Hating Men Is Not Feminism

Feminism is the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the men and women. In a male dominated society, usually feminism will be fighting for women’s rights on the ground of gender equality. At present, the trend of feminism has been increasing in India in an unprecedented way and the term feminism has become the most frequently used term especially by women.

But not all women who portray themselves as feminists are really feminists. Some of them are pseudo-feminists. The term Pseudo-feminist refers to any person who claims to be a feminist but ignores the main point of feminism which is equality. This Pseudo-feminism is misrepresentation of feminism. Pseudo-feminists are those who consider that Feminism is about hating men or showing that women are much better than men. They may consider that women who chose not to work but to do household chores and take care of family are just following the stereotypes (taking up traditional roles) and not propagating feminism. But basically it’s her personal choice to give more importance to family than to her career. They generalise that all men are the same and they try to suppress women everywhere.

True feminism is all about equality. Feminists believe that women should also freely express her choices in every aspect of life as men. There is no established code of conduct for women to behave or dress in a certain way before others. They will have all the freedom as men does and everything depends on her choice. Feminists believe that women should be allowed to choose any profession including defence services and men should also be willing to share the household work and take part in raising the children. If situation demands, they should also be willing to stay at home full-time where their wives are stuck in some professional work.

There is no particular way or a particular dressing style to show that he/ she is a feminist. Feminists include all those fathers who believe that their daughters also deserve the best education, all those men who support their partners if she wants to go out and work and men who don’t consider that cooking or household work are exclusively women’s duties to fulfil.

There is still a hesitation among some men to portray themselves as feminists even though they don’t have any problem with feminism as it is all about equality but not overpowering them. They fear that society or peer group won’t approve him as they feel that supporting feminism is not a characteristic of manhood which is again a patriarchal notion. A real man is not the one who has a strong body, rough personality and other male physical characteristics. He is the one who is willing to work for the upliftment of his opposite sex to achieve the goal of humanity by promoting equality and the one who can even share his vulnerabilities. Unless all the men speak out and support feminism, it is difficult to root out the problem of gender discrimination as men are not always the cause (the social conditioning is also a cause) but definitely part of the problem.