Sick and tired of 'not-a-feminist' women

Hey, you there who isn’t a feminist.

Yes, you, we hope you got your husband’s permission to speak. Feminism gave you the ability to have just one, instead of being one amongst the harem to be the current flavour of the day (perfectly legal till 1955, by the way, and still prevalent).

If you haven’t, never mind anyway, you’ve probably been well-trained to listen.

No, you can keep standing.

That’s my vote you’re casting. I’d like it back please. “All that bra burning” got you that. 

In short: Who asked you? Hush.

Your children, whom you proudly claim to name, are also not your own, you womb.

Even birth control, which came with the second wave of feminism, is not for you.

The liberties of their birth, to have them at all, or not. To abort, or not (let alone name them) are freedoms women all over the world are still fighting for.

So hold them close and be thankful because a feminist somewhere, a woman who thought she had a choice, died still wanting. Also, you need to cover your knees. And your ankles. And your head. Because the male gaze won’t stomach it.

Or alternately, you need to strip down to a bikini, because the male gaze demands it.

Blockbusters that fill the coffers of men, the same ones paid more highly than women, await.

You need to not look me in the eye when I’m speaking to you (let alone glare, sweetness is a womanly virtue and you will need it aplenty to survive without feminism).

Your place is in the kitchen, so you can make me a coffee while I wait.

Don’t flip, India’s senior-most woman scientist, a Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar awardee, has been asked to make tea in the lab for male counterparts. At least she’s a quiet feminist. You aren’t even that. So who asked you, really?

Pray for my welfare and that of everyone else around you while you are at it.

No, of course nobody prays for yours, unless, of course, you mean as some sort of goddess that you are obliged to be in the bedroom, in the kitchen, in the home and in the workplace, if you are allowed out at all that is.

Good girls from good families don’t do all that. Dancing on screens for a living, showing the world they need money. What, husband’s money is not enough or what?

What freedoms you have come from your husband’s add on credit card, so you’re one to speak of choice. The choices you have are the ones you are allowed.

Yes, you can set up your own clinic and work from home where we can watch over you.

The dowry you brought was good and we are pleased that your bring wealth with you, so of course you may be permitted to create it. We are progressive that way. It makes us look good.

Else sit quiet and be glad you lead a sheltered life.

The job of birds in gilded cages is to sing for entertainment.

They put blinds on the cage when it is inappropriate.

You will learn in time when your voice is an intrusion.

It doesn’t matter that you are just as hungry as anyone else after a long day at work. You need to go cook and feed everyone before you can sit down to the same meal. Because, presumably, your hunger is less. The hunger of all Indian women is statistically less. 

You have impeccable manners and we are proud of you for looking so well-groomed.

Pretty faces still don’t guarantee a great on-screen role or anything apart from arm candy really. Within the film industry itself, the scripts dry out and the roles peter out. Why do you think the box office bombs every time a lead woman is married? Did you think your acting skills failed you overnight? Or is it more a nod to your ability to no longer be cinematic property? Pick one. 

If you can manage to be titillating enough. Else you need to go get plastic surgery, love. You’re losing your looks. And you’re already way past your shelf life.

We would not be able to talk to you if your hair got grey or you got wrinkles.

Thank god you still wax. If you didn’t you couldn’t be a woman. Who would go near you?

And really, what is the point of you being a woman whom a man won’t go near? We mean, of course, what is your intrinsic worth?

If there are women whose skins are too sensitive or are too ill-groomed to put themselves through all that, there’s no wonder they don’t land themselves good husbands. Because that’s what you should be married for: looks, and that all round prettiness you bring to the table.

We’d probably have to go get ourselves a mistress. It is your fault for letting yourself go like that.

Don’t be silly, women don’t get themselves liaisons just the same because women don’t have physical needs. These are notions put into your heads by feminists. Sex is what a man does to a woman.

Good thing marital rape is still legal in this country.

Just in case women started thinking they actually had a choice.

All this "my body" stuff is pretty cool as long it’s clothed in what we allow and not in what we disallow. You dress for the male gaze and you shall undress for the male gaze. Lest you thought sensuality was about a woman feeling good about herself.

If the divorce rate is rising, still only 13 in every 100, it’s because those pesky feminists found they wanted to exercise their choices. Staying married is not an ill, but staying so in a miserable one with no exit plan, is definitely a no brainer. We’re so glad you choose to give up that choice. That it is a choice is itself feminism. So you need to commit to staying in one whether or not you are miserable in it.

Like the 6,773 women, (80 per cent literate) who committed suicide last year alone due to marriage issues. Feminism may be a choice for you, but that is a choice lent by feminism itself. For many it doesn’t exist.

Should you choose to walk, here’s some alimony for your loss. Oh wait, you don’t believe in feminism, give that back.

You have his name to append to yours so that should make you happy enough to live on.

(Apart from love and fresh air, which is a good thing because you are anyway growing too fat to be lovable. And women with body issues just need to lump it into some non feministy utopia).

You also can’t do "Shuddh Desi Romances" and claim any rights as an equal partner in a live-in relationship.

Yes, feminism fails sometimes.

It fails the women who aren’t allowed urgently-required hysterectomies by their families because they are not women without their wombs. Those subject to triple talaq. The kinds who don’t get asked, who don’t get told, and who don’t get the time to object, or wonder what they will do now. Yes, feminism fails the women who don’t have the courage to exit abusive relationships. It fails women who have neither documents nor courage to put a number to what their lives dedicated to their men and children were worth. It mainly fails foolish women. Women without a sense of self-worth. But it’s not their fault. Because no one told them to go and get any. Their existence is reason enough for feminism to exist.

The rejection of feminism is a choice feminism gave you in itself.

Not many women in this country have it.

This is their normal. These bruises, these bumps, these reddened faces.

These catcalls and "hey chiknis" from bums on bikes who will follow them around till they say "yes".

These men to whom women ought not to say "no" to.

These Talibans who will shoot you in the head for wanting to be different, and thinking and dressing differently.

These factory owners and mill workers and landlords who think because they pay them a salary they have the right to paw them.

Just like casting couch means that if you have committed to a film, you come with the territory.

We can dispense with sexual harassment laws if you like.

The Helens and the Silk Smithas of the industry were erected by a film industry so that "good" women wouldn’t have to do those roles. Glad to know you think that was justified.

Sign here, there are plenty who could do with the freedoms you flaunt but do not value.

There’s clearly not enough to go around.

Ask your husband/boyfriend/father.

You’re free to make your choices, because he’s feminist enough for the two of you.