To be a feminist … in Pakistan
As I set about being an upwardly mobile, modern, young man in a big city I knew I had to be a feminist.
For one I’ve always been attracted to words, concepts and ideas starting with ‘femin’ as did the most fashionable ism in those days. For two, feminist gatherings provided the only opportunity to meet girls (and of course women and aunties), without having to spend money on chai samosa. And for three, I found feminism practically useful and wholly suited to my lifestyle.
I am, by nature a lazy person. OK, maybe it’s my choice but I like to believe my choice is also determined by nature. I view and value my laziness in a scientific way. I am living proof of Newton’s law which states that a man at rest will remain at rest until an outside force acts on him. I am also born without a single chivalrous bone in me. The two qualities put together made me a reluctant gentleman who is expected to treat females in prescribed manners – opening doors, not smoking in their presence, always picking and dropping them, never letting them pay, spreading one’s jacket over mud so the lady doesn’t soil her shoes … Feminism gave me the liberty to be my mean, miserly and Newtonly self. As a feminist I was required not to offer my seat to a standing woman only because of her gender, and it suited me alright. I wasn’t going to offer it anyway.
Above all, I found feminism liberating. I grew up in a nondescript locality in a small city where every woman was khala ji and had the right to slap you in the face if she heard you swear or caught you smoking; two of the khala jis ran home-based businesses to boost household income; where every older girl was a baji who could ask you to fetch a frog or two for her biology experiment and in return would let you watch her cut them up; where some girls wore burqa to college of their own wish, simply because they felt comfortable; where a woman used to routinely shout at and often beat up her husband in public, with her hands and once with slippers. There was the nonagenarian Amma Jantay who wore two-inches thick glasses, chewed coal, occasionally helped with household chores and once a month took off her only shalwar qameez in our courtyard to wash it while she bathed, and then lay down on a charpoy stark naked to dry herself while her clothes dried on the line.
I grew up with all these characters without trying to understand, much less judge or question them. But I couldn’t explain why a pretty girl would want to hide behind a burqa, a housewife would turn into a business‘man’, and a withering old woman would use my home as a naturalist resort? Their behavior seemed too low brow to my English-medium school mores. And the worst was, no one in the neighbourhood seemed to mind. The husband beater was considered as much in the wrong, but in a way right, as a wife beater. No more, no less. Both were administered the same advice: if you have to beat your spouse, do it in the privacy of your home. Gender was never mentioned as a factor in this or most other issues. The only gender difference I was aware of was that girls at a certain age stopped playing with boys.
When I heard the vision of big city feminists – of a girl child treated equally or better than her brothers, of a young woman making her decisions independently and confidently, of a mature woman in control of her life and helping others around her control theirs, of a female living her life to her full potential – I knew that they did not know the woman they were talking about lived in every house in my mohallah. And that liberated me from the embarrassment of owning all the khala jis, bajis and Amma Jantays of my childhood.
After all these years of association with people who eat and excrete feminism, however, I have come to the realisation that I don’t like their company. They are generally humourless people with a hooded outlook. They listen to every conversation and read every piece of writing, only to point out latent misogyny in the speaker or writer. They despise anything said in a lighter vein about women; jokes are absolutely forbidden. They see a woman only as the wronged party and not as a human being with her own aspirations, pleasures and pains, challenges, failures, and achievements. The ideology – if it can be termed one – has no resonance with my own adult experience. I have not known women in Pakistan to be oppressed, weak, or subjugated, any more than all Pakistanis are. If anything, some women in my circle of family and friends are stronger, braver, and more intelligent than men.
Neither have I known men in Pakistan to be oppressors and violators of rights of women, any more than they oppress and violate other men, transsexuals and children, when they have the will and means to do so. Conversely, I know men who share household chores, lovingly raise children, and treat men and women with equal civility.
Demanding ‘women rights’ before human rights is what dehumanises women. It is also a convenient ploy to ignore the wholesale violation of human rights in our beloved motherland which is not made up of fiendishly powerful men and miserably powerless women only. Seeing and painting one-dimensional reality is what puts genders on path of confrontation: if feminism stands for the rights of women, then we need another ism to safeguard the rights of weak, meek and geek men, yet another for persons of indeterminate sex … and who do they fight against?
My feminist friends borrow their ideology from another world, another reality. In my world, in my reality men, women and transsexuals have to unite against discrimination of any kind against any individual or gender if we are to make this a society of equals. In pyara Pakistan there is oppression galore. We can either fight against this overarching oppression by powerful men and women against the weak, or we can help the oppressors by pitting one gender against the other.
Masud Alam is an Islamabad-based writer, columnist and journalism trainer. He can be reached at masudalam@yahoo.com
The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.
Having grown up in Lahore, I think one gets a dose of liberalism whether you like it or not. My grandmother use to say that we may call ourselves Sunni but our actions are those of Sufi. We go to darbars, we have our peer fakirs etc. But Masud things took a nose dive during Zias time. He imposed his views on the general populous while drinking alcohol in private. I am proudly feminist having a strong mother figure, a strong grandmother, sisters who are individuals with independent thought and careers.
So feminism lives in Pakistan but it need to be reiterated so to remind people what is really ours.
