What is Pseudo Feminism?
Meaning of Pseudo Feminism: – When people think that it is absolutely fine to demean men in the society or to suppress them or to dominate them or to create violence against them and thinking that they’re feminists and can do anything as they have the power to do so, this way of thinking and putting men down to overpower them is known as “Pseudo Feminism”.
Feminism is that women deserve respect like any other human being. Pseudo feminist believes that women are superior and deserve more respect than other human beings. Living in a society where women face several problems every day it’s worst that some people are damaging the word feminism.
Feminism: An Overview
The word ‘feminist’ has derived from the French word ‘feministe’, where the word woman in French is ‘femme’. In English, it means, for advocacy of equal rights for women, this word was used for the first time in the 1890s. It came into general use only in the 1960s. The word ‘feminist’ refers to a consciousness that women are unjustly treated simply because they are women.
Feminism is the most overused word in the past few years. The word which simply means equality of women in the society or we can say the advocacy of women’s right on the ground of the equality of the sexes is now being predicted as the supremacy of women over men. Which is why the word feminism is misunderstood and people who’re pseudo-feminist or we can say fake feminist take the shade of feminism to overpower men.
All those people whose point of view is to demean men in the society or to suppress them and thinking that they’re feminists and can do anything as they have the power to do so, this way of thinking and putting men down to overpower them is known as “Pseudo Feminism” or “Fake Feminism“.
To explain this term further, pseudo feminists say that, ‘we had a lot of suffering in the past, so now, even if we surpass men, we have the right to do that’, whereas, equality and not surpassing men, yet getting all the rights equivalent to men, was and is the objective of the feminists, then and now.
Feminism refers to the galvanization of this consciousness into actions to do something to change the system. The Oxford English Dictionary describes feminism as ‘a movement supporting equal rights for women’. It is a struggle for the empowerment of women to create a society based on equitable gender relations.
Until the 1970s, the study of the role of women in history and other disciplines was unheard of in schools and colleges anywhere, whether in the developed world or the south. But, the end of the twentieth century, the story of women’s role and women’s movement was everywhere.
A new generation of Indian feminists emerged following global feminism. Indian women have greater independence from increased access to higher education and control over their reproductive rights. Medha Patkar, Madhu Kishwar, and Brinda Karat are feminist social workers and politicians who advocate for women’s rights in post-independence India. Writers such as Amrita Pritam, Sarojini Sahoo, and Kusum Ansal advocate for feminist ideas in Indian languages. Rajeshwari Sunder Rajan, Leela Kasturi, and Vidyut Bhagat are Indian feminist essayists and critics writing in English.
Recent and most controversial examples of Pseudo feminism
1. THE BOIS LOCKER ROOM CASE
The most flamed case in 2020 was the ‘Bois Locker Room Case’, where a lot of feminists came up on different platforms seeking justice for the girl who was being given the threat of Gang-Rape. On Instagram (a social media application), was flooded with all the screenshots, of a group of random boys, who were planning to gang-rape (sexually assault) a particular girl and were passing unscrupulous comments on many girls. They were added randomly and were targeting some girls.
After the police investigation, the cops got to know that the news was fake and the girl who spread this fake news, said that she did it just to see the character of the boy, and to gain publicity. Which eventually lead to the death of the boy who was under investigation as he committed suicide due to societal pressure, fake news all over the media and on news channels due to so much of negative news against him and also because of threatening calls from people. Later, the hashtag of #fakefeminism and #shame was trending on social media sites.
2. AMITY CAR PARKING CASE
A recent case on fake feminism or pseudo feminism, in Amity University, Noida, was on a small fight on car parking issue between two boys and a girl. Where the girl was parking her car in the middle of the road and when the two boys, named ‘Harsh’ and ‘Madhav’, confronted her she called up her male friends where ‘Harsh’ and ‘Madhav’ were beaten up brutally by a gang of 25-30 goons and later the girl filed false molestation case on them, also. All the social media platforms were flooded with the news and the girl was trolled as an example of fake feminist.
3. NEHA DHUPIA CONTROVERSY
On a TV show, actress Neha Dhupia gave a statement which eventually declared her to be a fake feminist and was called a pseudo-feminist as well and was trolled all over the news and all over the media. Later she twitted, where she justified her statement which was then misinterpreted. Neha’s justification was, “What a man or a woman does in a relationship is their choice and moral choices are always ambiguous. But no matter what they are, they cannot lead to physical abuse. I stand by the fact that NO MATTER WHAT … physical abuse or assault is not acceptable”. This later proved her to be a feminist.
4. RUSSIAN GIRL THROWING BLEACH ON THE LAP OF A BOY IN METRO/TRAIN
The most horrifying case happened in Russia, where a girl threw bleach on a man’s lap as she got frustrated because she had no place to sit and the man didn’t offer her seat to sit. She called it ‘MAN-SPREADING’ which took no time to get viral on the social media and as well as on all the news channels. The act done by her was unjustifiable and punishable, as she could just have asked for the seat.
5. Girls should be given seats in metros, bus and other places, whereas the men should stand and travel.
6. I’m a girl, I support feminism, and therefore, its the boy’s duty to pay all the bills.
All these are an example of pseudo feminism or fake feminism, and which is why the feminism is the most overused word and are the most misunderstood word in society nowadays.
Conclusion
Therefore the reality is that as there will be always two sides of a coin and similarly, there will be people who would criticize men as well as women which doesn’t mean that they’re wrong but calling them feminism or meninist is also not right. Demeaning or suppressing men is not feminism but being as equal as men and demanding for equality in status, rights and opportunities, etc is what feminism is more about.