Daily Times

Social media is abuzz with the criticism of choosinggraphic description of “Hoors” to motivate the Faithful. Such inducements, indeed, lead less to a life of piety and more to objectification of women. The most ironical part of such sermons is picking at the base instincts of man and even worse sexualizing the heavenly rewards. Often the thin veil of piety is unable to conceal the preachers’ reveling in the vivid illustrations of the sexualized rewards in heaven.The avowed aim of the activity, however, remains to be inspiring the listeners to seek the approval of the Almighty for admission in His paradise. This may be another debate yet where it is argued that “Hoor” is neither a person nor categorized as a gender even, in the religious context, but is an adjective only, devoid of gender. When faith and spirituality should have served to reverse the rising tide of objectification of women, it is being employed for exactly the reverse purposes. Admittedly, our religion does acknowledge the sexual instinct of human beings without rejecting it and does not celebrate celibacy like many other systems of faith, but at the same time there are no basis to believe that this acknowledgement has come at the expense of women.

The social and cultural constructs are the direct products of faith in our part of the world. In a society like ours, where the ideal culture is shaped by the professed values of religion and godliness, real culture may be much distanced from such spiritual and spirited ideas though.The conscience and consciousness of the clerics too, like the rest of the society,is defined by the social and cultural constructs where the ideal and real cultures exist almost parallel to each other so no sign of their converging anywhere, not at least in the domains ofdignified treatment of women and above all security and safety for them.

A cursory view of the cultural expressions of our people is enough to reveal the misogynistic threads running throughout, whether it’s folk tales, songs or the modern day electronic tools for dissemination of message

It is not rare that in sermonizing men to stop their women folk from “immodest ways” (another social and cultural construct) the preachers conjure such erotic analogies and imagery that the sermon itself may be rendered to “for adults only”. This serves to expose our clerics and also our society as sex obsessed. This obsession with women’s way of dressing up and the appearance and personality and of course their bodies is not only an expression of the morbidity but also how the tools of controlling women; shrinking private and public spaces; and limiting their agency is presented in the garb of faith, modesty and decency.

A cursory view of the cultural expressions of our people is enough to reveal the misogynistic threads running throughout, whether it’s folk tales, songs or the modern day electronic tools for dissemination of message. Have we not come across, and too often, the instances of glorification of stalking, objectification, rape culture and polygamous relationships outside marriage in the popular culture?

It is not only the duty of the rights advocates and the feminists to create awareness on it but also of the clergy; educational institutions; law enforcement agencies, media and definitely of the public health professionals working in the field of psychology for the risks and threats involved in the objectification of women leading to social and health problems like sexual violence, deviance, low self-esteem, depression and eating disorders to list a few issues. Objectification of women had definitely been there since history in one form or another. Only synergistic efforts can make a dent in this struggle to say NO to societal tolerance of objectification of women, and in the struggle to reject this trend, let’s call out who do so.

The author is a gender and human rights specialist