large numbers.

Women confined to domestic chores were seen as normal and respectable in both parts of the world. Although, urban India shifted this concept with the growth of the middle class, most of the country abides by this belief associating it with tradition.

‘Arranged marriages’: Although it’s been practiced worldwide for centuries when kings exchanged daughters to enhance political relationships, the concept is quite shocking today for a western mindset. 19th century Europe found people questioning the rights of men and women to chose their own spouses and today arranged marriages are obsolete.

In India, a man is seen as the head of a household in families where the woman is a homemaker and he’s the only earning hand. Hence, he takes all important decisions. This was the same in the west before women earned themselves. Today even though women earn, the concept still lives globally at some level where men are considered a higher authority. This is yet another example where women demand equal rights

India witnesses boys being brought up to be the men of the family and daughters as obedient wives irrespective of whether they work or not. Girls are also brought up to be more considerate to the needs of others and are praised if they are able to achieve so. Sacrifice is a concept expected more from women than men. In most households, the parents-in-law and the baby are top priorities with nothing else mattering much (including her job commitments).

This is a kind of a gray area because I have met many families in the west as well where a woman is expected to provide for her child and family first. Maybe that’s one of the main reasons for inequality in salaries and reduced expectations from women professionally because they’ll get pregnant and avail maternity leaves. Its one of the reasons why women avoid informing their bosses about their pregnancy out of fear of the change of perception towards them.

The irony is how we brag about how forward our society is by giving examples of our decent gender ratios in the nation and in the workplace, independence of women etc. Yet when it comes to the most basic act that a woman’s body alone is defined to do i.e. give birth , we refrain from adjusting to her needs professionally and immediately a bias is formed right in front of our eyes. It subconsciously puts a fear of getting pregnant in most professional women, hence the late pregnancies or abortions etc. Those who do choose their children and family over their profession face the challenges of re-entering the professional arena again.

Today educated families in India want to educate their daughters till post graduation. It has become a matter of pride for parents now. However let’s not ignore a fundamental difference in the education systems of the west and India. In India, you can’t work as you study. Education is a full-time dedication and hence children stay with their parents until they complete their studies and get jobs. It’s contrary to the west where it’s considered unnatural to live with your parents till your late twenties because working jobs comes alongside education for them and their system supports it. Hence the practicality of independence is different.

The next step in the psyche of an Indian family is to move a bit more forward from merely educating their daughters and marrying them immediately after it, to associating their education with financial independence. Young men similarly have swords hanging around their necks due to the expectations of earning decent salaries immediately after graduating since they too have to get married. Prospective future brides and their families very openly choose men with decent pay scales when considering marriage. The competition for men is intense. But if the woman has struggled with jobs herself and has a taste of independence , then maybe she’ll be more practical to opt for a man based on his behavior and attitude towards life and not reject him solely based on his pay-scale.

The next step in the west might as well be to lay unbiased foundations for women be women and not men; where their physical appearance and tone need not be manly to prove assertiveness.

So Feminism is different in these two parts of the world. In one part, it’s about women whose previous generation managed to come hand to hand with the men professionally. These women are now questioning the equality factor both at a professional and cognitive level.

In the other part, feminism is about women who are just moving out of the threshold of their homes and contesting the traditional expectations from them, trying to redefine what a woman should be in today’s time. However, there is an entirely different cultural and historical heritage in both definitions of feminism to consider. So both these group of women are approaching it in their own ways.

An Indian View