Faux Feminism? An Ad In India

Feminism and women’s empowerment – two concepts that seem to be taking the West by storm. You can find these terms in various debates in the US – from the right birth control to the right to wear/or not wear clothing. But how does it fair in India? What do people associate with feminism? What are the variants?

Well, that question is far too complicated to answer now. But that doesn't mean there aren't brief slivers of information. A more recent one I've noticed is a frequent ad for OLX – the Craigslist of India.

The most recent ad begins with a middle-class couple, both of whom are working and sharing a car. The husband drops off the wife at work, promising to pick her up by 6:30, only to be continually put off by business meetings. Finally, he asks her to call a taxi. Back at their flat, the morose wife tells him that she was more independent before marriage. This admission motivates him to sell their one car on OLX and purchase two smaller ones.

Most responses I have found online have noted this ad to be “emotional”. But others that I have spoken to despise the ad, citing a type of man-hating feminism as the problem. In my estimation, the ad is tasteless in this respect, as there are so many issues that lead up to getting the new cars.

So before I go into the feminism aspect of the TV ad, I’ll pose a few questions:

• Would it not be possible for the wife to pick up the husband, instead of the other way around?
• Hired cars are common in India. Wouldn’t it be possible for one of them to hire a car?
•  If she was more independent before marriage, did this mean she had a way of transportation, i.e. a car, motorbike, etc? What happened to this?

And whether or not this ad is appealing to feminists is questionable. It certainly didn't appeal to me. In a formulaic fashion, we have the wife complaining to the husband, with the husband buying her something in response. There is nothing that gives the woman in this ad her power. Perhaps this action is made to appeal to the giving nature of a loving couple, but her stark remark about independence seems inconsiderate of the husband. This general dynamic – woman’s independence is dependent on a man – appears more problematic than feminist to me, especially as feminism does not always stand for women’s rights only, but also for men.

But what could this mean for feminism in India? Consistently films have shown more female characters, even in Bollywood, yet like this commercial, something seems artificial, at least to me. There’s the rebellious upstart woman, who is independent and a freethinker, yet still is somewhat dependent on a man for material goods.

There are a few reasons I can imagine for this:

• This is an ever-evolving local feminism, which is expressing itself in its own culture and current limitations.
• Many of these appeals to feminism are written by people going with the flow rather than those who understand its meaning.
• This isn't feminism but something else more aligned with the current system

I think, to some extent, all of these are true. Regardless, it’s evident from even short, 1 minute clips like this OLX ad that feminism has a complex definition in India, although it isn't so unique. Even in the US there are strong, but misguided, opinions that feminism at its core is against men.

I was always under the impression that modern feminism should lift up both sexes – through eliminating harmful stresses for men (i.e. the sole expectation of an emotionless providing machine) as well as for women (i.e. the sole expectation of a docile homemaker). And while neither of these are off limits in a more “liberated” community, it is better than being peer pressured and marginalized for being different in the current system.

But what this means for India, I can’t say. Rather, I am interested to see how things turn out