'the angry feminist'

"To be a young woman is to face your own annihilation in innumerable ways, or to flee it, or the knowledge of it, or all these things at once." – Rebecca Solnit

To be a woman is to exist in a perpetual state of erasure—slow, creeping, deliberate. An erasure so intricate, so subtle, that often you don’t even realise it’s happening, don't realise how finely it has been woven into the tapestry of your fate, until it is too late. The annihilation starts early—before you're fully formed, before you even understand the world you were born into. It’s thread into the expectations thrust upon you: the ubiquitous demands for sweetness, for smallness, for compliance. It’s in the gaze that lingers too long, in the unspoken assumptions that follow you everywhere. You are constantly being watched, criticised, restricted.

From the moment she is born, a girl is never truly alone. Even in her quietest moments, even in the privacy of her own mind, there’s a voyeur - a watcher peering through the keyhole of her own mind. His gaze is relentless, constant, unavoidable. His expectations are heavy, caging, excruciating. He is ever-present.

In Bihar, a five-year-old girl is handed a Barbie doll, its soft silk dress glimmering with predetermined expectations. Her small hands wrap around the plastic figure, and in that moment, her place in the world is carved out for her. This is her role in society, etched in plastic and public expectation.  This is the first act of her inevitable erosion.

At ten, in Gujarat, another girl watches with the bitter taste of inequality coating her tongue, as she serves water to the men while her brother sits comfortably, untouched by the duties expected of her. The boy does not have to serve. He never will. Because his worth is in his existence, while hers is tied to her service. She is being taught, subtly and steadily, that her worth is conditional. The erosion is setting in more firmly now.

As years pass, discrimination's grip tightens. On a basketball court, a girl with more skill than her male counterparts is overlooked, left to stand on the sidelines.  The blatant and unapologetic dismissal cuts deeper than simply the irritation of missing out - it highlights, once more, the rejection of her worth and capability through no fault of her own. The erosion is almost complete.

However, this does not warrant the angry feminist’s rage. The world will tell her that her anger is unjustified. It will insist that her bitterness is unnecessary, that she is overreacting, that she is difficult, dramatic, hysterical. Her frustration will be dismissed, her fury silenced, and her voice drowned out by louder, more comfortable narratives. The angry feminist must not be angry.

And so, she swallows it down. She pushes it deep inside, where it festers and grows, waiting for a moment—any moment—to escape. Because the world does not give women the space to express their anger, let alone their pain. Anger in women is too dangerous, too unpredictable, too uncontrollable. Too alien. And so, it is oppressed. It is silenced.

But that is the ultimate violence of it all: the quiet expectation that women must conform, that they must suffer through their erosion with grace, with silence, with a smile. To rage against it is to defy the very framework that governs men and women's coexistence. And so, the little girl is not allowed to ask for a toy car instead of a Barbie doll. The sister is not allowed to hand her brother the tray. The rape victim is not allowed to hold her rapist accountable. The angry feminist is not allowed to be angry. 

But she can be.

I have had the privilege of being raised in a household where my voice is not tied to my gender, and where my existence is not conditional to my fulfilment of societal expectations. But even in this sheltered haven of progressive values, the world outside still claws at me with its relentless demands. At the end of the day, I am still a woman in a world that refuses to see me as fully human. No matter how loudly my household rejects those norms, I am not immune to the suffocating grip of those who uphold them—the ones who, without ever knowing me, have already decided my worth because of my gender. My existence, my freedom, my anger are still constrained by \ narrow minds that cling to tradition like a weapon. I am still expected to shrink, to soften my edges, to be palatable for a society that cannot handle the concept of equality, that cannot handle the perception of strength in a woman. I am still expected to look twice around me before crossing the street at night. I am still expected to wear long clothes when sitting in a taxi alone.

The angry feminist burns in the shadows of this world. She rages because she has seen the truth. She is angry because she knows that her very existence is an act of rebellion. She is loud, she has to be, because the world has told her she must disappear, and yet here she stands—fighting to protect herself from the fate of erosion. From the fate of intellectual annihilation. From the violent, prowling, brutal gaze of those who are able but unwilling to understand her emotions. 

 To all the women reading this post, I have one last piece of advice to give you. You do not need to water yourself down to become more palatable for the ruthless society we live in today. They can choke. For far too long, softness has been mistaken for weakness, kindness has been exploited, and vulnerability has been taken advantage of. And it's time we make a difference. Human beings are beautiful, terrible, dangerous creatures - utterly dynamic in nature and capable of wonderful things such as love as well as perilous, repulsive things such as fury. Before we are men, women or anything else, we are human. The secret to embracing your existence is to delve into the core of your humanity. You may be messy, hungry, furious, wild, rumpled, decadent, twisted - but you are your true, authentic self and therefore you are irreplaceable, no matter what society may force you to believe.  

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." – Albert Camus

Maybe in another world, our opinions do not have to be loud in order for them to be valid.

Love always, 

Sneha

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