Those who call themselves ‘feminists’ - like I do - do so because they have a political commitment to making options and opportunities available to all peoples of the world (not just women, btw, but those dis-privileged in other ways). Sometimes you need labels that will startle and shock people into wondering why the politics is needed in the first place.

But yes, there are differing ways of thinking about this, about doing this. And all of us - no matter what we call ourselves - have trouble practising what we preach, of walking the talk. The feminists I know and love and admire are those who are most honest about this struggle.

I think that’s where we begin: not by claiming perfection in approach or practice, but by acknowledging imperfection in our attempts. Whatever you call yourself, ultimately, any ism is about what you do, and how others perceive that doing, rather that about what you claim to do. So there are Dalit women in the middle of rural Karnataka who are standing up for themselves and claiming political space: to me they are feminists, even if they have never heard the word themselves.

Ultimately, feminist is as feminist does.

Why label a woman a feminist? Who is a feminist? Can there be differing levels of feminism?

I don’t know if I am a feminist myself, and I hesitate to use such a label. You know, the self proclaimed feminists that I have encountered to date have created a distrust towards the word in general.

I am constantly beset by hypocritical ‘feminists’ from ‘women’s welfare’ volutary welfare organisations, who make innane statements like “maybe you shouldn’t report that rape, maybe you’re just imagining things.”

And what about those women who look down on women who make the choice to stay at home and remain a domestic goddess. I have a neighbour who makes snide comments about my mum staying home to ‘mind the kids’.

Strange world of feminists, where women can talk about women’s liberation, but cannot bear to look at a schiziophrenic girl because she isn’t ‘normal’. They call a gay woman abnormal, and treat HIV positive women as blights of society.

Sometimes, I wonder if I live in a nation of hypocrites.

And then I remember women like our grandmothers, mothers and aunts, cousins etc.

In this context, the label ‘feminist’ does not seem so hypocritical anymore.

Maybe I am a humanist. Or a humanitch. [pfft... that sounds like a disease! :p] Ha ha ha

Divi