ASSIGNMENT

ENGLISH

HIMACHAL PRADESH NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

SUBMITTED BY: SUBMITTED TO:

AYUSH THAKUR DR. RUCHI JAIN
1020202137 ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

2st SEMESTER
BA LLB
 Acknowledgements

I wish to take this opportunity to offer my sincere gratitude to my

academic supervisor, Dr Ruchi Jain, Assistant Professor (English),
Himachal Pradesh National Law University, Shimla. Without her kind
direction and proper guidance, this study would have never come to
fruition.

I am also greatly indebted to Himachal Pradesh National Law

University’s e-library resources for providing me with the necessary
online subscriptions in order to conduct this research which helped
me in making this assignment, especially in these trying times when
the physical resources of the library are inaccessible.

Last but not the least; I would want to thank everyone who guided me
throughout the process of making this study a successful venture.
 Index

1) Feminism

2) Do you believe that only certain groups of people should be

allowed to have a access to a certain opportunities and rights? if no
then why do we see this discrimination being practiced and why
should anybody decide that?

3) Are Indian men becoming victims of a wave of pseudo feminism?

What are some of the worst cases of pseudo feminism? How are
pseudo feminists destroying feminism?

4) Does the culture you grow up and have different expectations for
boys and girl? At what age do distinctions between the genders start?
Do you believe these expectations arise out of biological difference or
socialization?

5) Conclusion
 FEMINISM

Feminism, one of the most influential ideologies, seeks to analyze the

social position of women and lays the foundations for the reform and
advancement of women in all areas of society.
This struggle for power, like class and race struggles, is potentially
revolutionary. In fact, it is the oldest power struggle, the least public
in its manifestations of conflict, and the most fundamental in its
impact on society. In the Middle Ages or even ancient times, it makes
more sense to start our studies at the end of the 18th century and the
French Revolution. The Enlightenment and Revolution influenced
women in France and other parts of Europe with the prospect of
freedom and revolution. Mary Wollstonecraft is a leading early
"feminist" writer and in her book “An Indication of the Rights of
Woman (1792)”she says that women should have the same legal
rights as men on the basis of equality of humanity, moral worth,
rationality and freedom; It was wrong that women were defined by
gender as denying their educational, legal, economic and political
rights. She declared that there will be a beneficial revolution in the
relationship between men and women.
As sensitive as these views appear today, they challenged the male-
dominated power structures that ruled all levels of society in the 19th
century. With men being liberated, women hoped their interests could
be promoted through voting and parliament.
Three "waves" of feminism can be seen: the first between 1830 and
1930, focused mainly on legal and political rights; The second, in the
1960s and 1970s, focused on much more basic personal and
relationship issues. The third over the past decade has also been
essentially a reflection and re-evaluation of what has been
accomplished.
Q1) Do you believe that only certain groups of people should be
allowed to have an access to certain opportunities and rights? if
no then why do we see this discrimination being practiced and
why should anybody decide that?

Before answering the question, let's deeply understand what equality

of opportunity means.
Peter Westen, a renowned philosopher shows that an opportunity is a
ternary relationship between a person, some obstacles, and the desired
goal; however, a person only has an opportunity if he has a
probability to achieve that goal. When you encounter insurmountable
obstacles, you will have no chance. This makes it impossible to
achieve a goal. For instance, one cannot have an opportunity to
become the president of India if he is not a natural-born citizen. Many
people, therefore, have no opportunity to become president of India.
A person can have an opportunity even in the face of many, quite
critical and severe, obstacles. So, a natural-born Indian citizen has the
opportunity to become president, but he faces serious obstacles, such
as accumulating the relevant number and distribution of votes, social
obstructions, and gender obstructions.
For the opportunities to be equivalent within a group, each member of
that group must confront obstacles that are not insurmountable. In our
example, all Indian-born citizens have equal opportunities, when
alterable obstacles such as race, gender, and religion are removed and
when main barriers remain, such as getting democratically elected.
One exception to alterable obstacles is that of biology. One can put a
limit on sociological factors like racism, sexism, and casteism but not
on the biological ones. Biology is the reason why men are preferred
over women to form an army. The same reason goes for women as
nurses are mostly women. You still can give equal opportunity to
women to apply in the army but you can’t guarantee the equal
outcome as a woman biologically has less stamina, power, and
aggression than a man which are imperative to be a part of an army.
Now coming back to the question. No, I do not believe that only
certain groups of people should be allowed to have an access to
certain opportunities and rights. The real evaluation should be on the
main obstacle. We should ultimately try to contain the alterable
obstacles like racism, sexism, casteism etcetera. If we are able to
minimize these obstacles, it will bring us quite close to achieve
equality for opportunity.
The reason why discrimination is being practiced is because the
alterable obstacles aren’t getting minimized as the sociological impact
of flawed mentality taken from the society and the liberal provisions
in the country are letting the young minds get corrupted.
They are taught from starting that, girls are only for household
purposes and girls aren’t capable work outside the house.
They are also told that one cast is higher than another or one race is
greater than another or one religion is purer than another. This impact
does make the upcoming generation susceptible to becoming sexist
and racist.

