No illustration communicated this point more poignantly than a cartoon sketched by Preena Shrestha a year ago. Can we be part-time feminists? Indeed, how often the modern educated independent career-oriented (read, at times, confused of us) women have demanded we be treated equal only to turn around and tick off the last date as one "with zero boyfriend potential." He did, after all, "fail to get the door, pull out my chair, pour my drink or insist on picking up the bill." It is not to say we must condemn the stereotypical feminist inclinations, but it is to marvel at how tricky lived feminism is these days.
Of course I am not speaking for all 25-year old Kathmandu ketis prancing about town because if you understand the “f” of feminism - it is that we may speak of "women" but we detest being told we are the same through and through. This simply is the message that personal conversations, observations, well, you know eta uta herda sunda, has hammered into what I would presume the heads of many young women of Kathmandu today: The man should consider the woman his equal, lest he expects her to pick up his dinner plate and wash his dirty socks, but come the loud thump echoing from the ground floor, he best jumps up with a bat while she ducks under the cover and whimper, "Rajuuuuuu". Okay, perhaps not so Bollywood-esque.
We do, however, expect men to look us in the eyes while we continue to flaunt our chest.
Growing up, Seventeen and Cosmo Girl always infuriated me as it constantly accused us girls of being guilty of sending "multiple mixed messages" to boys. My high school girlfriends and I insisted we would be different. We wouldn´t waver because if we were to be equal it would be constant.
And yet upbringing, childhood and culture (damn you sexist socialization!) kicked in and before we knew it, we found ourselves dashing another layer of lip-gloss as we anticipated him parking the car, running around the corner and opening our door for us. Are we really incapable of getting the door?
Are we really too scared to kill the cockroach? And are we hide and hope the burglar sneaks away? Sometimes I worry I act as though it were the case. Or should I be more concerned with having to fight off personal, some inherent and some taught, fears to prove my undying loyalty to women’s power within? Is a woman less “for” woman if she screeches at the sight of the creepy crawlies?
But tell me, how do you walk the fine line between gushing at chivalry and gnashing at chauvinism? Perhaps I am being too crass in suggesting if you´re not chivalrous, you are chauvinistic (kind of like, “If you’re not for us, you are against us”) and vice versa. Or is it about maintaining a delicate balance between the two?
A butch lesbian writes to femme women, “I do these things not because I think that you are unable/fragile/weak … I do them out of utmost respect and as a small token of my gratitude..." That’s all very sweet and it melted my heart the first time I read it, but can it be reciprocated? Can a femme in a lesbian relationship and a woman in a heterosexual relationship protect their lover out of such gratitude? Because while they may appreciate it, are they also being gently disempowered or not?
Those of us of the Generation X, Y and Z know all too well the Structural Functionalism we are in the process of proving defunct.
While Talcott Parsons rolls in his grave, I have to tell him he needn’t worry because without promoting sexist roles, I have to agree – when we refuse our position, things get shaken up. Where a woman does not need to be cajoled, fondled and “baby”-ed it, it gets tricky. If traditionally a woman manned the house (yes, pun intended) and the man was the breadwinner, it is less and less the case today. Indeed much of being a woman today needs to refocus on counting housework as “work”. If a man’s primary activity during the day is valid, I have no intention of prying the pride associated to that, but I would suggest we value the work a woman has been relegated to as well. When should a man open the door for a woman – countless polls in the US suggest less and less find it “charming” while more and more considering it “patronizing.”
And so I pity the chauvinistic pigs of yesteryears, no doubt a whole breed of them exist and what’s more, continue to thrive today, but it must be confusing. For the chivalry that is applauded and taught to the date-able boys (whom we show off to our girlfriends and introduce to our parents), chauvinism isn’t too far. When (not a man but) society considers a woman too weak, too frail, too timid to pick up the gun, to clean the gutter or to man the grill then that’s chauvinism through and through. But when a man offers to do it, it is chivalrous. So, how can chivalry and chauvinism be distinguished? When it is done out of respect and out of love – to convenience the other a little more, to express your appreciation a little more overtly and to walk the walk, instead of just talk the talk? Why? Because men and women are equally responsible for promoting the equality of both, without robbing that of either.
The catch point is when it is not mandatory – when it is not expected or demanded and when it can forever be reciprocated, when a woman may offer to - no, no, not just do his dishes (that would be too obvious) but when a woman may suggest he get back in bed, that she’ll tackle the intruder. When such acts of kindness are done out of love, and not out of obligation or to be patronizing, then I might suggest the line between chivalry and chauvinism has been conquered.
sradda.thapa@gmail.com
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