Reflections

an epiphany about loneliness

by Esha Kode

I call him Dr. L.

He doesn’t appear to be a solid in form. He’s more of a flowy, gaseous entity composed of black, gray, and tinges of white, which is often overpowered by the black and gray. He starts from the top of my stomach and makes his way to the center of my chest. He sometimes even clouds my mind. He suffocates me: a lump forms in my throat, my mind races to numerous different thoughts. He creates a drowning sensation, making it seem like doing something as simple as taking a breath is an out-worldly task.

No one or anything has ever made me feel like that.

I call him Dr. L, but he’s more commonly known as loneliness.

I was never able to label the feeling of loneliness until the pandemic hit. I sense that it was always there, but I didn’t have the awareness to actually reflect on that feeling.

I was terrified of Dr. L for nearly 3 years. Every time he creeped in, I’d panic because I wouldn’t know 1) why he came, 2) what he wanted, and 3) when he would leave.

I had my Eureka moment last week and think I found my answers.

Dr. L enters when he senses that my boundaries have been crossed – either by myself or others around me.

For example, after returning from some family outing or vacation, Dr. L would often make an appearance the very next day, if not on the plane ride back home. I would always attribute this to the ‘post-vacation blues’ that ‘everyone feels.’ Sure, some part of it could be the ‘blues,’ but the other major part of it was the fact that I was surrounded by people who didn’t make me feel like my most authentic self when I was on that vacation. Thus, Dr. L would abruptly show up to make me realize that very thing: I was not in an environment that gave me the space to be my most authentic self.

Dr. L also almost always makes an appearance when I, myself, cross my own boundaries. When I neglect taking care of myself in the way that makes me feel good (ie, moving my body, writing, spending time with my little man, etc.), he runs on over into my life and makes me feel like the world is ending. In essence, though, what he’s actually trying to tell me is to slow tf down and violently remind me that my mind and body are not aligned.

Realizing this about loneliness and reframing the way I personify this feeling has greatly helped. In fact, I sensed him creeping in yesterday night. When I paused and reflected, I found that I haven’t been sleeping well, eating enough, and have been overworking. Thus, I took the day off from college, sat at home, oiled my hair, worked as much as I could work (did not OVERwork though), watched a movie with my brother, and even read. Dr. L was nowhere to be found.

This is why I’m such a fanatic over the phrase and belief that emotions are data. Loneliness, to me, is one of those many emotions. Its purpose, in my particular life, is to pop off an alarm in my mind when it senses that I am not being true to myself. It tries to nudge me to navigate myself back to my center – my truth. It’s literal data. Life-saving data.

Listen to your emotions, your feelings, and your thoughts. ❤

choose children over war.

by Esha Kode

Back in October 2023, the first video that stuck with me was of a young Palestinian boy with big, frightened eyes as he stood in a corner of a crowded hospital, shaking in fear after just having survived a nearby explosion. The fright, anxiety, and complete desperation on his little face and tiny body was absolutely gut-wrenching to watch. I remember thinking to myself at that time: It can’t get worse than this.

I woke up yesterday to a video of a man holding his headless child in his hands. It has only been getting worse, and this is by far, the worst of it all.

In between the video of the frightened young boy to the video of the headless child, I’ve seen:

mothers crying in agony trying to identify their children’s charred dead bodies;
young girls watching their entire family burn to death;
children with tears rolling down their cheeks as they returned to their tents with only a grain of rice;
a boy screaming for his father as he watched him erupt in flames;
a brother scraping his dead sibling’s bloody guts off the roads;
children organizing their damn own press conference, thinking that the world will at least listen to them and their pain;
lifeless children lying dead on the floors of hospitals, roads, and tents;
a child sharing whatever little of the food he could get to the other children around him;
a family of 3 children sleeping in a tent with water seeping through the top;
children being shot at point blank.