Mr.Masud Alam,Pakistan is a deeply misogynistic society .Your views are very one dimensional.Being a woman and having spent my adult life there ,I can safely say that the liberated ones exist in the less than one percent of our society.The majority that lives in the rural areas and cities have absolutely no voice,no rights and no value. Before setting out to write a ridiculous blog like this you need to venture out of our fancy little capital city !
I dont know where in Pakistan you grew up but I havent seen it. You are no where close to being a feminist, I doubt you even know what it means. Feminism is a collection of movement and ideologies that aim at defining, establishing and defending equal polictical, economic and social rights of women. No one in Pakistan is fighting for women to have more rights than men. Did you miss the news on Malala and the so many other news articles published on closing down of girls schools in pakistan, women aid workers getting killed and abused etc etc. Sure men face oppression too but that does not mean that women and men are equal in pakistan. Have you ever tried asking a women what its like? Its impossible to do anything without constantly being judged by men in our society, who limit our roles to being just housewives and care takers of men. We are hardly allowed to make our own decisions, dads, bothers and uncles consider it their right to decide for us. You need to go to the real Pakistan, to the villages where honor killing is normal practice, move your lazy behind and actually go see real women in Pakistan, talk to them, hear their stories…and you will know.
I agree, the writer appears to have no clue regarding what exactly is feminism or feminist theory. But I feel slowly Pakistan is improving the laws for the protection of women which in turn, in future, will empower women. Currently, the women representation in the parliament is a good sign that in few years it has achieved 22 percent representation (agreed its peanuts!). Our target should be 50 percent representation in the parliament, which other countries such as Sweden, have achieved over a large period of time. With such equality, more laws can be made for the protection and empowerment of women.
I read on, but wasn’t expecting the article to be so interesting. It is all real.
Are you serious? This is satire right? “seeing and painting one-dimensional reality”
Feminism about giving women EQUAL political, economic and social rights which unfortunately our society has collectively failed to do. A woman is a woman’s worst enemy because we let men and traditions shape our decisions and don’t stand up for our rights.
I also couldn’t agree more with comments of Bilquis and Rukhsana. It shows that will people like you – we still have hope.
Look at all these dislikes in the comments. Can’t wait to leave this country for good. Country is filled with hypocrites.
A.A
The thoughts which i you have shared, i am agreesing that we should help out the weak not any gender which is distracting our society.
I dont understand the writer’s point of view here….what his ideology? he restricts women’s role as khalaji , amma jhantay , muhallah’s anuty’s only…where these women’s are only restricted to do the execution part of men’s decision …where women’s wants equality he thinks its a foreign propoganda…….
why dont all the so called “Liberals” understand women want equal treatment not the lead…simple isn’t?
I see the bloggers like to kick others for their views but can not take a punch themselves.
Shallow as I expected.
How clueless are you? You live in a country a little girl got shot because she advocated education for girls
we in subcontinent have to learn a lot from west about feminism and equal respect.we live in socities where Rapes,honor killings are common place and,equal schooling and education is not tolerated using voilence shows how intolerant socities we are and need to change our political structure.
Finally, words of common sense. I am surprised that Dawn publishes such type of opinions which clearly describe the experiences and feelings of majority with central views. The issues of women suffering are indeed human issues and should be dealt by all of us. We indeed need to review them with the right lens to actually get to solutions rather than seeking solutions based on ideology which really is not applicable to our society.
What rubbish. Women in Pakistan don’t face more discrimination than men? What world do you live in? How many men cannot go out in the streets, at any time of the day, for fear of harrassment? How many men have acid thrown in their faces, compared to the number of women? How many men are told that they cannot work and actively participate in society because they will dishonour the family? How many men’s characters have been unjustly tarred, or have been considered “used material” simply because they have gotten a divorce? How many men are raped, without the getting justice, compared to women?
Yes, women are human. They face the same problems all humans in Pakistan do. But they face additional problems that are exclusive to them. Open your eyes.
It is always great learning to read about other’s experience. Though, feminism should not be confused with women’s rights or womanism. Feminism is selfish and derogatory to all others, at least that is the basis of the movement. Women’s rights is about living with equal respect for women compared to others.
Masud, you are so full of yourself. Your column says Masud Works. Half of what you have written is about “you”. We now even know which bones you have and which part of your brain in empty. The only part I agree with in your column is that you are “LAZY”. If you were not lazy you would have bothered to think why did the Khala who layed naked on a charpoy had only one shalwar qameez. You would have discoverd there is something called “feminization of poverty”. If you were not lazy you would have taken the trouble to ponder what caused the in your childhood “heaven” to beat up her husband. You would have learnt that she had a mental illness or she was sexually abused to brutalized by the same husband who she is hitting now. If you were not lazy you would have bothered to take some time to study that feminism did not start in Canada but in India an Egypt and in 1995 women of the world got together in China at the 4th World Confernece on Women and declared ” Women’s Rights are Human Rights”. We work for women right and feminism because we are not lazy and we know women suffer while educated men like you choose to romanticize gender equality in a society that does not blink an eye when a girl is killed by her brother becasue she did not want to marry her cousin. So wake up and smell the coffee Lazy Man and read some Urdu newspapers and start counting how many Pakistani women and girls are killed ” DAILY” — that is why we feminists work and will continue to work.
That was simply brilliant. Couldn’t agree more with you.