{"id":4828,"date":"2016-07-04T19:13:15","date_gmt":"2016-07-04T13:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=4828"},"modified":"2016-07-04T19:13:15","modified_gmt":"2016-07-04T13:43:15","slug":"fathers-day-first-feminist-in-my-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=4828","title":{"rendered":"My Father, the First Feminist in My Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/span>still clearly remember that lazy <\/p>Sunday<\/span><\/a> afternoon \u2014 Kishore Kumar songs were playing on our music system and the aroma of my mom\u2019s homemade chicken biryani had wafted from the kitchen and filled our entire house. As a 10-year-old, I was lurking around the kitchen to get a bite of the biryani before everyone else, when my dad walked in and sat down on the dining table. On any other Sunday, he would be seen humming songs happily or playfully helping my mom with housekeeping chores, but today he seemed low-spirited, dejected, and lost. <\/span>\n\nMy mom, who could read his mind in a matter of seconds, sat down next to him and asked him what was wrong. What followed was, I saw my dad weeping and sobbing for the next one hour. He held onto my mom as if his life depended on it and just cried. For all of you wondering what earth-shattering thing would have happened for a 45-year-old grown man to cry like that in front of his 10-year-old <\/span>daughter<\/span><\/a> and wife \u2014 he was crying because he was missing his departed father (my grandfather) a lot on that particular day.<\/span>\n\nThat was my first memory as a <\/span>child<\/span><\/a> of seeing my dad cry. From then on, I would see him cry and be vulnerable on several occasions, every time he felt heartbroken and couldn\u2019t contain it. Later in life, when I would see elaborate ads and media campaigns proclaiming \u201cMen don\u2019t cry\u201d, I would realise that through his actions and expressions, my dad had already defined masculinity for me in ways that the world needed to realise and understand. \u00a0<\/span>\n\nAs a 23-year-old, I don\u2019t just identify myself as a feminist but I am also actively involved with organisations working for women\u2019s rights and empowerment. But that\u2019s today. In the past, as a teenager, there was a time when I had no understanding of what <\/span>feminism<\/span><\/a> meant, or what the nuances of gender-based discrimination were. <\/span>\n\nAnd in those days, knowingly or unknowingly, my father was my first teacher in all things involving equality and feminism. <\/span>\n

Growing up, not once did my parents let me and my brother believe that household chores were my mother\u2019s responsibly because she was the woman of the house.<\/blockquote>\nIf my mom cooked and laid the table for us, my dad would clear it and wash the dishes. If my mom walked around in sabji mandis bargaining and buying vegetables and fruits, my dad\u2019s footsteps followed hers, carrying a bag full of everything she had bought. My father couldn\u2019t cook, but I would see him compensate for not being able to do so by doing every little household chore that he could lay his eyes on \u2014 right from filling water bottles to picking up dried clothes. Growing up, not once did my parents let me and my brother believe that household chores were my mother\u2019s responsibly because she was the woman of the house. The importance and necessity of division of <\/span>labour<\/span><\/a> at homes was a lesson I picked up early on. <\/span>\n\nWhile my parents\u2019 coequal relationship became the foundation of my understanding of feminism, the way my father treated me built up on it. Never was I denied anything because of my gender. In fact, my gender was not even considered as an eligible factor in the decisions that we took or the conversations that we had. I was taught to follow my <\/span>dreams<\/span><\/a>, speak my mind, stand up for myself, be independent and unafraid of anyone or anything. And so was my brother. Tips, advice, and suggestions on how to lead our lives were never tweaked for my brother and I based on our gender. <\/span>\n\nAfter my board exams when my mom insisted I learn cooking, because \u201cladki ko toh aana chahiye\u201d, my <\/span>father<\/span><\/a> took me to car driving lessons. When sending your 17-year-old daughter \u00a0from a small town to a big city for college was seen by his peers as a wrong and bold choice for a father, he shut them up by saying how proud he was of me. While everyone we knew advised him against a job that I wanted to take up in the so-called \u201cRape Capital\u201d of the country, he told me to be brave, to be strong, and to go live my dream. \u00a0<\/span>\n\nMy father defined the foundations of feminism for me in an age when he neither knew what it meant, nor was it much spoken about. And as someone who passionately feels about women’s freedom and \u00a0equality as an adult, I am grateful that the seeds were planted in my <\/span>childhood<\/span><\/a>. <\/span>\n\nHowever, the thing I am most grateful about is that my father led by example. \u00a0He didn\u2019t just tell me what to do \u2013 he showed me how to.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even before I became a 23-year-old self-identifying feminist, my dad had already defined masculinity for me in ways that the world needed to realise and understand, through actions like helping my mother with housework, and expressions of emotion, including tears.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":317,"featured_media":4829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[439],"tags":[954,18,447,710,22],"class_list":["post-4828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-modern-family","tag-daughter","tag-family","tag-fathers-day","tag-feminism","tag-relationships"],"yoast_head":"\nMy Father, the First Feminist in My Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Even before I became a 23-year-old self-identifying feminist, my dad had already defined masculinity for me in ways that the world needed to realise and understand, through actions 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