The Pages That Echo

I’ve been reading a lot of classical fiction lately, which includes tales from decades or even centuries ago. I couldn’t help but feel the weight of how little had actually changed as I turned the pages. It seemed as though these writers, who wrote in different eras and places, had a window into the one I currently inhabit.

Take Jane Eyre as an example. Despite a society that expects her to be little, Charlotte Brontë’s heroine defies expectations. Jane challenges her affluent boss, Mr. Rochester, and asserts that she is on par with him in spirit rather than material money or prestige.

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me,” she says, and it’s this moment of defiance that hit me hardest.

I kept wondering: how many women, even today, are caught in nets they didn’t weave? How many are told, subtly or outright, that they’re less capable, less important, or simply less?

Then there’s The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. A modern classic, yes, but disturbingly close to the truths we don’t always want to confront. Women stripped of autonomy, defined only by their roles in society, existing for the benefit of others.

Reading it, I felt this deep sense of unease—because, for many women, Gilead isn’t a dystopia. It’s reality.

And it’s not just about the monumental injustices. It’s about the everyday moments—the interruptions in meetings, the lowered expectations, the silent sacrifices. It’s about the girl who hesitates to speak up in class, fearing she’ll sound “too bossy.”

Or the mother who works a double shift only to come home and hear, “But you’re just a mom.”

I found myself thinking of Virginia Woolf, her words from A Room of One’s Own still painfully relevant: a woman needs money and a room of her own to write. But really, don’t we all need more than that? A space to dream, to grow, to exist fully without having to fight for every inch of it?

I couldn’t shake the parallels between these stories and the world I live in. These books weren’t just about women—they were about humanity. About what happens when society silences, ignores, or diminishes one-half of its people.

Feminism, I realized, isn’t just about the grand gestures. It’s not about toppling structures overnight or shouting the loudest. It’s about the small, persistent voices that say, “I deserve better.”

It is about recognizing that women’s strength isn’t something to be measured against men’s, but something that stands on its own.

I thought of the suffragettes who fought for the vote, of the countless women who demanded their place at tables where they were never invited. And I thought of the women whose voices society silenced before they could even speak, preventing them from fighting.

What these books showed me, more than anything, is that feminism isn’t an abstract idea or a buzzword. It’s a mirror held up to society, forcing us to ask hard questions. Why are we still here? Why does the world still resist treating women as full, complex, deserving individuals?

And it isn’t just about women. Feminism is about building a world in which everyone—men, women, and all identities in between—can thrive without being constrained by obsolete norms.

So, as I closed the books and let their words settle in, I realized something simple but profound: feminism is hope.

I hope that my daughters, if I have them, will grow up in a world that values them for everything they are, recognizing their worth beyond the limited roles society expects them to fill.

I hope that, as a society, we will finally start listening to the Janes, the Offreds, and the countless real women whose stories still need to be heard and shared, giving them the platform and respect they’ve long deserved.

Because if there’s one thing these books taught me, it’s this: we have a long way to go, but we also have the courage to keep turning the page.

-Ritika Soni, certified content writer specializing in feminism, life, and mental health, with a broad interest in diverse subjects.