Daily Times

It will not be an exaggeration to state that the rhetoric ‘My body, my choice’ resounded more and more in the recent week. The society has been seen divided into two camps; one favor and other opposes the rhetoric. The majority of those who are against this rhetoric don’t know the intrinsic meaning of ‘My body, my choice’.

The rhetoric has been used in symbolic terms. The esoteric meaning attached to this rhetoric needs an academic insight to be comprehended. The rhetoric highlights the structural violence, injustices, and inequality inflicted on women of our society. The cognition allied with this rhetoric also contends for a gender-equal world with the least gender discrimination.

This is not the first slogan that has become hot-button. Many more simplistic slogans, in the previous Aurat Marches, have also been made controversial. So, the issue does not lie in the very nature of rhetoric and maxim scripted on placards. Opposed to this, the problem can be fixed with the mentalities who think so.

Even an arch portion of the society is not ready to comprehend the deep-down meaning attached to the rhetoric. They have fixed themselves. They have decided that their way of behavior and understanding is final. They, in most cases, might be the victim of the structural violence of patriarchy but they consider any antagonism to the incumbent structures as social deviance. Franz Fanon states in ‘Wretched of the Earth’ that the most difficult thing is to make the slave realize that one is slave. In a similar account, our society is the victim of patriarchy but still, many more can be seen engrossed in defending the traits of the patriarchal system.

The rhetoric contends for restructuring the system of patriarchy. Patriarchy has historically marginalized the women and pushed them towards the subaltern section of society. This marginalized section of society feels that they have strategically kept impotent to be ruled. The Aurat March and slogans raised in Aurat March have defied the centuries-long rule of men and their hegemony.

The rhetoric counters rationally the social construction that has negated equality between man and woman. It also claims that the values regarding superiority and inferiority have been socially constructed and artificially structured. To comprehend this social injustice and inequality, feminists have raised many slogans including ‘My body, my choice’ to quell this structural inequality and injustice. The comprehensive rhetoric that is being resounded actually shatters the corridors of oppression and slavery in which women have been chained. The rhetoric stands for manifesting equal rights and freedom in true spirit.

The system of patriarchy has kept women marginalized, oppressed and at a lower ebb in the decision making process regarding their lives. Consequently, power has been shifted from being balanced to one extreme. This extreme concentration of power has authorized men to decide the fate of girls and women regarding their life, education, life partner and patterns? To substantiate it, in the rural area of Pakistan, girls are forcefully married, without their consent, to the aggrieved family for compensation. Compensation of what! Compensation of wrong done by man.

Moreover, the rhetoric is a conscious effort to offer to escape to women from all the injustices and inequalities being inflicted on them. The rhetoric discourages all kind of injustices in the form of; honor killing, acid attack, harassment of women at public places and offices, child rape, women labor in the form of childbirth, minor girls marriages to an aged man, forced child marriages, the Vani customs of giving girls to aggrieved family for ending disputes and that of domestic violence.

This whole process of social construction has long been cultured. This culturing cannot be processed without power. In this game of power politics, powerful decides the rules of the game. In this game, the women were equalized with inferior features like that of weakness and cowardice. The slogan ‘My body, my choice’ symbolically dares the inferiority of women and challenges the attribute concomitant to manhood.

Manhood and masculinity have remained in power for centuries. This enduring power-centric hegemony has imparted them with legitimacy to define and color things. They provide the explanations of phenomena in the way as their interests are vested in. So, ‘My body, my choice’ is the continuity of the consciousness that challenges and resists the manhood’s long rule.

Every single slogan of Aurat March, including the aforesaid one, directs to shatter the already persisting hegemony of patriarchy. Each of these slogans and rhetoric is nascent steps to restructure the societal patterns. The supporters of the rhetoric contend that neither man is dominant nor woman is submissive. If it is presented so, it is because of the social fabrication. Therefore, the Aurat March and all the slogans related to this, struggle to make a gender-equal world, where the woman is considered as an equal human as that of man. The rhetoric ‘My body, my soul’ is the expression of that.

The writer can be reached at anwaryakhail@gmail.com