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...
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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...
This Too Shall Pass TW - CORONAVIRUS We, as humans, have felt a constant need to recognize, evaluate, and label our emotions. This primarily stems from the notion that pinpointing the cause of what’s bothering you can help cope with it better. However, with the way that things have been progressing globally, articulating what you’re feeling is strenuous and demanding. Many a time, our mind is so full of pondering thoughts, emotions, vague ideas, and concepts, it feels like a whirlwind of confusion, rattling and roaring wanting to be let out. Since the onset of the pandemic, things inevitably haven’t been the same and an impending sense of uncertainty has left us all disoriented. Emotions are inherently complex and with everything that’s been going on, we often get so overwhelmed, we are unaware of what we’re feeling and that’s completely alright. Give yourself time to process everything because you deserve it, you really do. Even though we are all mourning the pandemic collective...
A Study On Post Traumatic Growth Trauma- an ex t remely broad and unpleasant term. Anyone can instantly associate trauma with their most negative experience that has left a profound impact- may be even a scar- on their lives. Trauma can be defined as a response to a deeply distressing or disturbing event that usually has an overwhelming effect on the individual and tends to diminish their sense of self, ability to cope, and their ability to feel their full range of emotions. The intensity and manner in which this occurs, however, can differ from person to person. Apart from that, Trauma does not discriminate the way it attacks people and creates a whole new approach to life for an individual. Briefly speaking, trauma can be synonymous with a vast range of experiences, that may usually occur during childhood and/or adolescence. These can include bullying, community violence, natural disasters, medical trauma, physical and/or mental abuse, intimate partner violence, traumatic grief,...
Self-care during a Pandemic Remember waking up at 6 am, your mom screaming at the top of her lungs that you’ll be late yet again if you don’t wake up within the next 10 minutes? Do you recall staying up late completing assignments, depending on coffee to help get through the night, while praying that your turn to present doesn’t come the next day? Can you recollect making impromptu lunch plans after school, even when the first period hasn’t started? All these memories come floating back as we think of 2019 and life we now term as ‘pre- Covid ’ times. Our lives have been forever changed by the coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic presents an unprecedented challenge to public health, food systems and overall lifestyle in general. The economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic is devastating: millions of people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty, while the number of undernourished people have drastically increased. Several enterprises face an existential thre...