Feminism, freedom, and other F-words

Illustration: TBS

"Shorir kharap."

I was 11-years-old, when the phrase was first introduced to me in a manner I had not known before. Whispered by mothers, aunts, and even teachers, it quickly became the secret code word. A euphemism used to shield young girls from scandalous ears, to announce without announcing that their bodies have intersected an invisible threshold. Periods. 

"Shorir kharap," literally translating to 'The body is unwell,' marks a girl's entry to womanhood, where the society can officially begin its obsession with her body. They will admire her, and then regulate her. They will sexualise her, then shame her. Her body becomes a battleground long before she understands it. 

And yet, to say that a girl only begins to experience this lopsided reality post-puberty would be a convenient half-truth. The signs are scattered long before the blood comes. When daughters are taught to lower their hemlines, while their brothers roam the streets uninhibited. When her first undergarment is bought like contraband. When lessons in the kitchen hint that a girl's value lies in her culinary skills. These are just the opening lines of a story so old, so rehearsed, that we mistake it for truth.

Love, sacrifice, service: the virtues dangle before women like prizes, as if her worth is measured by how much of herself she gives away. She is taught that to love is to yield, to serve is to be good, to sacrifice is to be noble. But virtues so praised and glamorised become chains when demanded only from one half of humanity.

This script romanticises submission.

In The Second Sex (Le Deuxième Sexe), published nearly 76 years ago, Simone de Beauvoir argues that women, across history, have not been seen as full beings in their own right, but as "the Other." Man is the default, the subject, the standard, the point of reference, "the One". Woman is the deviation, the afterthought, the object. She is defined not by what she is, but by what she lacks.

When Aristotle declared that women were "deformed males" or when Freud theorised that femininity was defined by lack (penis envy), women were positioned as inherently lesser. De Beauvoir highlights how societies pair man/woman as symbolic opposites: reason/emotion, mind/body, subject/object, creator/creation. In all these pairings, man claims the higher, active position; woman is relegated to the lower, passive one that defines man's superiority by contrast. 

The pattern has been mirrored around the world, from ancient philosophy and psychoanalysis to Confucian obedience, religious stories, and mythologies. These symbolic pairings aren't just semantics, they are the scaffolding of a vast system that structures societies.

In other words: patriarchy. Yes, I know. The term has become irritating at this point, especially for women. The endless debate. Same eye-rolls. 

Where do women's subordination come from anyway? How did men come to hold this power for so long?

Every time I've dared question this, I'm branded with the dreaded F-word: "feminist," as if it were an illness. In conversations, arguments, and even casual jokes, the dismissal comes quickly: "asche feminist" (here she comes, the troublemaker!). Or "feminist ra shob shomoy cheleder dosh dey" (feminists always blame men for everything).

But feminism is not a grievance; it's a mirror held up to history. To learn the architecture of inequality, we must look back and examine where the imbalance first took root.

In early human societies—small, mobile communities of hunter-gatherers—evidence suggests power was shared, not concentrated. Leadership roles were often informal, rotating, and based on experience rather than dominance. 

Men and women held complementary roles. Men typically engaged in hunting while women gathered. Child-rearing was communal and decisions were made collectively. Anthropologists have observed gender fluidity in tasks, where women hunted or fished, and men assisted with gathering or childcare when needed.

Between 8,000 and 3,000 BCE, humans transitioned from nomadic life to permanent agricultural settlements. This meant private property, land ownership, and the need to track lineage and inheritance. With this came the rise of institutions of law, governance, social hierarchies that didn't just organise society, but also concentrated and legitimised power. 

In these premature civilizations, from Mesopotamia to India, from Egypt to Greece, legal systems began to formalise gender roles. Women were increasingly positioned as dependents of men: first under their fathers, then their husbands and then their sons. Laws restricted their rights to own property, inherit, or participate in public life. Their value became linked to obedience, modesty, and service. 

Why? Because early societies were built around controlling resources, property, and lineage, and by restricting women's reproductive power, men could ensure legitimate heirs, consolidate wealth, and maintain a male-dominated social order. 

Over time, repetition gave patriarchy the illusion of permanence. What was constructed began to feel ordained. That's how power survives, by nesting itself so deeply into daily life until it no longer looks like power at all. But nothing designed to serve the few escapes resistance forever. And so, came the second formidable F-word: freedom.

By the late 18th century, the whispers of discontent became voices raised in protest, words printed in books, arguments made in courtrooms and classrooms. The fight grew, for voting rights, for bodily autonomy, for access to education and employment, for a seat at the table where decisions were made. Feminist movements around the world defied the patriarchal order, demanding recognition of women as full human beings with equal rights, dignity, and freedom to shape their destinies. 

Feminism, contrary to caricature, has never been static. It has evolved, challenged itself, expanded its scope. Black feminism, Indigenous feminism, postcolonial feminism, ecofeminism,  all have insisted that liberation must account for race, class, geography, sexuality, and the land itself. The fight for women's rights is also a fight against the layered systems that exclude the most vulnerable among us.

The story of feminism, freedom and other f-words remains a living, breathing movement, reshaping itself with each new generation, because the fight is far from won.

So no, the body is not unwell. It never was. The world is. And unless we confront its distortions, unless we name them, challenge them, rewrite them, the sickness will continue to spread.

To be a woman in a world built to exalt male dominance often feels like an inherited guilt, a quiet sin. A thing to be hidden. A burden to be carried.

So forgive me, Father. For I have dared to question. For I have spoken too loudly. For I have claimed what was never meant to be mine.

Forgive me, Father, for I am a woman.

Sketch: TBS

Nuzhat Hayat Khan is a writer, researcher and science communicator. She can be reached at khannuzhathayat@gmail.com 

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.