Daily Times

For the last few days, a debate on Aurat March (Women March) and the freedom of women is going on in mainstream media, social media, and in society as a whole. This debate created further hype when Marvi Sarmad, an ardent supporter of the Aurat March, faced backlash by Pakistan’s famous drama writer, Khalilur Rahman Qamar in a TV talk show. Although backlash has always been used against the women in a male-dominated society like Pakistan, which are not a new phenomenon here, the major backlash and threats from anti-women circles and severe criticism started after some contradictory slogans were chanted in Aurat Azadi March last year.

Being a researcher and PhD scholar at Shanghai University, China, I chose a topic of women’s movements of Pakistan to write a paper on it. I started reading about the history of the movements and came in contact with many old and new women rights activists. I was really surprised to know how major elements of Pakistani history regarding women’s movements have been ignored in our textbooks. However, I traveled from Shanghai to Frankfurt, Germany, to present a research paper about the historiography of the women movements led by the Women Action Forum (WAF) and the Sindhyani Tehrik (Struggle of Sindhi Women) at the 25th Congress of DAVO held at Goethe University, Frankfurt, from October 4-6, 2018. It was, indeed, a great experience to present a paper on this very important topic, but a wonderful experience in this regard happened at Shanghai University in the same month.

Slogans like “Mera jism, meri marzi” can damage women’s liberation cause, because although marchers have their own interpretation of such slogans, it is not always necessary that everybody can interpret these slogans the same way

A talk of mine on the same topic was held by the Centre for South Asian Studies, Shanghai University. This lecture delivered by me will always remain one of the pleasant experiences for me because the audience of the talk was amazing with different backgrounds. I received a round of applause from the audience but had also faced severe criticism. The interesting part of this experience was that, before I started my talk, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy’s documentary “A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness” was shown to the audience. I could see the facial expressions of the audience during watching the documentary. I could easily read expressions of anger and sorrow on the faces of all audiences, especially girls belonging to different countries of the Middle East, Europe and also Bangladesh. Though I could see such expressions on faces of Pakistani students, one of those PhD students was continuously laughing during watching the documentary. I was surprised to see such behavior from that only student. He expressed his views after my talk was over and said that all story shown in the documentary was planted because, according to his views, “Chinoy is an agent of the western countries which have been using her against Pakistan and the Islamic world.” According to this guy, “we, the Muslims, are only civilized people in the world whom Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy is blaming and these blames are baseless but nothing else.”

The purpose behind revealing the aforementioned story is that the male-dominated society is not a phenomenon of rural areas and uneducated men only but the urban and the educated people are also not free from this curse. This is the male-dominated society that favors and defends the misogyny and surprisingly misogyny is not the matter of concern of our country only, but it has been practiced the world over as well.

According to a recent study by UNDP, “Nearly 90 percent of the world’s population – of every gender – holds some prejudice against women”. This study represents a population of 75 countries. Study shows that out of 10, nine people hold such beliefs that women are inferior to men. Surprisingly, Pakistan is on the top list about such sexual bias against women. The study report reveals “The prejudiced views include: that men are better politicians and business leaders than women; that going to university is more important for men than women; and that men should get preferential treatment in competitive job markets. The percentage of those holding at least one sexist bias was largest in Pakistan – where 99.81pc of people held similar prejudices – followed by Qatar and Nigeria, both at 99.73pc”.

On the one hand, the constitution of Pakistan advocates equality of all citizens without any difference of sex and gender, as Article 25 states “All citizens are equal under the law and are entitled to equal protection of law”. Article 25 (2) further states that “there shall be no discrimination on the basis of sex alone”. Despite such guaranty by the constitution, still, the male-dominance not only prevails but thrives as well. It simply means that if the citizens of Pakistan do not follow the constitution, they should be brought under trial. It is very unfortunate that, on the one hand, political activists, who are blamed by the state authorities, to work against the constitution, are being dealt harshly, then why the same law is not being applied to those who breach the law in terms of misogyny, etc?

As for as the Aurat March and some controversial slogans are concerned, I believe the organizers of the march should revise their strategy. These controversial slogans like “Mera jism, meri marzi (My body, my choice)” can damage the women’s liberation cause, because although marchers have their own interpretation of such slogans, it is not always necessary that everybody can interpret these slogans in the same way. Every person deconstructs/interprets slogans according to his/her way of understanding. Simultaneously, being a researcher, I believe these slogans chanted in the Aurat March do not support the cause of those suppressed and marginalized women, who are, every day, facing domestic violence, being killed in the name of so-called honor, facing acid attacks, sexually abused and harassed, being exploited as only sexual object, etc. These slogans can only represent the women hailing from elitist or upper-middle class. At the same, I do not oppose these slogans as the men of right-wing and many others oppose, but I simply intend to convey that strategically these slogans are not in favor of women movement in a society like Pakistan.

For me, women cannot be free until and unless the state and the governments take action against those do not abide by the law. At the same, laws about women’s rights already prevailing must be implemented properly. As a law already passed by the Sindh Assembly does not allow a girl under 18 to marry. Likewise, in Punjab, the age limit for a girl to get married is a minimum of 16 years. But, despite having these laws, many cases of underage marriages have been reported and those not being reported are in numbers more than reported ones. Likewise, the marriage of underage girls with men of their father’s age and marriages without girls’ own choice, etc, are the very common social evils that take place every day in our country. Also, several women are killed in the name of honor in Sindh and Punjab every year.

Hence, the state machinery and governments must come out of some open and also hidden compromises with those forces, who want to keep the half population of the country, the women, to always remain under control of men, so that women must not enjoy equality with men. Simultaneously, the organizers of Aurat March should also make such a strategy, which should further enhance people’s trust in their struggle rather than keeping the people, specifically men and women of lower and lower-middle-class, away from the march and women liberation movements.

The writer teaches at the Department of Pakistan Studies, NUML, Islamabad