Q2) Are Indian men becoming victims of a wave of pseudo

feminism? What are some of the worst cases of pseudo feminism?
How are pseudo feminists destroying feminism?

Feminism as an idea grows and it should grow, but what it also does
is impart ignorance and superiority to some women who do not
understand the true meaning of feminism. It's about equality, not the
privilege of women.

 US Women’s football case

U.S. women’s national football team have recently been in news for
asking a federal appeals court to overturn a lower court decision
throwing out their lawsuit seeking equal pay to the men's team. They
first filed the case in lower court seeking equal pay for the women’s
football team. On the surface of it, this sounds like a plausible appeal
but if dig a little bit deeper into the situation, the appeal loses its
value. The revenue women’s football creates is much less than the
revenue men’s football creates. Thus economically, giving equal
wages to women’s football team isn’t feasible. Pseudo-feminists have
been highlighting this case without knowing the actual situation.

 Jasleen Kaur case

On August 23, 2015, Kaur, a former student at St. Stephen's College,
posted a picture of a man and alleged that he passed obscene
comments at her during an argument on road. After the post went
viral, Sarvjeet Singh, the alleged person was arrested from a local
police station under sections 354A (Sexual harassment), 506
(Punishment for criminal intimidation), and 509 (Word, gesture or act
intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code.
Singh said that he wasn't breaking any of the traffic rules as he was
intending to take a left-turn which is a free turn even on a red signal.
He explained this to Singh which was construed rude by her. Kaur
took pictures and posted it on social media providing a false summary
of events.
Reactions in support of the Kaur, lauding her supposed bravery, and
expressive of disgust and contempt for Singh came thick and fast,
beginning the same day
The next day, on August 24th, the then Delhi Chief Minister Arvind
Kejriwal tweeted lauding her supposed bravery asking all the girls of
Delhi to speak up against such unacceptable acts. The Deputy
Commissioner of Police (West) said that she will be given 5000
rupees for her supposed bravery. Actress Sonakshi Sinha also came in
support of Kaur, however later tweeted apologizing to Singh for the
presumption of guilt.
After this incident, Singh has stated he had lost his job short after the
incident took place because of the media coverage and couldn't find
any other stable source of income.
The above case points to the fact that pseudo feminists exist in our
society as normal persons. One doesn’t necessarily needs to be a
feminist to be called as a “Pseudo Feminists”. It stems from the fact
that the whole country presumed Sarvjeet to be the guilty of the crime
because he was a man and a man is guilty until proven innocent
according to certain people.
Pseudo feminists are not destroying feminism they are tarnishing the
core objective of this movement. Feminism is all about empowering
women from within and giving them equal rights. Pseudo feminists
are bringing feminism in a negative light. And worse, they attempt to
plummet males into nothing. They do not preach equality, they preach
superiority.
From what I feel, feminism is not about playing a blame game and
victimizing any gender. It, in no way talks of men being less or
women being more. It simply talks about both being equal in all
terms. It talks about giving equal rights and status to females. It talks
about giving them an equal opportunity and platform to showcase
their potential.

Q3) Does the culture you grow up and have different expectations
for boys and girls? At what age do distinctions between the
genders start? Do you believe these expectations arise out of
biological difference or socialization?

