Circles and squares: Review of The Feminisms of Our Mothers, edited by Daanika Kamal

This book must be judged by its cover. For The Feminisms of Our Mothers, edited by Daanika Kamal, Pakistani visual artist Samya Arif created a cover portraying three women from different generations, to convey “historical changes in culture, outlook and demeanour through a South Asian feminist lens.” The first woman, and eldest among the three, has her eyes closed; the second woman’s eyes are open but lowered; the youngest and third woman’s direct gaze “symbolises the empowering journey of Pakistani women as they find their feminist identity.”

The artist thoughtfully chooses the colours purple and orange to pay homage to the Women’s Democratic Front and Aurat March, undertaken in 2018 to reflect on the past, present and future of the feminist movement in the country. Kamal uses feminism in the plural in the title to “acknowledge that feminisms can be multiple and varying, and could mean different things for different people.” The essays thus are a melange of experiences and ideas that flit between generations of women who talk about shared struggles.

Radical empathy

Are daughters always extensions of their mothers? What do we learn and sometimes need to unlearn from our mothers? In ‘What My Mother Taught Me’, writer and journalist Maham Javaid goes over the mother-daughter relationship citing her own. From her mother, who could embroider like a dream and teach language and A-level Economics, she learned that “women’s work was always at risk of being perceived as fuzool kaam (waste of time); and that when men are angry, women should retreat.” But most of all, her mother showed her how to love unconditionally, without bounds or judgements. “And maybe that kind of love can sometimes be dangerous, but when it’s not, loving someone the way my mother loves her family and all whom they love is radical, brave, and full of hope,” she contends.

“I have lost count of all the women I carry within me,” writes journalist and gender scholar Maria Amir in her essay, ‘All the Women in Me are on Fire’. Shaped largely, “for better and worse,” by women — mother, stepmother, grandmothers, aunts — Amir says in her case the overwhelming emotion she carries from all these influences is a feeling of rage. “It is often a rage that has been suppressed, sidelined and swallowed, but a rage that simmers in me...,” she notes, raising two questions, “Does fire have a shape? Does rage?”

Image for representation purpose only. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Raging fire

Pointing out that she has been shaped by two kinds of women — circles and squares — she writes that while circles repeat themselves, squares are self-contained. Women who are circles keep repeating their patterns — to survive, pain is central because that’s the way ‘it has always been’ — for their daughters and other women to follow. “For the women of the circle, pain is legacy, and legacy must always be passed down,” Amir points out. But the women who are squares are those who feel the suffering must end with them. “They actively work to stop the cycle from repeating itself or being repeated by those around them.” What is important to understand about circle and square women is that they are both defined by trauma, says Amir. But though the nature of the trauma may be common — “abuse, silence, abandonment, and separation” — both she and her mother carry it differently; while her mother needs people around her, Amir has been shaped to find comfort in being alone.

It’s a difficult journey because Pakistani women — like most subcontinental women — are taught early on that they must perform to an acceptable standard. Even a slight deviation is met with the question ‘log kya kahenge? (what will people say?)’ When men not having to live up to that same standard, it leads to a situation where rage is born — in women. “We can either keep swallowing this rage down and passing it on or finally let the fire cleanse us and rise renewed and reborn from the ashes,” she concludes.

Image for representation purpose only. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Seeking independence

When Kamal asked her grandmother what it means to be a woman and what was the most pronounced aspect of that identity, she quipped: ‘respect’. In her nuanced piece, ‘When the Maina Bird Sings,’ Kamal goes through the intergeneration “feminisms” of her mother and grandmother, the “liberties” they gave their daughters like permitting them to interact with friends outside of school hours and take up hobbies and sports, and what they meant by the word ‘respect’ as the marker of a woman’s identity. “To respect each other,” her grandmother said, “is to acknowledge that when a drop falls into the sea, it merges into the sea. And to respect yourself is to acknowledge that each individual drop also contains the sea.” Her mother was the eldest of four daughters and the ‘Maina’ of the title, a pet name given to her when she started chattering as rapidly as the bird when barely one year old. Kamal writes that her mother’s feminist identity was nurtured in her maternal home — she was sent to university abroad — but was repressed in a marital setting. And what will be disconcertingly familiar to many women, Kamal says that her mother’s “environment changed from one which saw her as an asset to one which saw her as a liability. Her voices was hushed, her wings were slowly clipped, and her achievements were dismissed.” Her mother finally walked out of an abusive marriage with her three children. When Kamal asked her what it means to be a woman, and what was the most pronounced aspect of that identity, her mother quipped: ‘Independence’. For Kamal, her understanding of the term ‘feminism’ is equality. And she pushes for a recognition of the differences in women’s movements. “Women need the resources to be able to effectively merge into the sea, yet acknowledge that each individual woman also contains the sea.” So, what does it mean to be a woman, and what is the most pronounced aspect of that identity? For Kamal, the first word that comes to mind is ‘Mama’ or ‘Maina’.

The diverse essays in the collection, from Amna Baig’s ‘Caged Within’ (how it took her mother a lifetime to break free from the shackles of patriarchy, and the lessons it held for her daughter) to Aimun Faisal’s ‘Love Unspoken, Love Unheard’ (in which she says she lives in hope of the promise her mother made: tomorrow will be better), and others spotlight experiences of mother-daughter relationships and their shared endeavour to make the world a better place for the next generation.

The Feminisms of Our Mothers; Edited by Daanika Kamal, Zubaan, ₹595.

sudipta.datta@thehindu.co.in