As a very dramatic person and big-time old school romantic, wouldn’t it be less if I didn’t announce my boyfriend on my Blog? Well, I have finally found love and you will know who that lucky person is soon enough.
Why should you read this post :
To get to know the love of my life
To unravel the real me
Great movie suggestions.
Get enlightened
Get a perspective
Because you love me
A week ago, one of my male friends asked me if I was a les
bian. To which I answered, “I do wish I was though.” The next obvious question followed; ”Why do you hate men?”
See that’s the thing. For those who follow me, they might have seen all the feminist posts and cartoons I share and they assume I’m a man-hater. My sister likes to call herself a Man-eater though, God!, Maybe I should look into it. Moving on; if you ask me do I hate men, my answer is a big NO. Why would I hate anyone, I even love snakes and deadly creatures. But there are some things I hate and those are trigger words for men and ‘kulastrees’ (I will explain the word as we read on). Some of the words include casual sexism, patriarchy, toxic masculinity, victim-blaming, and body shaming.
I have written in a long while and this is going to be a long post, so maybe you should get some snacks or maybe fetch a drink.
We are so ingrained in patriarchy that sometimes even I am stuck onto some of their ideals. It feels confusing. Let’s start with the ‘Locker room’. I didn’t respond because I knew it was useless posting anything. It would just reveal the true colours of the men in my followers and I would lose a lot of people that way. But it didn’t let me sleep.
I know guys who have similar groups but I was told guys are meant to be that way and so you shouldn’t bother it. As soon as the news broke out that the id was of girl which was a different and unrelated one to the Locker Room issue and followed by the suicide of a boy who was accused of sexual abuse, the blame started to shift. I have just three questions.
What on earth made the girl do what she had to which is wrong in all sense but sums up to the behaviour of the opposite sex?
Does this mean the ‘Locker Room’ guys are acquitted?
Who is a feminist?
The first question is more or less like the ‘Drishyam’ situation. I find it helpful that this movie was remade in several languages. You can never say who is right or wrong in ‘Drishyam’. Both of them were guilty but you couldn’t say who was more guilty and whom you should take a stand for.
An interesting Quora read;
This untrustworthy made that girl believe that she had to test her boyfriend if he was a rotten apple. I know many women would relate to me when I say that you may have had to lie about your name and details to a lot of people you meet. God alone knows how many ‘husbands’ and ‘brothers’ I had to create so that I could stay safe. I have pretended to be married so that guys wouldn’t bother me. Yeah. True story.
Guys discussing porn, rating people around was something I was made to think as a part of who men are. More than 90% or maybe even 100% of that porn is disgusting and abusive. The disrespect is so huge that even the galaxy would face an eclipse.
But there have been several platforms which do have women- centric and sensitive porn. Some run by women. So, I guess the Sun has begun to rise.
I watched a Malayalam movie Prathi Poovankozhi (Translated to Accused Rooster). Kozhi is a word you might be familiar with if you have malayalee friends. A flirtatious guys who turns into a menace is referred to as 'Kozhi'. Long story short, it is the revenge saga of a lady who was groped in a bus by a local goon. The groping scene in the movie was so realistic that any woman who saw that scene might have felt the disgust lingering through them. Each time she walks through a dark alleyway, a heartbeat skips. The movie talks on a lot of issues and I loved it. The acting, the realism associated with it and oh boy!, let me tell how great I felt watching the climax. I haven’t given any spoilers so I suggest you give it a watch.
I usually discuss movies with my sister to understand how many layers we could unfold. It feels great to have a brainy sister. That’s when she asked me a question and gave me an account of a discussion that happened elsewhere.
The question: Did you feel the disgust while watching that scene?
The discussion made me think. A person asked if it was right to show rape, groping, or harassing scenes on screen? Another person said,
“Why do we not show diarrhoea or puke in movies, isn’t it disgusting? So are these scenes not disgusting enough?”
Another movie which I watched just so that I can see the guilty punished because let’s be real, it ain’t happening in our country. Now don’t rub Nirbhaya on my face, ^&*$% seven years to get them hanged. And I am against hanging or death penalty like that in our country, I would prefer those animals to be stoned to death like in Saudi Arabia, well Saudi does some things right and they are improving so I say let’s call it to progress. Okay, back to the movie; the movie is called ‘Puthiya Niyamam’ which translates to ‘The New Testament’ and you should watch it, It stars our talented actors Nayanthara and Mammootty.
When I watched ‘Thappad’, I felt the line Tapsee’s character Amrita says,
”Uss ek thappad se mujhe woh sari unfair cheeze saaf saaf dikhne lagg gayi jisko main undekha karke move on karte ja rahi thi.”
Which roughly translates to; That one slap unblinded me and I could see all the unfair things happening around me. I was watching the movie and until the very slap, I too felt he was a caring and loving husband. Subtle actions and dialogues with casual sexism were ingrained in the husband’s character which even I noticed a bit late. That was the moment I realized that we all are so dipped in patriarchy that cleaning ourselves up is as difficult as getting sugar syrup out of your air. But it is not impossible.
Who doesn’t love a game of caroms? Well, I love the game and it is one of my favourite family time. But even after years of playing
the game, it was not until a few months ago that I asked myself a question. Why are the black coins always the ones with less value? I didn’t think anymore. Now if you are playing carom with me, then Black coins have more or the same value as the White ones. Why more you may ask? Heard of the term ‘Equity’? The same word that grants reservations in our country.
More than half of the meme pages on Instagram are sexist, racist and most of the ‘ists’. Well most of them are private also, that’s another concern. I feel ashamed to say that I did enjoy some of those nasty memes. The sugar syrup is too thick to wash off. Make be movies like these and other gems like Chapaak and Uyare might help to bring toxic masculinity a notch down.
‘Pseudo’ or a ‘Fake’ exists in every nook and corner and we should keep our eyes and minds open. Pseudo-feminists have made it a bit difficult for the real feminism struggle. But time wears off the fakes so I’m waiting patiently for that day.
Oh! About the Kulastree, here is the link to an interesting discussion.
Well, to those of you who thought I was going to announce my boyfriend’s name and are read this post until here; Yeah I feel sorry you fell for that. But you did get something worthwhile to read. And about the boyfriend, well my standards are a bit high. Minimum requirement: A feminist with a spine.