Gender-based-violence has been the norm for women of all walks of life in every time period since the beginning of time. “One in three” is a statistic that lives at the forefront of our minds. We’re forced to wear one headphone when walking home from the train station, stay aware of our surroundings at all times, we’re taught to be polite, timid, to always smile and cross our legs. But how can we continue this farce when our rights are being ripped from our hands? How can we keep smiling when the rest of the world sees us as “things” instead of people?
Sampat Pal Devi’s story is in and of itself a legend to feminists around the world. Bundelkhand is home to some of the most impoverished people in India with over fifty percent of its population living well below the poverty line. In a village with a deep-rooted patriarchal culture, riddled with caste-divisions, gender-based-violence, and female illiteracy, Sampat Pal Devi taught herself how to read and write only to be married off at the age of twelve to an ice cream vendor. By sixteen, fed up with the persistent violence towards herself and her female neighbors, she decided she needed to take action against all abusive husbands, fathers, brothers, politicians. In 2006, she decided it was time to resist the patriarchy and revolutionize her village. This perpetual mistreatment sparked the formation of an untraditional female vigilante group, the Gulabi gang. Sampat Pal didn’t form the group to simply retaliate against these men; she taught women self defense, empowered them to stand up for themselves and their rights, aided in the elder women’s attempts to claim their pensions, and educated the female population in reading and writing. The Gulabi Gang is still active and ever-growing, inspiring all around the world never to settle for anything less than what is deserved.
In South Korea in 2016, a man hid in a public, gender-neutral restroom for over an hour waiting. CCTV footage showed that six different men were able to enter and exit unharmed. Finally, a woman, identified as Ha, entered the restroom only to be stabbed several times with a kitchen knife. After twenty minutes, her friend went to see why she hadn’t returned and found her dead within the restroom. Due to his delusions of women belittling and harassing him and his hatred for women, the court declared the murder not to be a hate crime against women, but one driven by mental illness. He was given a thirty-year prison sentence, medical treatment, and an ankle bracelet. This case sparked an potent influx of gender-based conflict in South Korea, and the birth of several feminist movements, including the 4B Movement. The 4B Movement sparked international discourse over their four no’s:- Biyeonae- no dating, Bihon- marrying, Bisekseu- having sex with, or Bichulsan- producing children with men.
Assata Olugbala Shakur, a radical black feminist and prominent member of both the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, helped pave the way for the grassroots activism and movements we know today. Born Joanne Deborah Chesimard, Shakur changed her name to not only reject her western name, but to feel fully connected to her African identity. Assata, meaning she who struggles, Olugbala, meaning love for the people, Shakur, meaning the thankful one. To this day, Shakur is still listed as one of FBI’s most wanted terrorists with a one million dollar reward following her escape to Cuba from a New Jersey prison facing first degree murder of a police officer and domestic terrorism charges. Shakur was a force to be reckoned with; she was willing to do whatever it took for the complete liberation of all oppressed groups. She was a trailblazer and a champion in a plethora of movements from the anti-Vietnam war movement to student rights, from flag-bearing black rights to the feminist movement.
You may ask, how are we supposed to bring back real feminism when the feminist movement is alive and well? Western modern feminism stems from viewing inequality through the lens of white, heterosexual, affluent women. Today’s feminists know the names Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez but forget Marsha P Johnson, the woman that jumpstarted Stonewall, shaping the LGBTQ+ movement for decades to come, Sojourner Truth, the feminist abolitionist, and even the iconic Audre Lorde is too often left off of “top ten most influential feminists” lists. While the former and latter are all rightfully esteemed and ingrained in our minds as feminist activists for a reason, we fail to take a step back and recognize what feminism has and always has been: the fight for our rights and the fight for the rights of the all women that come after us.
People all over the world are actively teaching themselves to decenter men, to become empowered by everything that it means to be a woman; freeing the nip, growing out body hair, reclaiming sexual desires. But, our governments still do not see us as equals, as people deserving of inclusivity and equal-treatment. We still receive less pay, are expected to take on more responsibility, told we’re too emotional, called “sluts” and “bitches” by prominent men in power. When we’re too loud about our mistreatment we’re called man-hating chauvinistic feminazis; too quiet and we’re man-loving, self-hating, male-gaze-obsessed fake feminists.
Embracing feminism in its whole, not solely western feminism rooted in racism and classism, alleviates the issues of infighting and severance and shifts our focus to real feminism. Feminism, at its core, is an ever-evolving movement focused on dismantling systems of oppression. Let these powerful unsung women be an inspiration to the forthcoming revolution western society desperately yearns for. We owe it to ourselves, and to the women before and after us, to educate ourselves on feminism. To educate ourselves on everything we’ve taken for granted and everything we’ve been too lenient on.
“No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free.”
Assata Shakur
April 17, 2025
