I wasnt always a feminist
hi
my name is rena and today i’m going to
talk about how feminism has changed my
life
how it made me a better more empathetic
person who
is not afraid to do whatever the hell
she wants
so feminism a word that gives an icky
feeling to a lot of people
is anyone getting this icky feeling
listening to me right now
well to those people i want to say that
i get you
because i was there too i wasn’t a
feminist until three years back
now of course i believe that every human
on this earth
is an equal and deserves equal rights
but i knew the world had different rules
for different genders people of
different caste class and what not
and i wasn’t ready to deal with that
before i became a feminist
i did partake in judging people like
many of us
do i used to think that women who had
lots and lots of sex are not good girls
i didn’t quite accept the idea of
same-sex relationships
do you remember anyone else who didn’t
accept this yes it was a government
until 2018.
i judged my ex for crying too much and
not being manly enough
and i’m not proud of any of these things
so if you feel bored with the word
feminism then i get you
because i have been there and that’s why
i’m telling you to listen closely
because i am not talking about how women
are better than men
or how we need to eradicate this entire
male species from earth
because that’s not what feminism is
about
i promise you that all genders will
learn something today
even though i’m speaking from my
perspective which is that of a woman
so i started working with she the people
which is a women’s channel
three years back and like i said i
wasn’t a feminist when i joined
and i was at my first event the women’s
writers fest where i saw all these women
speaking so boldly
sharing their stories fearlessly all
these amazing women
but at that moment i thought to myself
aren’t these women overdoing it don’t
all us women go through it
why are they making a big deal out of it
it was natural for me to think that way
because i had come from a place where
feminism was non-existent
i was born in moga in punjab and then i
moved to bhutanda in sixth grade where i
finished my schooling
i come from a very happy-go-lucky
punjabi family and it was a lot of fun
growing up in my house
but like most indian families there was
one major problem
i faced of course apart from the double
standards it’s the expectations
when you’re born everyone has a dream of
you irrespective of your capabilities
and interest
and when it comes to choosing what you
want to do in your life
i knew my family would be really
supportive of my choice
of career as long as it was nothing of
beat
so anything like i his doctor was great
engineering
was acceptable to getting married to a
rich guy of a good family
and that too of the same cast wow that
was the ideal scenario
and i was prepared to do something like
that
i mean why not if it meant that i would
lead a happy life
so i ended up doing engineering which
like i said was sort of acceptable i
graduated with a 8.3 cgpa but like
most engineers after the end of
engineering i was like okay
while many of my friends were doing
masters i wanted to explore
and that was the only thing i was sure
of because i had just spent four years
of studying biomedical engineering
two things that i learned from my first
job number one
financial independence suddenly i had
this feeling that wow i am not
answerable to anybody for my choices
which felt great
the other thing that i observed was the
interest with which
even though i love my work there i just
couldn’t find that drive in myself
i knew that there was a calling inside
me but i just didn’t know what it was
so i decided to quit my job after a year
and
what should i do what should i do is the
question i ask myself
now my journey is going to get a little
bizarre as my family puts it
but it’s my journey and i’m super proud
of it
you know as a family we have seen a lot
of financial problems with three
siblings and my parents have taken
all sorts of loans to put us through
schools and colleges
to do this meant that they sacrificed a
lot my dad didn’t even buy a car until
last year
and now that my parents had paid for our
education
they were done paying for us of course
they had done their part
it was my parents dream that i became a
nice
and i thought to myself why not i anyway
don’t know what i want to be so why not
try this
so i told them about my decision and
they were pleased as i expected
before leaving the office do i give a
huge speech about how i wanted to be an
is officer
everyone said is we thought you would go
into modeling or something
i ignored that so i moved back to
belinda as a girl who had made this big
decision
as you may know the life of someone
studying for upsc is very clear
you study eat study some more feel
sleepy drink some coffee get back to
studying and repeat the whole process
and i did that for four months but i
realized that i’m bored
and that’s not how you crack is and i
just
and i decided to give up on that
somebody would say that
i failed but i couldn’t go ahead with
this
so what were my options continue or
recourse
i decided to recourse but what should i
do
maybe something that everyone has been
telling me that i’d be good at
ever since i was a little girl something
that even my office mates at my last job
thought i’d do
be a model now to you this may seem
bizarre but to me
this seemed very natural at that time
let me explain
so growing up what role models did you
have
while men have a lot of options to
choose from you know sports people the
prime minister and almost every ceo in
the world
i had only two role models sushmita
saint and eshwar
now it’s not like they’re not good role
models they’re amazing to be honest
but having them as role models limited
my vision
but still at that time i thought to
myself why not
give it a shot so i packed my bags and
went off to bombay at 23
with some savings that would last me for
four months
and yes again my parents were not going
to pay for me any longer and well
nothing happened in four months i ended
up working at a production house
without any salary and this was a
situation i didn’t want to be in
because my wallet was getting empty and
i couldn’t go back home
even though i was failing i had to talk
to myself and be honest about my
situation
you know rather than doing something
that will only bog me down
and i had to bring myself back to the
game so i started applying for jobs
i wanted a job that would give me enough
money to stay in bombay along with
making me
feel good about myself i got picked up
by a creative agency as a junior digital
manager
the pay was less than my first job but i
took it because i couldn’t see any other
options
to my surprise i ended up loving my work
and the people there were really warm
and welcoming
but yes that did not change my financial
situation
i moved to a two bhk where nine of us
girls lived
my bed there was smaller than the birth
of a train
something that i had ignored but my mom
observed it
because she was the one who pointed it
out to me and this made her upset
but i told her that i was actually quite
happy living there
after all i wasn’t in this alone right
there were literally eight other women
in the same flat
