Hi everyone, a self-righteous young woman and would like to tell you all why I don’t need feminism. First off, Mother’s Day! I am very excited at the prospect of being a mother, because what else am I good for if not producing children? The fact that men and women are biologically different obviously means that each must conform to the role science has given them: because of their uterus, women must be mothers. Men can be whatever they like because somehow testicles do not a father make. Only maketh a man! And being a man is a full-time job, for which we need to warp society into patriarchies to support the Great Cause of Man so that all systems are designed to facilitate men and their needs. Women are only cogs in that great machine. Because biology.

I also don’t need any weird stubborn women telling me that feminism is about equality for all. That is just stupid. Of course it’s okay for men to be paid more than women for all jobs, they are men and obviously they know more and work harder than women. It’s like Juhi Chawla said, “What’s the big deal? “It’s not like your time, intelligence, talent and commitment is important. And if Juhi Chawla said so then it must be true, because look how pretty she is and how her big brown eyes sparkle with sincerity and mischief. Pretty girls are always right. That’s why you should never be an ugly girl, because then men won’t like you and if a man doesn’t like you then you’re in big trouble. Because while feminists are all fat and hairy, I am just lovely. I make sure I am lovely. I spend tens of hours and thousands of rupees on it. On the Fair and Lovely shade card, designed to reduce women to tears as they become the human equivalent of a paint catalogue, I am on the Milk-and-Honey side. All the feminists are on the Dark-as-Sin side because feminists are women who are so grumpy and bitter because no men ever liked them. So they talk about being independent, about making your own money and the importance of education because you know. They have no sahaara except themselves, poor things. Imagine having money you earned by yourself, the kind that gives you the freedom to get on a plane whenever you want, to buy things you like, to help look after your family. Ugh. One should be a real woman and always have a hand spread out before a man, like a pretty beggar.

That’s why feminism is so useless. Look at that sixteen year old in Doonga Gali who got burned alive by a jirga only because she apparently helped a friend run away with her boyfriend. Everyone is in such a tizzy, writing about how fourteen men tied her hands together and attached them to the steering wheel of the van the couple used to escape and then set the van on fire. Some people say the girl was alive, some people say she was drugged and some say she was strangulated before the van was torched. Such a big fuss, and nobody talks about the boys who get honour killed too. What about the boys, huh? All the jirgas of women who condemn boys to die, and then murder teenagers with a grim, righteous exactitude? Does nobody think of the boys who get shot in the head because they wanted to go to school, all the boys who get married to women twice their age and raped every day, all the boys who are responsible for upholding the honour of their families? Why! It’s so unfair. Look at all the hard work we meninists put into, defending the rights of these boys. Look at the protests we have, the vigils, the endless lobbying to change the law, the articles we write. Meninists are also really prominent in their crusade to defend men.

So you see that’s why I don’t need feminism. I don’t need to think about why I went to school without thinking twice about it, in a car I am allowed to drive both by the state and my parents. I don’t need feminism because I can vote. I can be a doctor. I can walk across the grass at Oxford University if I want to, because back in the day women weren’t even allowed inside the place but you know, that has nothing to do with me. I don’t need feminism, because I don’t think rape is a crime, that I should have the right to decide how many children I want and when. I don’t want equal wages, or to be protected from sexual harassment at my workplace. I don’t want to think about the women servants I have in my house, and whether their husbands are alive or addicts or abusive, and how hard they are working to put food in their children’s mouths. I don’t need feminism because it’s okay with me if women are burned for not having a big enough dowry, that saying no to a stalker can well result in an acid attack or my photos and address being shared online. I just don’t need feminism, because I am a comfortably-off woman who will always be under the thumb of a man, and convince myself that this is what I deserve. If I am left by said husband I’ll go crawling back to my father. It’s fine. It will be fine for my daughter too, and that’s what my son will internalise as he grows up: how his mother was never a real person, just a puppet. Pinocchio was really underrated, he didn’t need feminism either.