What does Nora Fatehi’s interview mean for the fundamentals of feminism in a fix
The actress Nora Fatehi said earlier this month in an interview on the BeerBiceps YouTube channel that “feminism f-ed up our society, completely.”
Only a few minutes before, Fatehi had spoken about how she was driven by her desire to prove her detractors wrong and how she chose not to spend time in partnerships because of a past relationship that had scared her. Abruptly, she expressed the opposite opinion, supporting the need of traditional gender norms and emphasizing how everyone’s life would be better when they were followed.
A film discussing the hormonal differences between male and female bodies and how the latter are not made for the grind of modern office hours was then played by the presenter, Ranveer Allahbadia. The two dullly mentioned the Industrial Revolution as the reason behind the 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule, but they didn’t discuss what preceded it in the West, the various stages and effects of the labor and worker rights movements globally, or the incredibly simple yet profound idea that the current capitalist hustle systems are changing, need to change, and are being challenged. Rather, they suggested that women are just not built to work outside the house.
Sincerely, I never understand why this keeps happening (as it happened with star Neena Gupta on the same station last year). In fact, it occurs really often. Celebrity women from all around the world, including singer Shakira, who recently stated that the Barbie movie “emasculated” her pre-teen sons and that she agreed with them, and a number of other Bollywood celebrities, express anti-feminist opinions with seemingly little self-reflection regarding how their lives and careers are improved by how feminism improves the world.
Whether or whether Fatehi considers herself a feminist is irrelevant. She should go ahead and become dependant if she wants to give up all of her personal and professional freedom. (She also wants to “take over the world,” but she’s not sure how; it seems that part of it involves leading a traditional wife’s lifestyle.) The victories of the feminist movement will provide the support system she needs in the event that she loses faith in the housewife lifestyle and has to start again from scratch. She is lucky not to live the type of life that the great majority of Indian women endure.
She will be OK, but the people who listen to her won’t, and she has the ability to impact youth of either gender. For example, when she states, “People want to find themselves, they want to be in their feminine energy, and they want to be in their soft girl era.” There are a lot of epiphanies happening right now,” she says, mistaking social media hashtags for actual information. Is she being naive or dishonest? In either case, she cannot be justified because either she intentionally spreads false information and repeats rhetoric that has always caused and only causes so much harm, or she passes her confusion on to impressionable audiences — young people without the resources and agency she enjoys, who may make decisions they can never undo.
