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"Feminism? Don't use that word or anything associated with it at the table."
Whenever I think about feminism, I return to a conversation I once had with my cousin. It started with those exact words.
It was a beautiful night. The sky was clear, and the stars were scattered across it. We were sitting around a dastarkhan, the traditional Uzbek table, at my aunt's house. In Uzbekistan, especially during the summer, families often sit outside on a tapchan—a large, raised wooden platform used for dining, socializing, resting, and sometimes sleeping. These platforms are usually open to the sky because summer rain is rare. The day had been scorching hot, nearly 40°C, but the evening was cool and calm, and an occasional breeze made sitting outside particularly pleasant.
My cousin had arrived quite late, just around dusk. I knew she had left home very early that morning, around 4 a.m., to work in the fields. She had spent the entire day working under that scorching sun. When she arrived, she changed her clothes, washed up, and joined us for dinner.
I noticed her hands. Her working hands. And I remember feeling something I couldn't quite put into words. I thought about how much physical labour she had endured that day.
Somehow, our conversation turned to feminism, women's rights, and the opportunities women in some countries have to pursue education, build careers, and become whoever they want to be.
And then my cousin interrupted me.
"Feminism? Don't use that word or anything associated with it at the table. It was that so-called “feminism” of the USSR that made me work in the fields."
I paused.
Suddenly, I remembered something about our history. During the Soviet period, Uzbekistan became a major cotton-producing region, and the Soviet cotton industry relied heavily on the Uzbek labour. The state promoted women's participation in the workforce under the language of gender equality and emancipation. Women working in the cotton fields were presented as evidence of progress and equality between men and women.
But there was another side to that story.
The cotton industry needed an enormous workforce. Women's labour became part of that system, and the language of equality was used to justify their participation in exhausting and often exploitative working conditions. For many women, this wasn't necessarily about having the opportunity to work. It was about being expected to work.
And that night, looking at my cousin's hands, I began to understand something.
Perhaps my cousin's problem wasn't with feminism itself. Perhaps her problem was with the absence of choice.
She had experienced a version of equality in which women were told they were equal to men, but that equality came with expectations, obligations, and hardships. It didn't necessarily give them the freedom to decide what kind of lives they wanted to lead.
For me, feminism is fundamentally about choice.
It means having equal opportunities and the freedom to decide what kind of life you want to live without being judged differently because you are a woman.
If woman wants to work in the fields, she should be free to choose that. But she should not be expected to do it simply because someone has decided that this is what equality looks like.
For me, feminism is not about making women live like men. It is about ensuring that women have the same freedom to CHOOSE, the same opportunities to pursue their CHOICES, and the same dignity and respect, whatever those CHOICES may be.
Because equality without choice is not liberation.
Iroda
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Iroda Abdunazarova is Secretary of PerSIStence Theatre Company. Find her bio, and those of our other board members, here.