OCT 30 — Since when has feminism become a dirty word?

I get flummoxed daily when women, yes, women, tell me proudly they are not feminists but “equal rights supporters.”

Girlfriend, if feminism didn’t need to exist, it wouldn’t be a movement.

I often tell people that life is like a game of poker; we don’t get to choose the hand we get dealt. And if your daddy’s the dealer and he ain’t afraid of cheating there is no reason for you to go bust.

Here’s another metaphor I like to use when it comes to privilege: The problem with the mantle of privilege is that it comes with a hood, but no eyeholes.

I meet people who have grown up sheltered and well-off, who believe that all you need to get ahead in life is ‘hard work.’

Let us put that in perspective. That would only really happen in a world where everyone starts off on the same footing — all with the same economic situation, race, and surroundings.

A Caucasian male born in the United States of America to upper-middle class or wealthy parents is going to have an easier time growing up than a female child born in the slums of India without limbs and a cleft palate.

The boy would likely go to good schools, have three meals a day and have access to good healthcare.

The girl would be lucky to survive past her first year and with the stigma against girl children in India, and faces the real danger of being killed by her own parents. Able-bodied girl children are seen as financial burdens, what more one that is crippled.

And don’t get me started on India’s rape statistics. The ASSOCHAM Social Development Foundation (ASDF) study found that around 92 per cent of working women in all major cities across India feel insecure.

Other scary findings: once every 40 minutes a woman is kidnapped and raped in the country, with molestation happening once every 25 minutes.

So when someone, especially a woman, says that it is being “oversensitive” to object when someone uses the term ‘rape’ casually, obviously a sensitivity chip is missing.

Pretending gender inequality doesn’t exist won’t make it go away. And speaking up about it doesn’t make a woman a man hater, a bitch or crazy. Which is what I get half the time when I tell people I’m a feminist.

If you don’t get feminism, you don’t understand what human rights actually means.

And if you still insist on calling me a feminazi, well then, go ahead and call me Adolf.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.