There are times when I have to remind myself to feel because I fear my body has become desensitized as a way to cope. But this is nowhere near the level of agony and pain that the children of Gaza, Sudan, Congo, Palestine, and so many other children worldwide are currently facing.

You know what all of these children have in common? They are all being used as mere tools to propel political ideologies of a select group of people who are capitalizing off of their man-made societal power. How low have we stooped as a society that we now use children, hell even infants, as political accessories? We are failing our children.

Choose children over war.

“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.” – James Baldwin

having a ‘Girl Dad’

by Esha Kode

As an Indian-American girl, my relationship with my parents has been a BUMPY rollercoaster ride, to say the least. In particular, my relationship with my father fluctuated greatly throughout the years. Despite having my differences with him, Papa Kode said something the other day that I will forever cherish.

A few weeks ago, I found out that one relative was shit talking me behind my back. It’s almost impossible to keep things a secret in Indian families, so her words eventually reached me. When I first heard what she had been yapping, I couldn’t help but laugh because a) none of it was true (obviously) and b) she stooped so low that it actually was purely comedic.

I responded to that in a rather impulsive and selfish way, but I wanted my Dad to know so I could gauge how he’d react. So, I casually dropped this news during lunch the other day and my dad was just in complete shock – he had no idea. I guess her words never reached him.

After intently listening to our gossip queen spill the tea, Papa Kode said the following words:

“I don’t care what these people think of you Esha Amma. I trust you, I know you, and that’s all that matters.”

#GirlDad.

Hearing Papa Kode say those words had my childhood self SCREAMING and BEAMING with happiness. I didn’t give a rat’s ass about what some lame desi auntie was saying, but I did give A LOT of shits about what my parents were thinking. Now, if my dad had chosen to believe the aunty over me, then I would’ve simply cocooned into my cave; however, considering that he did not, in fact, choose her over me, made all the difference in helping me re-shift my childhood opinion of my own father.

You see, the reason why this is so groundbreakingly amazing is because our culture is hellbent on letting society dictate the way we view ourselves and approach the world. People pleasing is so deeply rooted in our culture that it’s not something that I can just teach my parents about – it’s something that they themselves have to be willing to see and understand. Therefore, when that auntie said “negative” things about our family, specifically the Indian daughter who’s utter purpose in life is supposedly to people please her entire existence, I thought the situation would unfold more as a dramatic Bollywood film. To my surprise, there was a major plot twist. For that, I am grateful and in fact, proud of Papa Kode for being a #GirlDad.

Let’s try to figure out what the phrase ‘Girl Dad’ even implies:

For starters, Fatherhood is not talked about nearly as much as Motherhood. We expect mothers to be mothers, so we don’t necessarily value the idea of motherhood as much as we probably should. On the other hand, when we think of a man, we don’t automatically equate his worth to his role as a father. In fact, when we see a man being a great dad, we’re almost taken aback, as if we’re collectively surprised that a father is….well, fathering. We revere fathers and downplay mothers, but I digress.

According to The Dad, here’s what being a ‘Girl Dad’ means:

“Being a girl dad is about working to make the world better for you girls…..There’s nothing we could teach to our sons that we can’t teach to our daughters, but there’s a lot that our daughters can teach us. We recognize the importance of raising strong, independent women. We also recognize that there are stigmas, stereotypes, and inequalities that exist that stand in the way of our daughters being whatever they want to be, and it’s our job to help knock those down.”

I do want to note that it’s also important that being a ‘Boy Dad’ is equally important because young boys are also suffering with the pressures that come with the idea of ‘being man enough.’ Just parenthood in general ya’ll….there are so many ways to screw us up. I digress again – apologies.

