The young women of today have the best of both worlds. Did the old feminists, in their struggle to compete with men, become men themselves — tough, hard, aggressive, domineering and uncompromising?
I AM a feminist of the 1960s. I had never labelled myself that way. But a remark by a young colleague has set me thinking. “She is a feminist of the ‘60s” she had said, referring to a well-known figure of my generation. “Her thoughts and ideas are typical of the women of that period”.
“So how has feminism changed since that time,” I inquired. “A lot,” I was told. “Now women are taught to think of themselves primarily as women.” As different, not merely as replicas of men. “All this nonsense about Men being from Mars and Women from Venus,” I muttered.
But the exchange has left me thinking. I go back to the era of the ‘60s. A wonderful time. Ideas, events, personalities, philosophies ... everything in profusion. Everything larger than life. Every person has an ideology and every person is an activist. The world is not only bipolar, but multipolar. Pro-Russia; Pro-China; Socialist; Communist; Bourgeois; Capitalist roader; Revisionist. So many names, so many labels. Endless debates, endless discussions.
So much to talk about; Vietnam, Students Movements, Peace, Love, Flower power. A time when being called Pro-America was almost like a term of abuse.
And in that highly charged atmosphere, a bunch of young women and girls determined to excel, to prove their worth; to prove that they were no less than men; that anything men could do, they could do it better.
It was a time of ‘firsts’ for women. The first federal secretary, the first qualified engineer, the first bank manager, the first architect. And in this plethora of firsts — myself, the first girl to do her MA in Journalism. With a first position and a gold medal to boot. The Press went crazy. My picture and interview was splashed in every newspaper and magazine.
“I am not a girl, I am a reporter,” became my catch phrase, as I struggled against the odds, against ridicule, hostility, harassment, meeting deadlines, working at odd hours and never giving up.
In fact, that was the spirit of us feminists of the 1960s. Work like men; be like men; forget that you are women. Don’t ask for, or expect, any special favours or privileges because of your gender.
If men could work till 2am, so could we. If men did not ask for transport to drop them home after work, neither did we. If men could use rickshaws and taxis to go for their assignments, so could we. And, of course, no time off because a husband or child is sick or guests are expected for dinner. It just wasn’t done.
Indeed, for us having to prove ourselves in an environment which by its very nature was inimical to working women, meant working twice as hard as the men. We had to excel; we had to do better; which meant putting in at least 150 per cent, if not 200 per cent worth of effort. For, the smallest lapse, the most trivial mistake was enough to generate knowing smirks, ‘I told you sos’ and homilies on how women were not meant to be in the workplace, but in the home.
This quest for excellence, need for perfection was not only limited to the workplace, but also extended to the home. Our mothers, though staying at home, always had an army of servants at their disposal. Excellent cooks, bearers, drivers, ayahs, they had all of them. But by the time we became house-holders, the able bodied men in our country had realized that there were greener pastures to be had in the Middle East, and most of them had migrated en masse. So we, we the Superwomen of the 60s, also had to prove our worth on this front.
Learning how to cook well became an obsession. Most of us trained ourselves to became excellent cooks, elated at receiving lavish praise from family and friends for our gourmet dishes when most of the time what we wanted was just to curl up into bed with a book after a hard day at work.
And, of course, we also had to became Super-mothers. Our whole generation had been brought up on Glaxo and Oster milk. But now doctors suddenly woke up to the realization that breastmilk was best for the baby. So, in spite of working full time, most of us hastened to follow the doctors’ advice. And those of us who did not, still carry a nagging sense of guilt at having failed our children.
Our mothers had never felt any qualms about leaving us with the ayahs while they went shopping or socializing. But that was not for us. We had to do the best for our children and that meant giving them “quality time”. We believed that like us, our children had to excel, and if a child did not do well in school this showed neglect on the part of the mother. We wanted to turn out Super-kids and as soon as a baby was born, we set to work on him/her. Babycare books flooded the market, and Dr Spock was a staple.
