On "Being a Feminist" (Sorry if this reads like a rant)

The other day (well not really the other day, but for the sake of the essay I’ll say the other day) a friend of mine asked me if, and if yes why, I consider myself a feminist. I was so caught off guard that I said the first thing that came to mind: “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people”, a phrase pilfered from some bumper sticker somewhere.

I was caught off guard because, in my mind, everyone in the world is, or should be, a feminist. Not all feminists are masculine women who don’t shave their legs, just as not all feminists are feminine women who sleep around. Feminism, in its purist form, is the radical notion that women are people. At the roots of feminism, all we want is for women to receive equal treatment under the law, equal pay for equal work, equal access to medical care, equal respect. “Feminism” didn’t originate as a dirty word, and it’s a shame that it’s been denigrated to this status, in much the same way that “vagina” didn’t originate as a dirty word, although it is apparently considered one in the state of Michigan.

Recently, I’ve noticed a lot of controversy suggesting that giving rights to a disadvantaged group takes away from the rights of the group with the advantage, such as the right of a woman to choose whether or not to bring a pregnancy to term, the right of a couple of the same sex to become married, the right of an unmarried girl or woman to procure birth control, as well as many, many more. To me though, as well as to what appears to be many others, this is completely counter-intuitive. How exactly does my right to live my own life in the manner which I choose – or of anyone else to live their own life in the manner which they choose – in any way affect your right to live your life in the manner which you choose? Rights are rights because they’re natural, they shouldn’t need to be decided upon by the government.

How to Make Curry

Start off by reminiscing for a life you’ve never lived, remember what it was like to be a small brown child sitting at the feet of your newly immigrated mother in the sweltering kitchen of a tiny apartment in Manhattan, smelling the pungent garlic and cumin permeating the air. Be transported back to this world as you begin to chop garlic and find the jar of curry powder and plastic bottle of cumin in your cupboard. Fill a pan with canola oil (since, at age 19, you’re too broke or cheap to be able to afford olive oil) and toss the freshly chopped garlic into the pan. Realize that you can’t find a clean wooden spoon and begin to toss the pan in a gyrating motion to stir the garlic as you simultaneously scan the kitchen for a spoon or spatula. Find a spatula. Shake the plastic cumin container over the garlic until it is covered to your satisfaction, and listen to the dried cumin sizzling in the pan, the garlic close to burning. Fill a spoon (or two) with curry powder, and add that to the garlic, watching the concoction turn from brown to yellow, from the turmeric which must be a component of the jarred powder.

Remember again the life you didn’t live, remember your mother in her thick Mumbai accent, explaining that while the turmeric doesn’t do too much for the flavor, it certainly adds the character of color to your curry. Remember being a small brown child, licking your finger and sticking it into the turmeric when her back was turned, watching your brown skin turn to yellow before sucking the strange-tasting spice off of your finger. Remember your mother catching you, and instead of reprimanding you, sticking a spoon into the garlic and spices in the pan and handing it to you to taste, telling you that the sum was much tastier than any of the individual parts, that that was what made this a curry, and that was what made you a person, and your family a family, and America America and so on.

Realize that in your distraction of getting caught up in false memories you forgot to cut up the tomatoes you plan to use or open the can of chick peas which is to be the major component of your dish. Turn the heat off and forget to move the pan, hope that the heat which remains won’t burn the garlic. Begin to cut up the tomatoes, remember the life you truly lived, when you grew tomatoes and egg plants and potatoes in the small garden behind your giant house. Remember being barefoot and pudgy and small and happy, pressing the dirt down between your toes and screaming when you stepped on and broke a snail, because you could feel the crunch of the shell as it broke. Remember sitting in the kitchen at the feet of your real mother, an older ex-hippie with graying hair past her shoulders as she explained to you how to season and how to mix spices to create a whole new thing out of smaller things. Remember her explaining this to you as a beautiful metaphor on life. Subconsciously wash the top of the can of chick peas before opening it, remembering your mother’s warning from another time about the rats that live in factories and dirty the tops of cans.

Pour the tomatoes and chick peas into the pan, watch the oil slowly turn to liquid as the fresh tomatoes cook down, wonder why anyone ever eats stewed tomatoes, this is just so beautiful and real. Taste a bit of the liquid, remember being the brown child, the white child, the everything anything whatever you want child, tasting the beginnings of a dish you were learning how to make for the first time, the second time, any time. Realize that every time you make any dish it’s still the first time you’ve made it. Add more curry powder, wish that you had cayenne, this will be bland.

Remember even though you don’t being a baby, a fetus even, imbibing the incredibly spicy foods your mother ate. Remember your strength and ability to consume garlic and spice and even ghost chilis, inherited from your mother. Hope that you also inherited her strength and ability to consume heartbreak and pain and to come out even more beautiful and creative and inspiring and inspired. Hope that the tiny brown child you never were and will never meet has the same strength. Hope that every tiny child can learn this from their mother, their father, whoever. Hope that you’ll develop this strength soon, worry that you won’t, pray that you have it already without realizing.