I want to end this by saying that I am proud of Nanna for being a kickass #GirlDad the other day. I hope that we can reach a point where all parents are rooting for all of their kids. I also hope that we as a society reach a point where we can offer support to all parents/caretakers/guardians to help them become emotionally mature adults so that they can raise emotionally mature children in a safe, nurturing environment.❣️

One Day….after-effects

by Esha Kode

There’s A LOT I wanna say about the incredible casting, the double-standards for women (and women of color) in the romantic genre, THE REPRESENTATION, the story, and much more. But, for right now, I wanna talk about a single part from the show that absolutely wrecked my soul.

For those of you who watched Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall’s One Day on Netflix, like many others, you must’ve been ruminating about the entire series for days afterward.

Same here.

My initial understanding of the show was that love is rarely ever grand. In fact, love is built on those small, consecutive moments of rawness and a solid base of friendship. It reminded all of us to screw up, make mistakes, learn from those mistakes / hold our people close, just say ‘i love you’ to the people who matter to you / it’s never too late to do something, it’s never too early to do something / our words matter / fame is just a source of external validation, chasing after it will create volatile lives / pain looks different for everyone / love is truly beautiful, and we are all worthy of it.

I got all of that from the show, but it’s what my therapist told me afterwards that totally shook my mind. She reminded me of the scene where Emma reads an excerpt from Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles to Dexter.

That excerpt essentially says:

We all have a birthday, a day in which we’re born. We tend to celebrate it every year because we know of the date and we may even know of the exact time that we were welcomed into this world.

We all also do have a deathday, a day in which we die. However, we never celebrate it because well….1) that’s morbid and 2) we have no idea when it is.

Every single year, we stumble through our death day, and it remains “sly and unseen” intelligently masked by the rest of the ‘ordinary’ days. And yet, that same day that you spent in 2006 opening Christmas presents, in 2018 getting married, or in 2024 crying in the shower, might very well become your last day in this realm of the world.

That shook me.

This helped to give some sort of meaning to the cliché phrase “live each day to its fullest.” The reason to live each day to the fullest is because we have no idea if this day, today, is our “sly and unseen” death day that’s coming up in 5, 10, 15, 45 years. It’s just a normal day today, but it can become one of the most important days in the future.

Still ruminating about this while the show continues to tug at my heart…..

green hoodie

by Esha Kode

It was 3:30AM.

My gal pals and I were chatting tiredly as we were on our way back home after spending nearly 6 hours out and about in NY celebrating one of our friend’s birthday. We’re walking down the street wearing jeans and fancy tops. Everyone is sober and waiting to just hit the bed. We’re the only ones on the street. As we turned a corner, a man in his big black SUV rolls down his window and makes the sound “mmmmmmm” as if he had just been given a bowl of Maggi noodles. Objectification can be as simple as this: the need to make such a sound as he saw us implied that he practically equated our worth to a bowl of food.

That’s not the end of it, though.

We ignored his stupidity and continued walking. I want to note here that that is exactly what we’ve been conditioned to do. When a man does or says something to us, it’s best to walk away because we can’t win.

We had 2 more blocks to walk, totaling to about 5 more minutes. While waiting at the intersection, there was another man standing at the other side. He was wearing a green hoodie and baggy jeans. His hands remained in his pocket. We’ll name this guy ‘Green Hoodie.’

Confident that nothing can happen considering the fact that there was a group of us, we all continued to cross the intersection and ignored Green Hoodie’s comment. At this point, we picked up our walking pace as we didn’t want to engage with a stranger on the street, let alone a man, at 4:00 in the morning. Again, this fear was etched into our souls from a young age.

Then, one girl panicked and started running, so the rest of us followed. Another girl asked someone to turn around and see if Green Hoodie is following us. All of us assumed that he wasn’t because why would he?

That’s when one of the girls shrieked.

Then, I heard the man’s voice. He made those weird noises we hear when we go to a Haunted House during Halloween season. It was terrifying. My soul felt like it left my body.

We were now running for our life.

I turned to see how far away he was from us. He was just a few steps behind and his hands remained in his pockets.

I screamed to the girls near me, “Should I call them?” Collectively, they responded, “Yes!”

