Feminism is… finding comfort in your own skin
POOJA DHINGRA, 31, AWARD-WINNING PASTRY CHEF, AUTHOR OF THE WHOLESOME KITCHEN, MUMBAI
Feminism, according to me, is having the luxury to be comfortable with who you are. Of course, the society we live in doesn’t make it easy for us to love ourselves, more so, if you are a woman. All of us struggle with it. I have friends who’re extremely successful but who struggle with body issues; I see it around me all the time. Women are always second guessing themselves. They’re afraid to leap and do things they want to do. But being a woman should never be a hindrance.
I grew up in a family where my brother and I were always treated equally. There was always a strong idea that I would be able to pursue whatever I wanted. I did not feel that I would be discouraged just because I was a girl, in spite of what the extended family might have thought. It was from aunts and uncles that I first felt the burden of my gender.
I remember the moment vividly. It was just before I was going to Switzerland to culinary school and I remember a relative asking my mother why she was spending so much money on sending her daughter abroad to study when I was just going to come back and get married anyway. Luckily, my parents didn’t feel that way and it didn’t matter what anyone else thought.
I belong to a Punjabi family and although I never felt bad about myself or my weight around my parents, I’d feel it every time I visited my extended family in Delhi. I’d been athletic and physically active as a teenager, but as I grew a little older I began to put on weight and struggled with body issues. The boys were never told anything, there were uncles who were grossly overweight and no one ever told them to lose weight. I always got the ‘no one will marry you’ lecture. ‘You’ve got such a pretty face, why don’t you lose some weight’ ; this phrase was thrown around a lot.
It has taken me years to gradually understand, embrace and love myself. When you’re young, people’s words tends to stick. You start identifying with those words. It was only when I moved away to Europe that I began truly discovering myself. It’s still a work in progress, of course; it’s something you have to work on every day.
Loving yourself means taking care of yourself too. This could mean meditation, yoga, walking, eating healthy —whichever form it may take, it makes me value myself more. But this feeling has to come from within. For me that push came when I realised I was having trouble climbing a flight of stairs. I had immersed myself in work so much that I hadn’t paid attention to myself and for a 28-year-old it came as a big eye-opener.
My work in the pastry kitchen means I’m constantly surrounded by sugar and chocolate. In 2015, I ran the 21-km half marathon and that’s about the time that I began to discover recipes that allowed a balance between tasty and healthy food. That’s when I knew I had to write The Wholesome Kitchen and share the recipes.
I’ve been lucky to have the support I needed to push me in the direction I wanted to go and I believe it is important to encourage women to do what they want and give them equal opportunities. That’s what feminism is all about.