Pseudofeminism and why is it a threat to actual feminism ?

Before y’all start grabbing popcorns let me clarify one thing, I am a feminist and most probably you’re too.

Feminism

Foundation of feminism is equal rights. If you don’t discriminate between male and female friends, if you have equal love and respect for both your mother and father, if you don’t see a problem with women persuing higher education, women doing a job, a women who’s independent, a women who pays her bills rather if you admire it you’re a feminist.

Pseudofeminism

If you think women empowerment lies in women whining over how they can’t slap a man and get away with it, or if you believe that the women who smokes or drinks in public is necessarily a women of strong character(ain’t got a problem with that in particular but don’t consider it as a personality trait), or if a you think body shaming men is feminism, then you’re a pseudofeminist and you’re just as much if not more responsible for injustice against women as that of a mysogynist.

What’s the difference?

If I ask you to imagine feminist protests what would you picture ? Got’cha — bunch of women shouting, holding banners which curse men, a women asking rights to roam topless or maybe women who thinks smashing ‘menimism' is cool and smoking, drinking publicly is a sign of strong character. right ? No, that’s not feminism. Feminism is gender, race, ethnicity, religion inclusive.

If a man sitting on a seat which was reserved for a women, then asking him to offer the sit to a women is feminism, on the other hand pseudofeminism is asking for a general seat and whining if a man doesn’t offer you a seat which he deserves.

Why pseudofeminism is an issue ?

Problem with pseudofeminism is that it antagonise actual feminism, it draws away all the attention which is required to solve the sufferings of women who actually are in dire need of basic rights, it allows injustice, mysogynistic mentality to prevail.

As I mentioned before recent so called feminist riots has made us all think that feminism is all about whining, sole cause of which is pseudofeminism. There are women even in some urban parts of India who have to face injustice, mysogyny just because of mentality of people who think women are inferior to men. Some women have to undergo beating from their father brothers, husband. There are women who are exempted from basic human rights just because of their gender, there are women who are objectified.

Now if we try to protest for these things most of people would think it as another whining session of priviliged women who seek attention and it would be overlooked. Isn’t it a problem ?

Women should be allowed to have basic education, women should do jobs, women should take a stand for themselves, women should not be objectified.

We all need to understand that we’re living in an era where some women are highly privileged while others have to struggle even for having basic human rights, some women have to kill their child just because it was a daughter, there were many incidents of women ending their lives because they were raped and they couldn’t even be served with justice just because making if public would bring shame to their family, now isn’t this something we should be looking into ?

It’s high time, we should be trying to dissociate term feminism from term misandry, hypocrisy and I firmly believe that identifying and eliminating pseudo-feminism this along with eliminating toxic mysogyny would be a strong stimulant for this.