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    The New F Word
    The New F Word
    The New F Word
    Ebook106 pages1 hour

    The New F Word

    By Vedika Kanchan

    ()

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    About this ebook

    As voices rise across the world, in more fora than one, about the need for women to find their place under the sun, feminism continues to be a word, a thought, a phenomenon misunderstood.

    The New F Word is a collection of thought-provoking essays designed to help expand understanding of, and empathy towards a movement that strives to creat

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEmbassy Book Distributors
    Release dateOct 1, 2018
    ISBN9789388247054
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      Book preview

      The New F Word - Vedika Kanchan

      The_New_F_Word__cover.jpg

      The New F Word

      Vedika Kanchan

      THE NEW F WORD

      Copyright © 2018 Vedika Kanchan

      This edition first published in 2018

      Published in India by:

      Embassy Book Distributors

      120, Great Western Building,

      Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce Lane,

      Fort, Mumbai - 400 023.

      Tel : (91-22) 22819546 / 22818567.

      Email : [email protected]

      Website : www.embassybooks.in

      Distribution Centres:

      Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai,

      Hyderabad, New Delhi, Pune

      No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the copyright holder.

      ISBN: 978-93-88247-05-4

      Page Design and Layout by PSV Kumarasamy

      Contents

      Foreword

      A Little Bit of History

      Chapter 1

      The New F Word

      Chapter 2

      Fourth Wave?

      Chapter 3

      Women are from the West and Men are from Mars

      Chapter 4

      #Shero #Girlboss #Herstory

      Chapter 5

      Born This Way

      Chapter 6

      100% Human, Do Not Bleach

      Chapter 7

      Trophy Wife (Sister and Daughter)

      Chapter 8

      Second Place Feminist

      Chapter 9

      Let Me Mansplain

      Chapter 10

      How Many Women Does It Take to Get a Joke?

      Chapter 11

      One Size Fits All?

      Chapter 12

      Yes, But Not Like That

      Chapter 13

      From Beauvoir to Hashtags

      Acknowledgements

      About the Author

      To all women who have felt less than -

      Your voice matters.

      Foreword

      I grew up in Mumbai, with parents who always made it clear to me, in letter, spirit and action, that women and men are equal. Whether it is in cognitive intelligence, emotion, ambition, character or the ability to parachute off a cliff, the only differences between men and women are physical. Gender, according to them, cannot be a point of comparison. Men and women cannot be viewed in terms of superiority just because that is a perspective normalized by society. In my world, gender is not a weakness.

      While they shaped my understanding of gender equality and feminism, my experiences illustrated a very different point of view, directing me to the dated attitudes that go unchallenged. Teachers that won’t let boys cry on the pretext of masculinity, aunts with subtle suggestions to behave more lady-like, strangers that insist we tone down the feminist rhetoric are all among the thousand reasons to question the foundation that our world rests on.

      About the time I was in the eighth grade, I started reading Virginia Woolf, and became incredibly intrigued by feminism and why women’s rights are denied. I recall being transported to each wave, as the stories of feminists unfolded. Unfortunately, not many shared this interest. The cries of patriarchy silenced the voices that fought for women.

      What started as a protest by Roman women against the resistance of consul Marcus Porcius Cato protesting laws that limited a women’s right to use expensive goods, in 3rd century BCE, is now a global movement, demanding the equality of the sexes, known as Feminism.

      In waves, it has been reduced to just being about women’s rights.

      Feminism, however, is about equality for both men and women. The dictionary defines it as:

      noun

      The advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.

      Britannica takes it a step further with:

      Feminism, the belief in the social, economic, and political equality of the sexes. Although largely originating in the West, feminism is manifested worldwide and is represented by various institutions committed to activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests.

      There may be many people pursuing their personal agendas, masquerading themselves as feminists. Misunderstood, misconstrued, mocked and reviled, Feminism continues to face barriers at all ends. In a largely embattled world, that also stands polarized on a variety of issues of grave concern, we need to have one less theatre of war.

      In this set of essays, I attempt to illustrate my perspective towards Feminism, how it impacts lives and the misconceptions that surround a pivotal world movement. The chapters ahead synthesize perspective and ideas surrounding women rights.

      Stay with me here!

      A Little Bit of History

      For most of history, anonymous was a woman

      – Virginia Woolf

      While this hasn’t been officially recorded or accepted, many believe that the history of feminism emanated from Cleopatra’s bold succession and rule in ancient Egypt. At the same time, historians, world wide, mark the first feminist dissent at the entrance of the Forum at Capitoline Hill, with women protesting Marcus Cato’s decision in 3rd century BCE.

      Feminism and the feminist movement (as we, perhaps, know it) is rooted in 14th- and early 15th-century France when Christine de Pisan insisted that a woman is worth more than her beauty. She championed the importance of education for women and insisted that the world change the way it perceived gender. Her goal was to reverse misogynistic mindsets; she wanted to make it such that women were seen as more than vessels of reproduction or slaves to their men. A woman was more than a wife. This call for action drove into the end of the 16th century with women like Laura Cereta, Moderata Fonte, Mary Astell, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Modesta di Pozzo di Forzi, Marie Le Jars de Gournay, Anne Bradstreet, Francois Poullain de la Barre  and many others who voiced their protesting opinion against the mistreatment of women, forced marriages for the sake of family status, and the belief that women were not worthy of education and, specifically lower class women must be separated from their aristocrat counterparts.

      Of course, this wasn’t taken too well. Women were cast as superficial, trivial, objects, and a multitude of undesirable characteristics. On the other hand, emerging feminists, at the time, produced laundry lists of women with courage and accomplishment. They proclaimed that women would be intellectual equals of men if they were given equal access to education and as democratization took hold, the right to vote, the right to work, and the right to be treated as human.

      Since then, there have been what are known as the three waves of feminism. The first wave in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries focused heavily on a woman’s right to vote. The second wave beginning in the 1960s focused on women’s liberation and their legal and social rights for women. The third wave aimed to pick on what were considered failures of second-wave feminism and began in the 1990s.

      Let’s start from the beginning.

      The First Wave of Feminism

      During the Renaissance period, women were perceived as silly, frivolous, irrational creatures, born subordinate to men. French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau portrayed women as inferior in his

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