The Vogue Video Does Not Empower At All

It is a sentence condemning an entire gender and pronouncing it guilty. The video talks down to men constantly, as the voiceover curtly informs them that everything women do is their “choice”. Men, however, must have no such right.

Mother to teenage daughter: Get up and study, you have an exam today, right?

Daughter: Whether I get up or not, ‪#‎MyChoice‬. Whether I study or not, My Choice. Whether I take my exam or not, My Choice. Remember, books and classes are temporary. I am not. I may choose to attend my classes or skip them and go to a pub. To use books and pens to trap my soul is to believe you can halt the expansion of the universe. Whether I go to college or not, My Choice. My failure may be your pain. I may choose to be a drop-out or not. My Choice.

Mother: Are you out of your mind?

Daughter: You should see this Vogue Empowerment video, Mom. It will change your life.

Mother: (After seeing the video). Give me your cell phone. Also, I am going to give away all your clothes to charity and am renting out your room from the first of next month. You are welcome to stay if you want, but please be prepared to pay rent.

Daughter: But why?

Mother: My Choice!

That was my first reaction when I saw the “Vogue Empowerment” video that is being touted as the ‘next big thing’ in feminism these days on social media.

Many years ago, there was a popular Govinda song that ruled the music channels. It was a litany of absurd desires, each followed with a petulant Meri Marzi! The desires expressed in the song were so outlandish though that you looked upon the song with an indulgent smile and laughed. No one took that song seriously. Not even the man who sang the song. Not even the man on whom it was filmed.

When I saw the supposedly feminist video My Choice, directed by Homi Adjania and narrated by Deepika Padukone, I remembered Govinda’s Meri Marzi. Both made equally ridiculous demands, but while Govinda’s video was classified as pure entertainment, Padukone’s video is served as ‘feminism’ to millions of viewers and is garnished with words like ‘empowerment’!

The video is a tastefully shot black and white montage of gorgeous women. In fact, it looks more like a commercial for a shampoo or a conditioner.  However, the commentary that went with the images made me cringe, then laugh, then cringe again in rapid succession. Most of the time the script looked like some randomly picked impressive sounding words from the thesaurus placed one after another. “To use cotton and silk to trap my soul is to believe you can halt the expansion of the universe,” for example. What does it even mean? Does the protagonist hanker for rayon then? Or nylon perhaps?

The Vogue video isn’t an empowerment video at all! It is a sentence, condemning an entire gender and pronouncing it guilty. The video talks down to men constantly, as the voice over curtly informs them that everything women do is their “choice”. Men, however, must make no such pretence. They don’t have the luxury of a choice. You see, the only way to battle the ‘evils of patriarchy’ is to indulge in a self-indulgent, navel-gazing rant!

I shudder to think of the things this video is doing to the minds of thousands of young women too lazy or too stupid to think for themselves. That video titled My Choice is not feminism. It is a petulant self-obsessed rant that reduces feminism to the simplicity of ‘freedom to sleep around even when you are married’.

I am a mother of three children — two sons and a daughter. I am trying to raise them as three individuals, three different individuals. Equal in their rights and responsibilities, but different in their personalities and abilities. I will be appalled if my daughter gets her idea of ‘feminism’ on such two-bit videos and self-indulgent articles doled out by ‘celebrities’ with half-a-brain.

My daughter has a whole army of men acting as her support system. Her father, her brothers, her uncles, her friends. They will all stand by her all her life. They will support her choices, even if they do not understand them at times. The men in her life are not her enemies, nor are they her oppressors. I hope my daughter will support the men in her life as well, when they need her support. Even if she does not understand their choices at times.

My daughter has the right to choose her career. She has the right to choose her life partner, yes. But when she does, it will not be her choice alone to have a baby with him or not. Feminism is not putting yourself on a pedestal just because you happen to be born with a double X chromosome. Feminism is leading your life with dignity and equality, along with men, not despite them.

These days, it is easy to be considered a feminist on the Internet. All you need to do is write a long, self-indulgent rant demonising the male gender and give it a provocative title like

I am a woman. I have boobs. Don’t demonise me for it;

I am a woman. I masturbate. Don’t hate me for it;

I am a woman. I have the right to sleep with anyone I want when I am married. Don’t judge me for it.

What next? I am waiting for some bubble headed faux-feminist to write an ‘article’ and title it, “I am a woman. I paint my dog’s toenails psychedelic pink. Don’t judge me for it.” I am sure even that will touted as the next big feminist thing.

PS: I finally showed my 9-year old daughter the first 30 seconds of the video. She said, “This is so boring and selfish, Mamma.” I cannot express how relieved I am! There is hope after all.