Don’t call me feminazi, I’m a feminist: Radhika Vaz at #SouthConclave17

She’s known for her matter-of-fact blunt sense of humour and strong feminist credentials, but Radhika Vaz is an entertainer par excellence. Tearing apart the grand old binaries of male-female, men versus women and mocking the allegation that her “brand of feminism is too aggressive”, Radhika Vaz, internationally acclaimed stand-up comic, caused a rip-roarious laughter riot at the India Today #SouthConclave17 in Chennai, setting the dais on fire with her fun and frolic while slaying prejudices, one super line a time.

She said she’s offended that her being a feminist and demanding equal rights for women is cited as reason enough for her to be compared to 1930s/40s mass murderers, and instead would want a more current comparison. FeminISIS, she suggests.

At the outset, Vaz asked the audience: “Are we cool yet?” That, incidentally, was also the title of her session, as she demolished, in her characteristic bold and inimitable style, the hypocrisies and umpteen double-standards of being a contemporary Indian woman.

For example, she blasted how housework has remained a matter of invisible unskilled labour that the women must do silently, and not complain about. Most of the domestic helps are “maids”, as she noted, while outdoor work is still considered a naturally male area of expertise.

Vaz mocked how “old is the new fat”, as women are constantly age-shamed into keeping themselves “young and desirable”, obviously for male gaze, and how there are countless “old, sexy male” role models, but hardly any for women. Unlike George Clooney, whose mop of silver-grey hair has become a style statement in its own right, women aren’t allowed to age gracefully, forever forced to hide their real age and stay younger, firmer, suppler by the blitzkrieg of ad industry and social compulsions.

Vaz ripped apart how cleanliness is supposed to be a feminine quality, as virtually no cleanliness product is advertised to target a man and his “mancave”.

Similarly, parenting is still unfairly pegged by a woman being a good mother and caring for the child. Vaz observed, in her singularly comic blasé, that it would take jail time, wife-beating and many other unmentionables for someone to be declared a “bad father”, while all a woman need be done to be certified a bad mother is to give her child the cough syrup just five minutes late.

She also blasted the hush-hush consensus on brand virginity, as if it were a product and a secret to be guarded and only by women! “We ask the boys to go. We tell the girls No!”

Vaz left the women hysterical, and the men silently scratching their heads. The response is naturally telling, and a sign of the times we live in.

Atta girl, Radhika Vaz

Also read: Bollywood, #StopStalkingNow