“But why are we trying to divide us up, yaar? What about the sisterhood? Aren’t we sistahs?”

“Feminism has gone too far, bro. Women have everything they need.”

“I’m not like those other feminists. I’m a nice feminist.”

Often, merely dropping the word ‘feminism’ is enough to shake up a post-lunch, drowse-induced office discussion, with everyone across all sorts of demographics contributing to a fervent deluge of opinions. There is likely to be ardent faith at one end, while the other might be shrouded with disillusionment. And the latter comes with its own set of rationale too; there have been polls and surveys to show us why.

But despite all that noise and varying decibels of clarity, one thing is clear: feminism, in the 21st century, doesn’t have a singular narrative. The discourse is complex and rife with socio-economic and political layers. And the ongoing #MeToo conversation has only empowered the understanding, even if polarised voices have erupted.

That is where we find Mumbai-based illustrators Pia Alize Hazarika and Malathi Jogi’s upcoming “short, sweet and intersectional” illustrated guide called Feminist AF: A Primer For Everyone. Currently in the process of gathering backing on the crowdfunding platform, Indiegogo, this 30-page guide puts together all the conversations that we have been privy to in our journeys as feminists, including responding to the voices mentioned at the beginning of this piece.

The project emerged—like the best of ideas sometimes do—out of a drunken conversation. Except that this wasn’t a friendly one.

Hazarika was called a ‘bad feminist’ for defending a male friend. “[This friend’s] view was: regardless of who's wrong and who's right, you need to be on the girl's side. That made no sense to me. I just told her why would I be on your side when I know you're wrong? So she called me a bad feminist and I was just like, ‘What's a good one!?’” she laughs.

And so, the first project came in the form of Custom Cuts, a comic series that was released on Tumblr last year. Published once a week for about 30 weeks, the work also added to the momentum of the first wave of #MeToo, when Raya Sarkar’s LoSHA (List of Sexual Harassment Accused) came out in November 2017, and the #MeToo wave in Hollywood which erupted in October 2017. “I think that I've been labelled as an angry feminist for a very long time, but there's just a lot of rationality behind it: it's human rights versus the women-are-better-than-men narrative,” says Hazarika.

However, it’s clear that the project is more than just a response. It’s been informed, says Hazarika, by not just women figures—Rebecca Solnit and Roxane Gay, to name a few—but also online discourses around #MeToo. “I’ve taken what I can work with, within my frame of reference and my scope of reach. Being an artist also helps with the understanding—the way you put your work out has a lot to do with the way you see things happening. I'm still trying to figure out where I stand, so [the project] is not as renegade as people think it is,” she says.

Hazarika also acknowledges her approach towards feminism from a place of privilege (you’ll find this in the primer as well)—balancing her personal experience and views with academic research and findings, data and activism. “We operate from a relatively privileged position and are constantly trying to learn from and amplify the voices of people feminism has historically excluded,” she says. “Inevitably, we are most accurate about our personal narratives, but as artists, we hope to include and represent as many people in our work as we can—from widely differing personal and societal contexts.”

Hazarika—whose most recent work is an illustration that depicts the toxic cycle women are stuck in, in a “woke” workspace, for a national publication—has also updated the primer in the context of the current conversations around #MeToo. “The newest set of stuff goes into the larger problems of rape culture and how men are victims of it too,” she says. “With the second #MeToo wave, we just tweaked it a little bit: what is it like to be a woman? What happens with a woman versus what happens with a man? Then we talked about how, if you're calling yourself an ally, there's a sort of checklist and stuff.”

The book, ultimately, is open to interpretation. “Take it or leave it. You don't have to listen to everything we're saying, because we're still figuring out our stuff. But this is just a baseline. These are the foundation stones,” she says.

While there are some talks about a second version for the online edition, and an online database to help those who’re dealing with the aftermath of #MeToo, Feminist AF has one final answer to all questions: “Women are human beings! That's literally it. If you acknowledge the fact that women should have full human lives, you’re a feminist.”

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