Feminism, misogyny, patriarchy, and chauvinism are the jargons that are screamed every day on social media with 10 other argots but did we ever deem to look up the meaning of the words we support or hate on? So, for starters, according to google feminism simply means ‘the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes. I would want to especially highlight the word EQUALITY, another fancy term being tossed around these days. The basic definition we were made to memorize in schools was the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities. But is this valid? Can two sexes who have so much difference biologically as well as psychologically be EQUAL anytime? Or doesn’t this shatter the entire idea of individualism? So why don’t we interpret equality as treating an individual, the way they want to be treated? This definition is more liberal and open to millions of interpretations, now equality can mean anything to you, it can be as unique as you.

This definition provides scope for men to be themselves and not ‘MEN’. It gives them a medium to do whatever they like and not what is ‘appropriate for their gender’. Imagine a world where a man doesn’t learn how to drive because he wants to and not because he has to. Imagine a world where a man is not told to ‘man up’ when he cries and is actually cared for. but can our utopian vision ever be real? 2022 is the year which has witnessed a worldwide shutdown. Could this ever be imagined in past, the entire economy operating on some invisible rays? If this is possible, then why is letting someone be themselves too utopian or unreal or quixotic? Being a young feminist myself I was told to fight for women’s rights by social media but I felt that there would be no issue or rights to fight for if men could just stop ‘manning up’. Won't it be easy if there would be no concrete walls of gender roles surrounding the mind of a boy from the moment he is born? There is a dire and absolutely immediate need for us to deal with this neglected issue and provide the right path for the threatened notion of feminism. We usually hear people yelling how feminism equals misandrist or feminists are just angry bored people who want to raise a trivial issue. Well, we are angry and it is because our entire ideology is trivialised and misunderstood. But why do think the notion of feminism that aspires to create a liberal world with no walls is hated so much? Let’s go back a few words, and understand the basic etymology of the word FEMINISM. “Femin-” comes from the Latin root word “Femina,” meaning woman and “ism” is a Greek suffix implying a belief or practice so the reason men or most people feel intimidated is because of the word ‘women’. Questions like ‘but what about men’s rights?’ arises but if we talk statistically almost one in three—have been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life (30 percent of women aged 15 and older) which is an overwhelming rate, so don’t you think issues like these needs to be addressed first? And the notion was raised first in the late nineteenth when women across the world were fighting for basic rights like suffrage but it being a self-conscious issue liberalised its definition to a simple meaning of equality. I am not claiming that women's issues have been resolved but all the gender-related issues have been absorbed into one notion of FEMINISM.

Patriarchy is known to be the biggest foe of feminism. Idealistically it is the women that should be most oppressed by it but realistically it is the men who are the biggest victims of this merciless agenda. It originally stands for the ‘male rule’ but the question is does men even want to rule? Does the beard-sprouting teenage boy who is still figuring out his puberty want to be the ‘man of the house’? ironically the role of the ruler they are supposedly born for is acting as the biggest pressure inducer on men. I have evidence for my claims; in 2021, there were more than 45 thousand female deaths due to suicides in India, while the incidents were more than 118 thousand for males which is an alarming rate for a country which has had patriarchy for ages. According to research conducted by bbc.com, the key reason contributing to such high rates is the lack of communication. For generations, men have been told to toughen up and keep their feelings bottled up. “We condition boys from a very young age to not express emotion, because to express emotion is to be 'weak'.” Said Colman O’Driscoll, former executive director of operations and development at Lifeline, an Australian charity providing 24-hour crisis support and suicide prevention services. It was found that the rate of consultation care in men is 32% lower than in women it is because from childhood the idea of “boys don’t cry” was inculcated in the minds of boys. But why can’t they cry? Why is it assumed that women have some kind of monopoly over tears? Why can’t a boy who has a heart of the same size, the same composition as a girl is not allowed to cry? If we just remove the sense of entitlement in men they are given from birth and just replace it with a sense of comfort and we can protect both sides.

If we notice the trends, we can observe that the starting age of men working is higher than a female. Men do not have a career by choice but by the circumstances, we rarely observe a man as a homemaker, especially in a country like ours. Isn’t it upsetting that men are seen as nothing but just assets to a household? They have to be the ‘breadwinner’ or ‘the alpha male’ of the family. The real question arises, that the pedestal men are put on are they actually enjoying, or is it just the glass illusion they have? The role of superior and the ‘brave’ men were granted to them in the rule of the monarchy but are they actually valid in our time of democracy?

If men are observed from a feminist point of view, it is quite evident that men are the victims as well as the culprits for themselves. Most of the problems, that are faced socially can be solved if we just stop seeing people as a gender but as ‘individuals'.

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