We tried everything to make our babies into little geniuses, right from educational toys to picture books and from nursery rhymes to classical music cassettes.
This was also the time when women took to driving with a vengeance — a necessity born out of the lack of drivers and the need to be independent. Driving gave us a sense of power, of freedom. But very soon many of us realized that knowing how to drive meant our time had to be devoted to chauffeuring the kids to and from school and their other activities; being responsible for all the household shopping; paying of the utility bills at the banks and doing all the other odd jobs which might crop up at odd times.
The feminists of the ‘60s did not want to ask men to do anything for them. So minor household repairs, learning how to mend a fuse and dealing with motor mechanics, carpenters, plumbers and other workmen became a routine for us.
We prided ourselves on not being womanly or being interested in women’s matters. Not for us was the talk about the latest clothes or jewellery. We prided ourselves on our minds, and our conversation revolved round philosophy, literature, politics and current affairs.
Needless to say, we did not like the company of the women — the Begums or the ‘wifey poos’ as the typical women were called; but preferred to sit with men and talk of higher things than which new fabric had come into the market, or how the tailor had simply ruined a party dress, or the absolutely divine earnings that someone had seen in the jewellers shops.
Clothes and jewellery in fact did not enter into our scheme of things. Die-hard feminists like me had found their ideals in the Russian and Chinese women who dressed in dull pant suits, flat shoes, no make up; drove heavy trucks and worked in factories and at construction sites. These, for us, were the women to emulate; the Western women were only dressed-up sex objects.
I remember when I was a journalism student, I did my internship at Radio Pakistan. On my first day there, I saw a woman — a very striking looking woman, dressed in white ‘latha’ shalwar, shirt of a coarse cotton known as ‘chheet’, large white ‘Mulmul’ dopatta, canvas shoes, face devoid of makeup, no jewellery or ornaments and hair pulled back in a tight bun. I was fascinated, even more so when I found out that she was Anita Ghulam Ali, a leading newscaster, college lecturer and daughter of a judge. Needless to say, she became my ideal and has remained so to this day. As she has been the ideal of most women of my generation not only for her austere appearance, but for her boldness, toughness and forthright attitude.
So coming back to the present, is it true that we have imbibed ‘patriarchal attitudes’ as the young women of today think? Did we in our struggle to compete with men became men ourselves — tough, hard, aggressive, domineering, uncompromising?
I know the women of today have the best of both worlds. They have come to terms with their femininity. Now it doesn’t surprise me when women claim that they should have flexible working hours because they have duties at home; or that they should not be expected to work at late hours because they are women; or that they should be provided transport because they face harassment on the streets.
“It is not the hours you devote to work that is important; it is the work you do,” is the common refrain of today’s young woman. The woman of today also claims it is her right to look good. Designer clothes, expensive shoes and bags, diamonds, cosmetics, facials, skin care, hair care, beauty salons, health clubs — these are all a part of the modern feminist’s lexicon. She doesn’t feel these things detracting; in fact they add to her image of smartness and efficiency.
In other fields also, the woman of today doesn’t feel the need to be a Superwoman. Calling for a pizza, getting a take-away or simply going out to eat when she doesn’t feel like cooking is no big deal. Just as bundling off the baby to day-care or pre-school, and later to tuition centres is an accepted practice. “I need time for myself,” she claims as she goes off for Yoga or art classes in the evening. And she is quite willing to let her husband handle the tough jobs. “It is man’s work,” she tells herself comfortably when she feels something is beyond her.
Above all, the women of this age are proud to be women; to live like women, to act like women, to look like women and to talk like women.
Is this the essence of feminism, or is it a retraction of sorts? I wonder was our attitude all wrong? But then it comes to me. No, we were not wrong. In fact, it was we, our struggle, our efforts which has given the woman of today the confidence to be what she is. We were the pioneers, the trail-blazers who made it all possible for her. Without us, there would have been no women lib.
The young women of today have the best of both worlds. Did the old feminists, in their struggle to compete with men, become men themselves — tough, hard, aggressive, domineering and uncompromising? 
