With the aim to have an equal world for both males and females, in 1870, a revolution for change by the name ‘feminism’ emerged from France. It firmly believed in equal space for females at par with males. Feminism is a counter to patriarchy – a society in which the males dominate; which is a prevalent form of societal arrangement around the globe. As a movement, it focuses on pointing out the adverse and disastrous effect that patriarchy can bring to a woman to face, not only in the home but also in workplaces.
A constant refraining of females’ equality that they should have been subjected to, make them sceptical of their own self. They accept it as inevitable and devalue themselves. Even biology is widely used as a defence for male’s dominance over females, by limiting the abilities of women, categorizing what they can do and what they can’t. Thus satisfying the deep-rooted gender stratification which hierarchically ranks people in society based on gender. It’s just a very simplified way to stratify society into males and females. But feminist think sex and gender as two different things, sex on the hand is predominantly based on physical things and attributes, gender on the other hand concerns psychological and cultural differences between males and females. In such circumstances around the globe, feminism appears to be that driving force that drives women to stand and ask questions to these patriarchal norms, not themselves. The whole objective is making a change in behaviour and action of society towards females. It’s a journey from A (status quo) to B (female equality).
Feminism, though being a common and well-heard concept to many, is often wrongly interpreted to mean ‘treating women over and above men’. In the pursuance of this misunderstood concept of feminism the aim sometimes becomes ‘destroying men’ instead of destroying the ‘patriarchal ideas’ that are deep-rooted into society. It needs to be realised that this movement is not about making men lesser than women but to make the women equivalent to the men. By meaning or calling men in any way inferior to women, goes completely against the whole idea and concept of feminism.
The very aim of Feminism is not to override men’s’ race and thrash it all together but to rather question and root out patriarchal thoughts from society. Based on these two interpretations, we have two classes of feminists, equality feminists and difference feminist. While the former focus on sameness, latter focuses on putting females somewhat on privileges over males. Formerly made highlights in 19th and 20th century, latter was prevalent near the 1980s and 1990s and afterwards.
To conclude, until women subordination is “common” to both females and males, establishing a society of equality among them is a far cry. All Feminism can do is, it can reach to females and tell them their worth and encourage them for the demand for equality. But the interpretation and foot-steps of feminism must be carefully watched otherwise people will have to start a future movement to root out matriarchy.
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