This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.

5 Sexist Arguments Women Are Sick Of Hearing In India

5 Sexist Arguments Women Are Sick Of Hearing In India
Male and female equality concept stock vector
graphicsdunia4you via Getty Images
Male and female equality concept stock vector

If your ideal woman is frequently found in saas-bahu serials and her preferred occupation is weeping over kheer and husbands gone sour, these aren't the best of times for you. Women are demanding rights that should not even be up for debate -- to be treated normally when on periods, to enter temples that 'protect' celibate male gods, and not be treated as second rate citizens in a world they cohabit with men.

Basically, women are asking to be not treated the way Volkswagen engines treated your lungs.

So you probably have had a 'feminazi' remake of the Planet of the Apes playing in your nightmares. As a result, almost every other morning on Facebook and Twitter, you find yourself warning humanity against an impending future without either boob jokes or satisfying jewellery-themed insults against men.

And chances are that many informed human beings have secretly unfollowed you on your social media accounts.

To save you further embarrassment, here's a handy list of arguments you have made against feminism in recent times and why they don't hold.

-- If religion asks women to not enter temples or mosques, so be it. Who are we to question religion?

Religion is slightly different from how you, your dog or the palak you butchered to dress up paneer came about. In fact, it is like that feeble paneer-- man-made, and not a part of the natural order of things. So there is no reason that it shouldn't be modified and reformed to accommodate the demands of an evolved, progressive society. God never asked you to spell without vowels or meant you to raise goats and farm carrots on Facebook. You still do them right?

-- If women have their exclusive spaces, so should men

Most spaces ARE predominantly male. Even visually, public spaces, especially in India, are overrun by men -- male shopkeepers, male cabbies, male bus conductors, male vendors, male traffic policemen, male security guards, male petrol pump attendants, male bartenders. if you place yourself at one corner of a busy crossing in a city, it won't be difficult to see how men dominate public spaces.

Then ask any woman why she stands in queues meant for women at bus ticket counters or takes a ladies coach in a local train to commute - she will probably have to recount each of those times she has been groped, pinched, felt up, harassed in a crowded public space.

--- If it's wrong to be disgusted by period stained clothes, we shouldn't be enraged by men masturbating in public.

Masturbation is a conscious act to pleasure yourself. But no woman goes, "aah, cramppppped" in their heads, when on their periods. You have complete control on the act of masturbation, and no control on when and how your uterus decides to bleed. A deliberate sexual activity performed in public, therefore, is not same as a physiological process.

--- Why do women want to be like men?

Wanting the same rights as men is NOT wanting to be 'like' men. Unless of course, you think that wanting the same civil rights men enjoy is the ideological and political extension of scratching one's crotch in public.

--- Women want to be superior to men.

Here's how the Oxford dictionary defines 'equal': Being the same in quantity, size, degree, or value.

And here's the definition of 'superior': Higher in rank, status, or quality.

Seriously, we can tell apples from tractors. You should be able to, too.

--- If you fight for women's rights, you hate men.

Your fundamental rights are not like your TV remote. You don't have to snatch another's to have your way. And no, we don't hate men, we just hate douchebags.

Also see on HuffPost:

July 1999

India's LGBT Movement: A Timeline

Close
This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.