and each of them were fighting their own
battles they had their own struggles
and even though bombay can get to you at
times
all of us found a way to be happy on
most days
through my agency i met a client who
literally decided to cold call me one
day and say
please come and join us and that’s how i
landed up at see the people
and i thought i am not a feminist so how
come i can join that
i had never spent any time understanding
feminism
it’s not something that was a part of my
life
my dreams had no feminism in it
you know sometimes when you’re not
something places that you go they
actually make an
environment for you to become that
because at the end of the day
all of us need to evolve as human beings
did i understand feminism on day one no
it doesn’t come on a plate it took me
three months of actively reading up
feminist content every single day
because that was my job now and had to
do it
and i realized that i had internalized
misogyny
because i like you have grown up in a
society where patriarchy is the norm
things that i learned were i am equal
and
as important as any other person that
there is i don’t have to justify my
actions to people
just because i’m a girl society has its
own rules
but well now i’m making my own i
can’t please everyone but i can please
myself
it was amazing when my interest in
something started emerging
how hard work and everything else fell
into place
that calling that i was just talking
about was finally
finding its place in my life you know
it’s so hard for us girls to put
ourselves in the center
why should we not we must
we’ve always been taught to put
ourselves in the periphery
do the things which people think are
okay for us to do
we are expected to please everybody else
except our own selves
you know what putting myself in the
center
made me realize that i became a person
who understood her family needs
i understood my father his financial
struggles his failures his successes
i became more aware of the sacrifices
that my mom had made to raise all of us
up
i knew i had to step up and start
working towards leveling up my family’s
finances
that i don’t have to wait for the man of
the house to do it
and why should it all have to come on
them
i can do it and i should contribute
equally
you know we’ve all grown up watching
bollywood movies and in many of them a
rich guy comes and saves the girl of a
financial stress
and even though this thought has been
very comforting to me on the days when i
was high on self-doubt
you know that i have a savior somewhere
a man who will rescue me of
all this stress i chose to unlearn that
i also realized that i am nobody to
judge anyone for their choices in life
as i started accepting myself i became
more accepting of the people around me
now this also made me happier as a
person and i was finally
able to enjoy my life and just with
everything was looking good
code happened you know so your life is
gone
all the fun is gone and it’s not been
easy for me
like it’s not been easy for anybody else
but like many others
i decided to make most of the situation
i packed my bags again and moved back to
batinda but this time as a confident
woman
carrying with her not just a bag of
clothes but a bag of change
a bag of things that i’ve learned but i
was a little
concerned how my family would handle my
newfound feminism
you know as everybody else covet also
has been a big change for me
i started my own show called point to
hair where my intention was to point out
the everyday mistreatment
women experience in their lives so that
maybe they’ll stand up for themselves
maybe they will stop blaming themselves
every time they fail to meet the
criteria of a good girl
maybe this start spotting the double
standards my aim was to appeal to women
because
appealing to others seemed like an
impossible task
and while i focused my energy on
empowering women
i had to deal with some snarky comments
from people around me
you know they were slightly in a fun
teasing way
but everyone just literally wanted to
test my patients
my younger cousins deliberately
shames women
in front of me to piss me off when we’re
at a family gathering i can hear someone
or the other say that oh don’t say this
in front of her she’s a big feminist
she’ll get angry
and i deal with that but i had one
person who was always on my side
my mom she never failed to take a stand
for me
no matter how many times i quit my job
or changed my path
you know when it comes to empowerment it
is either a privilege or an individual
struggle for each and every woman
so what sex empowered women apart from
society
they often have a strong support system
behind them
and while i had my mom i definitely
needed a support system outside my
family too
every day i would see a community
growing women agreeing that they have
gone through similar struggles and this
is something that made me more and more
sure about who i am as a person and what
i want to do
you know one of my close friends called
me up and told me that a friend of hers
was being forced into a marriage
her parents literally made her meet
three potential grooms in one day
in one day and asked her to choose one
there
and then what she told her dad was that
you know you can’t do this
you can’t force me into marriage and i
know what feminism is
and what you’re asking me to do is wrong
on so many levels
she stood up for herself and when i hear
stories like these it makes me feel
so proud of the work that i do and
that’s my support system in a way
and you must find yours too be it in
your friends
your family co-workers or anything else
you know you must find your people who
empower you
and i can’t stress that enough find your
people
you can try and change your family but
you can’t
expect them to change overnight
like my dad although he’s come a long
way
he’s not the exact feminist that i’m
looking for
but isn’t that human nature we can’t
change
everybody’s everything but if we can
make
the needle move slightly it’s a big
success
because after all they’ve been
conditioned for years and years in a
certain way
so it’s not an open close chapter story
it’s a continuous book that we
have to write rewrite scratch some
things rethink and rewrite again
as i leave you all i want to give you
something that you can think about
something that’s actionable number one
accept yourself for who you are and
start
prioritizing yourself second is that you
must develop the habit of having honest
conversation with yourself
about what you want in life about who
you are
then whether that’s your struggle with
your gender your sexuality
choice of career or anything else that’s
important to you
number three don’t be rigid in your
approach towards life
always be ready to learn and unlearn new
things
last don’t let the situations define
your self-worth
you might be doing well in your life one
day and you could be constantly
questioning your capabilities the other
whatever struggles you may go through
you must try and remain confident about
the person you are
even when you are unemployed even when
someone close to you or someone you work
for
tells you you are worthless or that
you’re not good enough
you have to believe in yourself as there
is no other way
because if you don’t no one else will
you