Can you imagine the Prime Minister with his 56-inch chest sitting down to write an essay on being a feminist? Though Narendra Modi in his first Independence Day speech asked why parents don’t put restrictions on their sons rather than their daughters; has given important ministry portfolios to women; and launched the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana, it still seems improbable.
And because it is so difficult to imagine not just him but any sitting Prime Minister or President doing this, it was a departure from the ordinary when >U.S. President Barack Obama wrote a powerful, nuanced essay on feminism last week . “It is absolutely men’s responsibility to fight sexism too,” he wrote in Glamour magazine, adding that for his daughters it was “important that their dad is a feminist, because now that’s what they expect of all men.” While being thankful that the world is now a better place for women than it was for his grandmother, he warned that there is still a long way to go for women to get equal rights. “The most important change may be the toughest of all,” he wrote. “And that’s changing ourselves.”
Political discourse in India Mr. Obama’s essay puts in sharp relief the reprehensible exchange between Bharatiya Janata Party leader Dayashankar Singh and Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati and all that it says about the quality of political discourse in India. Mr. Singh drew a distasteful analogy between the BSP leader and a prostitute, which caused his expulsion from the party. The BSP was equally out of line when it abused his family. That episode is now subsiding, but making sexist remarks in India is as normal as being insulted on Twitter. Textiles Minister Smriti Irani made some disastrous decisions in the Human Resources Development portfolio, but the criticism often assumed sexist overtones, with references to her body, her shrill voice. To criticise a male politician is to mostly insult his decisions and policies; to criticise a woman politician is to insult her decisions, policies and appearance.
Yet, there is an irony. While Democrats urge U.S. citizens to vote in their first woman President, such history was created in India several decades earlier. Not only has India had a woman Prime Minister but also women Lok Sabha speakers, chief ministers, and a president. The reason for the rise of leaders like Jayalalithaa, Sonia Gandhi and Ms. Mayawati is often attributed to the men around them — M.G. Ramachandran, Rajiv Gandhi, and Kanshi Ram, respectively. But the dynasty factor and help from male family members or mentors could certainly not have seen them come this far. And nor does this explanation hold true for other women such as Mamata Banerjee, who charted her own rise.
In fact, it can also be said that their resolve to break the glass ceiling was made stronger not despite but sometimes even because of the very chauvinism that exists in Indian politics. In her book, Amma: Jayalalithaa’s Journey from Movie Star to Political Queen , Vaasanthi recalls the ugly incident in 1989 when a DMK MLA pulled the leader’s saree in the Legislative Assembly. She writes: “…Jayalalithaa left, swearing like the infuriated Panchali that she would never set foot inside the Assembly ‘until conditions are created under which a woman may attend the Assembly safely’.” Ms. Jayalalithaa was elected to power in 1991. Similarly, in 1995, Ms. Mayawati was assaulted by Samajwadi Party workers in Lucknow, an incident she reportedly called the “most humiliating experience in her life”. She has been Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh four times.
The Trump factor None of this is to suggest that Mr. Obama’s article reflects a progressive attitude towards women in the U.S. When Hillary Clinton won the presidential nomination, many newspapers ran photos of her husband instead of her. And if American progressives are already fondly remembering the Obama years, it is partly because Donald Trump is a bigot. Apart from his comments on Mexicans, Muslims, and babies, Mr. Trump has also made himself highly unpopular among women, commenting on New York Times columnist Gail Collins’s face, calling comedian Rosie O’Donnell’s body fat, and deriding journalist Megyn Kelly’s looks and intellect. Mr. Obama wrote that “gender stereotypes affect all of us, regardless of our gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation.” If he is on one end of the spectrum, attempting to break those very stereotypes, Mr. Trump is on the other, reinforcing them in every speech.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the term “personal is political” became a rallying cry for feminists. They said that personal problems of women were, in fact, political problems. Mr. Obama effectively turns this around to talk about how the unique challenges faced by Michelle Obama, in balancing her career while taking care of the children, helped his own career. “The burden disproportionately and unfairly fell on her,” he wrote, adding that this is what shaped his own feminism.
That the world’s most important man would recognise this is heartening, and it would be lovely if an Indian male politician took a leaf out of Mr. Obama’s book and wrote or told a similar story.
radhika.s@thehindu.co.in