That’s when I dialed 9-1-1, for the first time. My hands were shaking. My bag was weighing me down. My heart was beating too fast. He got closer.

One of us even stood in the middle of the street and screamed, hoping that some neighbor would come out. No one did. Another one of us demanded him to stop. He didn’t.

As we were all continuing to run for our life, Green Hoodie had the audacity to yell back at us and ask, “Why are you guys running?” with a smirk on his face. Why else would a group of girls be running in the middle of the night?

Finally, as we approached the entrance of the apartment building, one girl yelled one more time “STOP!” That somehow seemed to have triggered something in him, and he, very casually, turned around and walked away.

That’s it. He didn’t ask for money. He didn’t touch us. He didn’t shoot. He simply wanted to feed off of our fear.

Where were the patrol cars? Where were the emergency alert buttons? What if the man had a gun (America does have a sickening gun problem after all)?

Green Hoodie probably went back to his 4am business with absolutely no care in the world. Meanwhile, us girls went back to the apartment and practically shivered in fear internally, and were traumatized to the point where we decided we couldn’t walk anywhere anymore.

To the people who might be reading this and question, “But why were you walking so late at night?”

Respectfully, get the hell out of here.

We have the right to walk, and that too, safely. We are not the problem. Hyper masculinity is the problem. The way we teach and ingrain gender is the problem.

Every girl and woman I know is always told to never walk the streets alone at night, to wear proper clothes if we’re going to be amongst other men, to never take someone else’s drink at a party, to carry pepper spray, etc.. The fear has been inculcated in us from a young age. It’s implicitly telling us that ‘boys will be boys, so you take the necessary precautions to keep yourself safe.‘

For example, I was at a club in NYC last week. I was, once again, with a group of my girl and guy friends. As I was dancing with them, I felt two arms suddenly creep around my waist. Gross. Another day, I was walking down the street at 11:00am, wearing a summer dress. I was cat called and practically followed by two men, in BROAD DAYLIGHT.

In both instances it will be easy for people to claim that I could have done something differently to have avoided those men. People may say, “Well you shouldn’t have been dancing so close to that man if you didn’t want him to touch you.” I’m sorry, where else do you want me to stand and bop in a crowded club? In the bathroom?

Such instances are so normalized that we’ve become desensitized to them. We rarely stop to acknowledge that this isn’t normal. It shouldn’t be normal, and it shouldn’t be something that we just deal with.

When a man touches a woman without any sort of consent or permission, he literally sees that woman as being less than – as being an object and something that doesn’t need permission to be touched or used. It’s disgusting. I don’t even let my close friends touch me without my permission, so imagine how triggering and traumatizing it is for women to have to face this every single goddamn day.

The solution?

There are plenty, but here are a few ideas.

For starters, let’s maybe have more safety features in neighborhoods? More emergency alert buttons, a neighborhood watch group, or literally anything that can result in fast actions. At least until we manage to create a world that is safe for all.

Secondly, we need to recognize that gender socialization is a massive part of the problem. Such conversations are making it to the forefront only within privileged communities. We need to provide access to this information and awareness to ALL communities.

Thirdly, as a society, we must stop blaming the women for dressing the way we want, walking where we want, being the way we want. Nothing justifies the harassment, objectification, and even the rapes. Instead of policing the already oppressed people’s freedom and control, it’s much more effective to spend that energy on educating the oppressors. Some may change, others might not.

the final coffee date.

by Esha Kode

Go read the final coffee date 🥺 Had a little coffee date with myself and penned down some thoughts.

Many of my coffee dates have told me to have a date with myself for my 50th date, so here I am: sitting in the comfort of a secluded area in my home, by myself, sipping on some warm coffee, and writing…..about myself.

This feels weird. It feels like a diary entry, but this diary entry will be public so do I say everything I want to say or do I sugarcoat it to make it more appealing for the ‘audience’? Do I ask myself the same questions I ask my other dates? Do I write in the third person (🙈)? Naturally, it’s uncomfortable to force myself to reflect and think deeply about myself; it’s easier to guide other people to talk about themselves.

