The PsyCreative Column

  Being a girl in South Asia  ‘A breeze of impasse and she’s a force to be reckoned with’. She is a little bit of everything. She is the limitation and the limitless, she is bound to be freed, celebrated at every phase of her life stands a girl of South Asia. A region known for its struggles with caste, religion and class discrimination grapples with catering to its female counterparts. Where the birth of a girl is said to bring ‘luck and fortune’ taking it to a new house and cultivating it to the next generation. A sentence summing up her whole life. She is always regulated by the man: her father, husband or son. When is she ever just a woman? Defined by everything else around her. The society validates and controls her resources, identity, feelings and body. Though we see a humongous improvement in access to education and health it is still inadequate in many ways that is even more evident amidst the lockdown. As the nation battled the pandemic young girls were robbed of the...

  The four waves of feminism      Through the passage of centuries, women have endured the reign of men. The reign of men over their thoughts, actions, feelings and even their bodies. This called for a collective movement to overthrow female oppression - Feminism. The preconceived notions surrounding feminism and its movements are innumerable. The words ‘feminist’ and ‘woman’ are used almost interchangeably to such an extent that ‘feminist history’ becomes ‘women’s history’ (Delmar, 2001) and the fact that even men can be feminists is woefully overlooked.     Feminism, like any noble cause, has had its haters and the journey to where it is today has most definitely not been an easy one. It has progressed primarily through four waves which have advocated for the dignity of women all throughout the world. Even though the roots of feminism date back to ancient Greece, the first wave of feminism started in the late nineteenth century at the Senec...

In the last post about the waves of feminism we saw the very beginning of feminism, but it doesn’t bring us to the place that we are at in 2022. So what comes next? The third wave of feminism, obviously. But what did it bring? The third wave of feminism was brought about by the Generation Xers - Americans born between 1965 and 1980 - who benefitted from the rights brought on by the first two waves, but also criticized the ‘unfinished work’ of the two waves. They grew up with examples of female success around them, and an era of media saturation. The third wave direct action corporation became the third wave foundation in 1997. It supported groups working for gender, racial, economic, and social justice, founded by Rebecca Walker. Also important during this era were Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, who, raised by second wavers grew up as self-aware, empowered, articulate and high-achieving women, wrote “Manifesta: Young Women, feminism, and the Future”. Women in this age were awa...

  Feminism A term that is used very often, and sometimes very casually nowadays. It is something that is still important and relevant in this age. We have always heard that history is important and so is the history of feminism. It doesn’t seem important now because women’s place in the society is much better than it used to be. But it was very important when it started out. So, what exactly is the history of feminism? The first - wave of the feminist movement occurred during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It prevailed all throughout the western world. It revolved around getting women basic legal rights, and just equalizing them to men. It fought for rights that we can’t imagine being without in this age. Political and business domains were dominated by men, and they didn’t consider women as a threat to their positions. Married women were treated like property by their husbands. Since women weren’t even treated as individuals with the right to make their own choices, the conce...