Children learn early on that there are different expectations of boys

and girls. Cross-cultural studies show that children get aware of
gender roles by the age of two or three. By four or five years of age,
most children are firmly embedded in the culturally appropriate
gender roles. Children acquire these roles through socialization, a
process in which people learn to behave in certain ways dictated by
society's values, beliefs, and attitudes. For example, society often
views motorcycling as a male activity and therefore sees it as a part of
the male gender role. Attitudes like this are usually based on
stereotypes, oversimplified ideas about group members. Gender
stereotypes involve an over-generalization of the attitudes,
characteristics, or behavior patterns of women or men. For example,
women may be thought of as too timid or weak to ride a motorcycle.
Gender stereotypes form the basis of sexism; Sexism refers to biased
beliefs that place one gender over another; varies in severity; In parts
of the world where women are severely undervalued, girls may not
have equal access to food. They will also grow up believing that they
deserve to be treated differently from boys. While it is illegal as
discrimination in the United States, inequality of women continues to
permeate social life. It should be noted that gender discrimination
occurs at both micro and macro levels. Many sociologists focus on the
discrimination that is built into the social fabric. This type of
discrimination is known as institutional discrimination. Gender
socialization occurs through four main agents in socialization: family,
education, peers, and media. Each agent reinforces gender roles by
creating and maintaining normative expectations for gender-specific
behavior. Exposure also comes from secondary agents such as
religion and the workplace. Repeated exposure to these agents over
time leads men and women to mislead them into thinking that they are
acting naturally rather than following a socially constructed role.
Family is the first agent of socialization. There is considerable
evidence that parents socialize sons and daughters differently.
Generally speaking, girls are given more latitude to step outside of
their prescribed gender role. However, differential socialization
typically results in greater privileges afforded to sons. For instance,
boys are allowed more autonomy and independence at an earlier age
than daughters. They may be given fewer restrictions on appropriate
clothing, dating habits, or curfew. Sons are also often free from
performing domestic duties such as cleaning or cooking and other
household tasks that are considered feminine. Daughters are limited
by their expectation to be passive and nurturing, generally obedient,
and to assume many of the domestic responsibilities.
The strengthening of gender roles and stereotypes will continue till
the child has reached school age. Until recently, schools made an
explicit effort to stratify boys and girls. The first step in stratification
was segregation. The girls were encouraged to take courses in home
economics or the humanities. Studies suggest that gender socialization
in schools is still happening today, possibly in a less overt way.
Teachers may not even realize that they are acting to reproduce
separated gender behavioral patterns. Ask students to arrange their
seats or to align by gender, teachers may indicate that boys and girls
should be treated differently.
Imitating the actions of other important people is the first step in
developing separate sense of self. Like adults, children become agents
who actively promote normative gender expectations and apply them
to their surroundings. When children do not conform to the
appropriate gender role, they may face negative sanctions such as
being criticized or marginalized by their peers. Though many of these
sanctions are informal, they can be quite severe. For example, a girl
who wishes to take karate lessons instead of dance lessons may be
referred to as a "tomboy" and has difficulty gaining acceptance from
male and female peer groups. Children in particular are severely
ridiculed because of gender mismatches.
Mass media serves as another significant agent of gender
socialization. In television and films, women tend to play a less
important role and are often portrayed as wives or mothers. When
women are given a lead role, it often falls at one of the two extremes:
a healthy and holy figure or a malicious hypersexual figure. The same
inequality is widespread in children's films.

Conclusion
Feminism is a philosophy embraced by all logical and educated
people around the world, but it is not a fair playing field when women
in the garb of feminism target men and engage in the assassination of
character. A pseudo-feminist desire is to create a world regime by
only women who want to be treated equally as a feminist and want
respect like any other human being. Many of the pseudo-feminists say
men can’t be feminist but you know who is a feminist, a man, or a
woman or a trans who believes in women’s equality. A Feminist is a
father who treats his daughter and son fairly. A feminist is a husband
who respects his wife to make her choices without imposing his
choices/opinions on her. A transgendered woman who like any other
human being wants equal treatment and respect is a feminist in a way.