Writing this 50th date also feels bittersweet. We hit 50 coffees 🥺. I know that this is my project and it doesn’t necessarily have to end here, but just the fact that I was able to stick with this for almost over 2 years and follow through with it makes me feel fulfilled and incredibly rejuvenated.

I guess ya’ll are diving into my world now? Welcome :>

Diving into the world of Esha Kode….

21st with the Bal Ashram Boys

by Esha Kode

A few hours into my birthday I receive a voice message from Laasya asking if I’d want to FaceTime the boys because they wanted to wish me for my birthday. Obviously I would never miss a chance to see their faces, let alone on my birthday, so we FaceTimed. 

I spoke with them until their phone died. They threw the phone around and shrieked, “Happy Birthday Didi!” Some sang ‘Kya Baat Ay’ for me; some chatted with Amma and Nanna; some used their puppy dog faces to ask me when I was coming back again; some asked me to cut a cake on camera. 

The most heartwarming part, though, was when ‘V’ virtually took me to the conference hall and connected the phone to the TV so that my entire face was displayed on the TV. That’s when I saw at least 30 kids sitting on the floor waving intensely at the camera and screaming, “Happy Birthday Esha Didi!!!” 

There was a humongous part of me that immediately thought What did I do to deserve this much love? Am I even worthy of it? But, then another part of me thought, They love you for you Esha. This is the kind of love that you’ve always wanted.

They made my birthday feel like the most epic day ever. I felt whole. 

21st Birthday!

by Esha Kode

I turned 21 two days ago.

As I started to respond to texts from my friends and answer phone calls from my relatives, I began to feel an overwhelming amount of love. On a typical birthday, I kinda breeze through the day doing the same thing I did 2 days ago – reply to texts & answer phone calls. However, this year felt different. I feel whole.

I finally reached the point in my life where I am actively creating and cherishing relationships with people who matter the most to me. I am so in tune with my energy and monitor how high or low it gets when I am around people. This has been helping so freaking much when it comes to cultivating ‘heart-squishing’ relationships.

2023 just feels life changing for some reason. I have this gut feeling that this is the year where I will fully step into myself and allow myself to be human – the good, the bad, and the ugly that comes with being human.

I want to make wholesome memories, be warm towards my loved ones, and pursue the dreams that I was once afraid of even dreaming of.

This is our year Aries. Let’s go.

a coffee update

by Esha Kode

It’s 2023 and I am 38 coffees in, with 3 more already lined up bringing me to 41 within the first quarter of the year.

2 whole years later, we’re finally getting closer to the magic number: 50. Thus, I wanted to do some reflecting.

I started Fifty Coffees, inspired by Lindsay Ratowsky’s blog, to push myself out of my comfort zone and start meeting/re-connecting with people in my life. It was a project that I began for myself. However, this project has now evolved into something that is much bigger than me. I now see Fifty Coffees as a medium for allowing me to share people’s stories with all of you.

I realized that somewhere along the line the project’s purpose changed from me trying to figure out my life to me trying to help others understand that every person has a story and every person deserves for their stories, lessons, and experiences to be heard.

This project has also given me the chance to build more intimate connections right off the bat. Spending an hour of intentional time debriefing each other on life and being utterly comfortable with vulnerability immediately peels away the superficial layer that most relationships start with.

Finally, I found that going on these coffee dates, talking to these precious souls, and then writing about them is actually one of the few things in life that brings me consistent amounts of joy. It’s a little self-care project!

12 more coffees to go!

temples & periods & feminism

by Esha Kode

Someone I recently met in India asked me ‘Do you believe in religion?’

I replied with a “No, not really…..”

