I had an interesting conversation with a German woman a few days after the Aurat March. We were sitting by a pool in a beautiful house that was being prepared for anight-time pool party. It was one of those quiet but blurry nights, not too warm, not cold enough. Our friend had just come back from Paris with a suitcase full of deliciously smelly cheese and we had been stuffing our faces full of it for an hour. In a moment of content quiet, someone decided to mention the Aurat March.My German friend launched in to a full scale attack. How someone could be so angry with a tummy full of cheese is beyond me.
While repeatedly asserting that she had done a lot of activism in her day, she angrily questioned why the majority of Pakistani feminists hadn’t taken their house help to the march. Why they had made placards in English and not Urdu. That they were being irresponsible by forcing a conversation the country wasn’t ready for.
So much vitriol and anger in her slight frame, while the light bounced off the pool and on to her wildly gesticulating hands. ThePont l’Évêquelay forgotten on the table and I fiddled with the butter-knife, wondering if eating cheese while someone was so upset would be rude. There was no point arguing with someone who couldn’t see the irony in being an educated white woman sat in a third world country in a home that could easily fit a hundred poor families complaining about Pakistani activists on the frontline.
Antifeminism isn’t a movement based on curing an old societal ill, it exists solely to curb another movement – feminism. That antifeminists here are generally just as privileged as the feminists they seek to silence is disregarded
But that is at the end of the day the crux of the matter: Privileged people silencing other privileged people for trying to help those that are way below the poverty line. While my friend is white and educated, and doesn’t fit the description of your average Pakistani antifeminist, she is privileged – just as they are. Antifeminism isn’t a movement based on curing an old societal ill, it exists solely to curb another movement – feminism. That antifeminists here are generally just as privileged as the feminists they seek to silence is disregarded.
At the end of the day, very few of us awful activists can truly understand what it means to go hungry. To actively fear being killed in the name of honour. Very few of us have seen our children die for lack of medication. So yes, there is a disconnect. But antifeminists are just as disconnected. Does that mean, however, that feminists shouldn’t fight for women’s rights?
Who will, then? Do you send your weak and infirm in to battle? Do you line the frontlines with those victims of the patriarchy that are most vulnerable? That will likely die at the hands of their communities? Should we place the burden of activism on women like Jamila, a Sindhi activist who was murdered by her husband for being too vocal on women’s rights?
Feminists are well aware that the country is not ready for this conversation. Perhaps more aware than those of us who aren’t actively trying to make a difference in their communities. What they are also aware of, unfortunately, is that the country will never be prepared for this change. And that is not the fault of feminists. But they, nonetheless, have taken on what is essentially a thankless task.
Classism within feminism has been touched upon in many instances. In Pakistan in particular, there is a noticeable divide between liberal female activists and the women they seek to help. By easily deriding ‘rich’ privileged women, and the issues they try to bring to light, antifeminism perhaps unknowingly seeks to further distress women beneath the poverty line. Women who are not empowered and who rely on the patriarchy in some form or the other also may oppose feminism. These women may not suffer from internalized misogyny but instead are dealing with severe ills and consequences of the patriarchy. It’s incredibly dangerous.
So no, we do not put this burden on women who are suffering so much. We do not blame women who do not support feminism. We shoulder the burden, and as you’ve said, we’re privileged. We just might survive it.
Zeina is a British writer, poet and businesswoman based in Karachi and London