Tags like ‘feminists’ ‘leftists’ and ‘liberals’ are now more prevalent than ever and they are, more often than not, used in a negative manner with the intentions of demeaning the person. Whether it is our grandmothers who are “not supposed to have a political opinion because what’s the point when all they need to do is cook rajma chawal” or mothers who “should just continue reading the top celebrity airport looks” or us who use social media and protests in dissent as powerful tools to be termed ‘modern and open‘ which gives men a ‘signal‘ to slide into our inboxes with threats, inappropriate photographs or straight up an access to video call us out of the blue.
Political representation of women is an umbrella of terms like women having the right to vote, their active participation in decision-making, political activism, political consciousness and much more. Women turnout during India’s 2024 parliamentary general elections was 66%. Coming to their direct representation in politics, the numbers have been on a downwards trend.
Women’s Reservation Bill passed in September 2023, aimed for a reservation of 33% of seats in Lok Sabha and state Legislative Assemblies for women. However, during the recent elections out of 543 Members of Parliament (MPs) elected, only 74 are women. India ranks 143 in the list of countries in the ‘Monthly ranking of women in national parliaments’ published by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, a global organization for national parliaments.
However, when it comes to common households, the condition of these numbers worsens. Think of the last time you went to a neighborhood party. The children were in one room watching television or playing some sort of game. All the men were in one area talking about last night’s match or the recent political happenings. The women guests were constantly helping the woman host in food preparations or serving and when they got time, they would talk about topics pertaining to their personal life.
Although talking about things personal to you is a sign of strong bonding, the question here is- Why is a group of women barely seen talking about politics? The problem lies deep rooted. Since ages the concept of men taking active part in political discussions and women being dormant on the same has been instilled in our brains.
Women, as soon as they switch on the news voluntarily, are asked to switch the channel. When they are found watching political debates, they are often posed with extremely offensive rhetorical questions like “yahin se seekha hai mujhse argue karna” and when they begin giving political opinions, statements like “ab pradhan mantri tumhe consult karne lag gaye toh ho gaya desh ka kaam” are made.
When it comes to school and college debates, any ‘opinion’ that we give, no matter how well we back it with facts, statistics and logic, is often ignored because we are ‘too young’ and “too exposed to feminism” so we will only “take every counter argument in a negative way” and think of it from a single perspective. No matter how well we take counter arguments, our responses will somehow always end up with the other person saying “ab #metoo mat laga dena bhai humpe” and then they will casually brush it off mocking the entire essence and intensity of the #metoo movement by cracking another misogynistic joke that will somehow crack up most of the audience members.
What the society fails to understand is that no matter how well read and logical a woman is, her opinion will always be overshadowed by that of a man. It is almost like a woman tells a joke but a man just repeats the same louder so people laugh at it. The stigma of a political opinion is a man’s domain has been so internalized by everyone around that sometimes even women disregard other women’s opinions. There have been times when what women politicians wore was the topic of news instead of what they said.
In spite of changing times and the country moving towards gender equality with the fourth wave of feminism, the concept of women having a political opinion somehow still bothers the society that we live in. Even in changing times, words are twisted, every positive step towards political opinion is tagged as being ‘feminist’, and women are openly harassed on social media for sharing their views. Women exercising their freedom of speech and expression to voice their opinions openly is still something that many of patriarchal society members have not accepted.
But having said all this, the fear of being harassed online or the shattered confidence that our families and friends gifted us with should not stand in the way of what we stand for. After all, if it affects you, you ought to have an opinion on it; and if you have a political opinion on it, you must voice it. We cannot change the state of this issue in the past but we can certainly pave a path for the future.
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