He proceeded to expand on my answer and said something along the lines of how religion, for the most part, was and is used as a tool to control the people of a particular belief. This conversation, along with numerous others I have had recently during classes and online, propelled me to think more deeply about the ways in which religion has played a role in my life; I wanted to reflect on how much of it I’ve subconsciously consumed and followed, despite my own feminist and individualistic values.

During this period of reflection, I found that the ‘period & temple’ rule is something that I’ve just abided by without ever questioning it or taking a minute to understand the purpose behind even having such a rule exist.

To start, here’s an excerpt from Saloni Saraf’s blog post titled ‘Mandir Misogny‘:

“We teach our daughters to be proud of their bodies, we challenge inequality, and we stigmatise discrimination. Yet we ignore what can only be described as misogynistic beliefs that stem deep into our tradition, and train our women to believe that menstruation is impure, and unclean. Don’t enter the temple as it will not be right. Don’t touch the kitchen utensils as you will stain. Growing up surrounded by a traditional Hindu family, whilst immersed in a liberal, feminist society can confuse anyone who’s genuinely interested in following a religion that runs through her family.”

As some of you read through this post, you may attempt to refute and claim that ‘there’s a science behind why women on their periods are not allowed to enter the temple.’ I preface this post with this statement because I was once forwarded an article by a man who said “see….there’s actual evidence as to why women on their periods shouldn’t enter temples. It’s unsafe for them due to the electromagnetic energy present inside temples.” I laugh thinking about that incident now, but am also irked by the fact that I didn’t do anything about it in that moment because I didn’t even know what was right & what was wrong and what was okay to believe & what wasn’t okay to believe at that time.

Here we are now as I’ve finally decided to do a tad bit more research into all things periods, religion, and feminism as it relates to Hinduism and the Indian culture, specifically.

what is the ‘period & temple’ rule?

Essentially, this unwritten rule states that if you’re a menstruating woman, you are not allowed to enter a temple.

Why? Well, supposedly undergoing a very normal biological process is viewed as ‘dirty’ and ‘impure.’

What is puzzling to me is how Indian culture and religion has selectively chosen when to celebrate periods versus when to shun them.

Many girls I know, including myself, have had a half-saree (i.e. ‘langa voni’) ceremony. The ultimate point of this ceremony is to highlight the girl’s ‘coming of age’ or, to put it bluntly, her period. My ceremony, in particular, was filled with lots of bling-bling jewelry, mouth-watering food, ear-pounding dances, plethora of flashing cameras, and lots and lots of love in the room. I sat in a fancy throne-like chair as all my relatives came to me one-by-one and blessed me. Blessed me for………………………………….getting my period? It’s literally a public declaration of ‘I got my period. Let’s party it up.’

In the olden days, the ceremony signified that a girl has now upgraded to the status of a woman and is finally ready to be married off. In the modern times, I see it as a way for people to, aside from showing off their daughters and wealth, protect some parts of their culture and give families a reason to bring loved ones together in an intimate way. The latter half of the purpose of this ceremony makes sense to me, but the rest of it does not.

If our culture promotes the sumptuous celebration of periods so publicly, why do we suddenly decide to hush them when it comes to temples?

a ‘scientific’ answer.

Referenced Article: Unearthing menstrual wisdom: Why we don’t go to the temple, and other practices

Sinu Joseph writes that the scientific explanation behind periods and temples is found in Ayurveda. Ayurveda is based on three of life’s guiding forces known as the doshas: (a) vata (air), (b) pitta (water), (c) kapha (fire).

Ayurvedic beliefs claim that menstruation helps women remove excess doshas on a monthly basis – essentially a monthly detox. They believe that the vata dosha is at work during these monthly processes and helps menstruation follow a downward flow or passage out of the body. Therefore, anything that disrupts this downward flow of energy during this time of the month should be avoided. Guess what supposedly interferes with this downward flow? The pujas, offerings, chants, and overall vibes of temples.

