» Editor’s note: be a feminist is a biweekly column featuring personal narratives documenting the emotions, vulnerabilities, and innermost contradictions each feminist encounters as she attempts to enforce varying degrees of patriarchy in private, professional, and public spaces. You can email your entries to ananya@feminisminindia.com
An everyday act, the willingness to take responsibility for myself without blame or excuses, is something that doesn’t come entirely naturally. It came partly from years of anger and partly from the act of recognizing myself. For me, being feminist in everyday life means being in harmony with myself without seeking the approval of others. Being in tune with myself largely refers to having integrity with myself and what I know. Integrity in this sense does not mean moral superiority.
Instead, it implies an internal alignment, a kind of coherence of thoughts and feelings that arises not naturally but through repetition. It extends to many small and private actions, such as choosing not to laugh when something belittles me, it is acceptance Wish without judgment. It is primarily a refusal to limit my ability to feel in a culture that praises women for their emotional numbness.
Source: FII
The agreement I seek allows me to maintain my perception, especially in times when trade would promote the well-being of others. It requires a kind of moral persistence that doesn’t care about reputation. Because the reputation is the narrative of others and the approval of myself concerns my own image of myself. This state therefore does not allow me to reinterpret situations that diminish me, but has become the authority that drives me. In a broader sense, living in harmony with myself as a feminist also means accepting that not everyone takes it the way it is intended.
On self-respect As a feminist
Sometimes, however, when I find myself in situations where I have allowed myself to be belittled, lessons about self-esteem resurface. Someone once told me, “If you have any self-respect, you won’t do this.” But for me, self-respect in this sense is not a loud display of restraint because someone told me so. It is indeed about knowing and taking responsibility for what I want to do.
Much of my understanding of self-esteem comes from Joan Didion’s groundbreaking essay “On Self-Esteem,” and invariably it is less about imagination and more about the consistency of my own self-knowledge. My strongest expression of self-respect is internal and calm. It is the feminist choice to remember what it is like to be in a situation and to persevere, not to betray myself, and if I do, to admit it. With willingness comes authority, an inner authority that does not give in to the discomfort of others.
I’ve always just tried to keep notebooks or something like that diary where I might have succeeded in writing down some events, thoughts, sometimes an overheard sentence and observations in fragments and disorder.
Another important exercise that tests this innate self-authority that comes from self-respect is notebook keeping. I’ve always just tried to keep notebooks or something like that diary where I might have succeeded in writing down some events, thoughts, sometimes an overheard sentence and observations in fragments and disorder. Since I don’t know exactly how or why, I tried to keep them. In between there are time intervals that sometimes extend over years.
Source: YouTube
However, in all these attempts, it is only recently that I have realized that the self that I was and that I am now is contained. What started as a silly practice in my childhood later took on a larger form, namely trapping and most importantly: “Remember what it was to be me.’ However, this act of remembering is not sentimental. It is feminist resistance against erasure, blurring of memory and revision of the past. They show fragmentation and incoherence. They show the path we have taken to become who we are now and disprove our idea that we have always been who we are in our weakest moments.
Keeping notebooks is a way to practice being consistent with yourself
Added to this is the inevitable discomfort of being confronted with old entries and the self I was in those entries. There is a risk in maintaining these accounts that, over time, contradictions about the self arise. The past self seems to be exposed and unguarded, and it will be important to remember it as such, even if it is sometimes but always embarrassing. The point is to remember who we were at all times. To remember what it is like.
However, this exercise as an everyday feminist practice requires a kind of discipline that resists reworking the same stories that we might tell ourselves differently. Where we present ourselves as kinder, clearer and less hurt. Freeing the self from such annihilation is the most important point of being in harmony with myself. Although this erasure may be subtle, it is due to reinterpretation. Notebooks don’t allow that.
Freeing the self from such annihilation is the most important point of being in harmony with myself. Although this erasure may be subtle, it is due to reinterpretation. Notebooks don’t allow that.
While the notebooks can sometimes serve as a medium, living in harmony with myself requires me to listen to the internal conversation. It also requires me to participate and ask questions when necessary. What did I just feel? Why did I want to change my feelings? Why did I want to justify my feelings?
Source: FII
This not only applies to reserved feelings, but also to other subjective feelings that our appearance could evoke in us in everyday life. Often the answers are not flattering. Therefore, my most feminist actions are calm, steady, and repeated day after day. It requires one Introspection of the self. It requires the abolition of indifference, both to the inner dialogue and to the external images.
Shreenithi Annadurai is an India-based lawyer. Her areas of interest include art as political expression and issues of representation and resistance, drawing on rights-based perspectives and feminist media practices.