Feminist, am I ??

"I dont mind it when people call me a feminist. Where would the environmentalist be if the environment was not being abused? So while the female population is facing abuse in its various forms, there is a need for feminists."

This is more or less what Nandita Das had to say in an interview I read in Femina. This line of thought really made me think. People have called me a feminist from the time to time but then how do you define a feminist.

I protest when I see a girl being eve-teased on the road. Shouldn't everybody??

I counseled my driver out of abortion. He didn't want another daughter. Was that wrong??

I forced my maid to leave her abusive, drunkard of a husband. Wasn't that necessary??

I have argued for hours on whether women make better managers. Is capability sex-determined??

I support 'Hilary for President'. Not as a Clinton, not as a woman. So what??

My eyes were moist when Radhika got sworn in as Exec-council President. I think she was deserving. Isn't she??

I am against female foeticide, pre-natal sex determination, rape (marital and otherwise) and domestic violence. I am also against reservations based on sex, separate lines for women and believe that sexual harassment can be both by men and women. So what makes me a feminist??

My prime identity is that of a woman. All the roles I play are pre-determined by my gender. So when I fight battles, own and others, I carry my feminine sensibility with me. Once when I had made my driver stop a man from beating his wife in the middle of the road, he had asked me why I would want to get embroiled into the lives of others.

To me, its not someone else's life. Its mine, could be mine. I have faced abuse. I have faced discrimination. I have fought and I have fought alone. I dont think I deserved to fight alone though. I m privileged, I belong to the upper stratum of the society, so has it been different for me from the woman who stays in a ghettos?? Maybe, maybe not. The undercurrents of gender discrimination are present everywhere. Just that I am better equipped to deal with it. So I will, and on the way, I would lend a helping hand to everyone who needs one.

The men in my life have different ways of dealing with my inherent independence. Some ignore it, some try to suppress it. The others just let me be, even go ahead and nurture it. The men I have dated have found my basic self-assuredness appealing to refreshing to plain, initimidating.

I believe in the power called woman. I believe this power is all-encompassing and very, very potent. If that makes me a feminist, so be it.

So till we meet again....Cheers to every woman and the men behind them!!!!