In defence of fire-bellowing feminists

There are many kinds of feminists. Some who came to be so because of abuse or because of economic/ political/social sufferings, some who are fake and use the ism to make a quick buck.  And then there are those who have the insight to see through a system, on how ideology becomes embedded in culture, what is considered legitimate or acceptable, the way to be.

Now these feminists have multiple ways to expressing their feminist stance. This includes the fire-bellowing feminists. Some of these feminists have fury because of deep-rooted helplessness or frustration, a pervading sense of gloom and despair. Then there are those who are furious because they haven’t known any other way. If as a child, the language spoken at home was Bengali, then even if you learn English later, the Bengali hovers around and emerges during moments of panic or anger. Similarly, when the dominant language they have known has been violence, they respond in violence. He rapes, I castrate; he abuses, I abuse; he says fuck you, I say fuck you and your entire brotherhood.

Compassionate feminists are very few because you see, my friends, compassionate heart is a privilege. You have to be lucky and graced to have the space to heal—to fall apart, to forgive, to let go, to accept, to take ownership, to transform. You have to be lucky to be protected during this phase by an empathetic healing community—friends/family/groups, to be coddled and nurtured and guided and mentored and supported as the creeper stretches and finds the sun. To heal is a privilege because you need a community, time and space to truly heal so you can speak in that soft tongue that others find palatable.

If your skin is often flayed and your spirit eternally blistering, if hunger gnaws your veins, and no amount of screaming brings you an embrace—you will breathe fire.

Anyday I will stand by a fire-bellowing feminist sister than the hundreds of thousands of women who participate in abusing their sisters—beating, burning, depriving, ignoring, judging, denying them of basic human rights—to life, to education, to toilets, to dignity. The thousands who judge their sisters by their skin colour or eye shape or waist size, the thousands who will not let their maids use their toilets and tell their neighbours to keep ghar ki baat ghar ke andar, who will not step up to rescue a fellow sister because it is inconvenient, who will force unhappy and dangerous marriages just to ensure tradition is not trifled with, who will gnaw the spirits of their rising sisters because it is not in consonance with what they known and practiced, women who will conspire with men to bring down sisters, who will block their rise, who will openly snub and denigrate them, who will join community booing and virtual stoning of women—all these bleddy bitches, I hope you burn in hell’s fire and if their ain’t no hell, may there be a gigantic pressure cooker where you steam to your original shrivelled self.

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