It’s been 5 weeks almost if not
less when ‘flak prone’ Aurat March by Girls at Dhabas took place in different
parts of Pakistan. It ignited controversies and ultimately keyboard-niazis to
put forth their irrelevant and stupid misogynist memes and posts which were
quite unequivocally similar.
In a country where women who are strangled to death in the name of honor killing
and women who are gang-raped, are to be blamed of their deaths and tragedies by
comments like ‘aese kaam karne walo ka anjaam yehi hota hai’ or ‘bht acha hua
Islam ki touheen krahi thi’, Aurat March was sure to encounter a lot of
misogynist hate if not negligence of it. But what came as a major shock was
Pakistani women’s internalized misogyny and with cherry on top was sheer
stupidity of misinterpreting the context, the purpose of this march was
unexpected into complete idiocy.
Patriarchy perpetuates the fake concept of men subjugating the society by
suppressing women in every way possible. It feeds in the lies that women by
nature are bound to nurture the men around them and satisfy their needs, that
the cycle of woman life starts with taking care of her brother and father and
end ups on the context of serving their husband and sons. People are so deep
vested in oppressive patriarchy that they get offended when told otherwise.
Similarly when Aurat March came, demanding rights of women, people got offended
as those females should be ashamed of demanding such things.
So Lets face it, Being born a female and that too in a Pakistani conservative
society, you are more likely to hear biased comments like ‘Woh khaana q lagaye?
Who larhka hai’, ‘array woh thukkawa aya hai ussay chai bana k dou’, ‘tum jeans
shirt na pehna karo larhki ho, ghair mard ghoortay hain’, or when you are to
attend an event its more like a deathwish to ask your parents for permission and
if given it is followed by ‘your curfew starts at 8 so you better be back by
then ’ but if you were a boy, the story would’ve been different. And statements
like ‘shaadi k baad shohar k saath ghoomna’ like he would be any different than
them. Its so lethal in many ways that we dont even get a fraction of freedom.
The word freedom for women are attached with presence and absence of a man. He
decides for her and when she gets out of hand, strangles her to death.
So when we shout the slogans like ‘Khana khud garam karlou’, ‘ghar ka kaam sab
ka kaam’, why do you suddenly accuse us by proving your idiocy into sheer
negligence of the notion? Are you really this dumb to not notice the brutal
behavior female gender go through or do you chose it to be that way? Are you
seriously this much mama’s boy that you get offended when told to warmup your
own food? I mean if women can do it so does can men. No?
Just to make it understandable, by aforementioned demands we never meant women
denying household chores but instead a demand encompassing many realms. These
slogans were basically in reply to men who does domestic violence on the mere
prospect of when food was cold or ‘kamau b main aur kaam bhi mai karu’. But
instead of understanding the context here, people will argue that there are
better issues for women then this and these are women tasks because ‘Islam said
so’ or they will rewind women that they cant do men tasks so why demand
otherwise? People who share the same last narrative are advised to quit their
respective institution and to sit at home because if you are this much
illiterate to not know that today working women ratio is almost 50% and that
same for rural areas, then there’s mo point of just visiting your institution.
While these are considered small irrelevant issues raised by feminist to follow
western world, these happen to result in drastic tragedies like domestic
violence, rape, harassment, mobility and even murder.
Theres this social myth in our society that if a girl dress up well then it is
just for the pleasure of men so they can eye-rape her and not even considering
‘maybe she does it for herself’ and you won’t get a straight logical answer for
this one. Somehow relevant to this there was a slogan ‘mera jism meri marzi’ to
which I saw a Maulvi on Facebook giving a lecture that ‘mera jism meri marzi’ is
so against Islam because our jism belongs to Allah and we should not legitimize
it as our body. Like seriously dude? I mean no disrespect to that maulvi when I
say that the slogan “mera jism meri marzi’ was on a whole level in another
perspective which was that it’s our body and so it depends on us what to wear
and what not.
Then that same maulvi went on proclaiming how women are following the footsteps
of satan and how wrong it is to demand your men to do house chores and other
rights. Its funny at the same time depressing to see how the mere thought of
women demanding their rights made him active to give lecture on ‘what women
should do and what not to do’ but when headlines of men killing women on the
basis of honor killing never faze him or when men use expletives in their
so-called political or whatever disputes directed to opponent’s female
relatives, why doesn’t he lecture men then? Since he is a man, he is forgiven
but when a woman ask you to respect her body and personal space then Oh what a
sin it is. She is an incarnate of satan himself. Remember Hazrat Muhammad (SAW)
used to do every single chore by himself even mending His shoes.
It is sickening to see 7 year olds being kidnapped, raped and then murdered.
What is their fault? Aint they a little too young to go though such brutality? I
get that after Zainab incident, a huge protest was witnessed throughout the
nation but what if by speaking beforehand of women’s rights we take
precautionary measures just to ensure nothing of this sort happens again with
another 7 year old or any other human? What is the fault of a housewife who is
just too busy in doing her house chores that when her man returns home and
demands food, she gives him food a bit late and for which she is beaten to
death? Can you answer what was her fault? What of that woman whose husband
accuses her of cheating on him and instead doing it himself whereas his wife is
innocent? Doesn’t it faze you? No offense but our society stinks. It stinks of
hidden bruises and failed marriages which go on for decades.
And to answer that question No, it doesn’t faze you and your stupid ego but what
does is a girl holding a placard that says ‘khana khud garam karlou’ then all
hell breaks loose. Then you get offended and make fun of her.
What angers me the most are the women who support this stupid idiocy by saying
things like ‘Unacceptable’ ‘behayi’ ‘this isn’t feminism’ ‘I don’t need
feminism, I have Islam’ and most derogatory ‘inkey parents should slap them’.
Like women it’s not only our rights we are fighting for, it’s yours too. Get
your facts straight first before belittling others. Feminism means the choice of
equality and freedom. The freedom to do house chores, the freedom to hangout
with your friends without the fear of getting late past curfew, the freedom to
actively take part in what YOU deem right and the most important one the freedom
to say NO.
The point is people in our society including myself are so emotional that they
never considering giving a second thought to issues big or small like this one
and end up debating that whatever we say we are right. Then there are those
Islam-forbids-to-do-so kind of people who themselves don’t even know anything
about Islam but just to suit their purpose they act like faithful Islam
preachers.
Its high time we stop these notions and dumb practices. If women deserve no
superiority then so does men. Raise your children well and teach them equality
of men and women. For it will affect your children’s upbringing in some way or
another.