There was also a section in the article where Joseph conversed with a Guruji from Andhra Pradesh. This Guruji stated:

“What is pure, we don’t touch. And what we don’t touch, we call it a taboo. She (a menstruating woman) was so pure, that she was worshipped as a Goddess. The reason for not having a woman go into a temple is precisely this. She is a living Goddess at that time. The energy of the God or Goddess which is there in the murti will move over to her, and that murti becomes lifeless, while this (the menstruating woman) is life. So that’s why they were prevented from entering the temple. So it is exactly the opposite of what we think”.

This flips the narrative from ‘periods are dirty and impure’ to ‘periods make a menstruating person divine and Goddess-like.’ ……still confused and skeptical.

Here’s what I have to say to all of that ^

Firstly, both of the reasonings mentioned (i.e. interrupting the downward flow and becoming a ‘living Goddess’) do not belittle or demean women for their bodily functions. When we look at how these reasons have evolved over time, we see that it has turned into another way to separate and shame women. Modern society has somehow turned something that was more of a choice and respectful into a rule for menstruating people.

Secondly, I think it’s important to choose what you want to believe because I don’t see any rock-hard, scientifically-backed evidence behind those two reasons. From what I’ve gathered, Ayurveda is pseudoscience and a lot of what the Guruji spoke about is rooted in spirituality and energy that (as of right now) does not have much scientific backing either.

Thirdly, so how do those reasons pertain to the folks who menstruate who are not women?

After all that, my brain can’t help but to ask so who developed these theories? was it other women/menstruating people or was it men who have never experienced menstruation? If it’s the latter, then I think we should continue to furrow our brows, scratch our heads, and look more closely into the loopholes that are presented as ‘science.’

not all women menstruate, and not all people who menstruate are women. 

When thinking about menstruation, we’ve been conditioned to only think of women. However, we’re leaving out so many others who also menstruate. Allow me to create space to bring to the limelight some people, who don’t necessarily identify as women, who also menstruate (this is by no means an exhaustive list):

  • men
  • transgender people
  • non-binary people
  • gender-nonconforming people

define feminism. [no, we don’t hate men]

feminism (noun): advocating for equality for all genders and sexualities across all races, ethnicities, socioeconomic statuses, sociocultural backgrounds, etc.

Too often feminism is attributed to a movement that is targeting men and thus, people believe that all feminists hate men. This is false.

Feminism at its core is about reclaiming voices and demanding equality for all. This may make some men squirm and feel uncomfortable because suddenly, they don’t have all the power in their possession, making them rather naively think that feminists hate men. We don’t hate men; in fact, I love men!

Also, any human being can be a feminist. Feminism is not for women. It’s for all of us, so all of us can be feminists.

the broader question: is feminism still needed today?

A few days ago, my mom and I got into an argument about body image. I was arguing (potentially even yelling, oops) that women are conditioned to identify their entire beings and worth based on their physical appearance due to the patriarchal nature of our society. My mother reddened with anger and scolded “why are you always saying women and men? not everything is about that.”

I scoffed. That’s the thing, though. If we look at everything occurring in our lives, including our own beliefs, a lot of things are based on that gender divide. I mean look at my own internal dissonance over not entering a temple when I’m on my period vs knowing that this is yet another way to control and ‘other’ women from everyone else. My mother does not understand the many ways in which sexism and misogyny can manifest.

Like my mother, many men and women have told me that in today’s world females are receiving better treatment and are being treated as an equal to a man. I disagree. I believe that there are definitely more conversations occurring in the more privileged spaces surrounding gender discrimination. However, not all of these conversations are being used as a basis for action and not all of these conversations are reaching the most vulnerable and underprivileged sectors of the world, which I believe are the key areas that we should focus on when cultivating such discussions.

Yes: we may have made large strides from the 20th to 21st century, but we are still continuing to live in a male-dominant society.

No: it is not wrong, tiring, or cumbersome to continue to speak up about such injustices.