Faiqa Mansab Jehangir
in this day and age, it’s mindboggling that women demanding freedom and equality are treated with contempt and disdain. The participants of Aurat March in Pakistan found it out the hard way. Women in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad took out the march for the third year in a row, carrying placards with messages and jokes ranging from serious to funny to bawdy. It was the largest congregation of women seen yet for this purpose.
And when it got over, a massive backlash erupted. Why? What could have possibly threatened the patriarchy so much that trolls on Twitter swarmed the pages of these brave women? After all, women have marched before all over the world demanding same things. They have marched for their rights to inherit property, to vote, to education in the West in the fifties and sixties, and then in the seventies for the right to abortion. And lest we forget, they were opposed too!
Patriarchy a mindset
Patriarchy is not just about men. It’s a mindset, prevalent in women as well. Post the march, the women who posted disparaging posts on Twitter and Facebok about their sisters for being shameless, elitist and liberal are also part of the mindset. Largely, the rage against Aurat March was because they spoke the words they shouldn’t have. The participants spoke openly about male genital, the placards showed naked pictures sent by men to women. Basically, the point they wanted to underline was consent; however, it got lost or ignored in the man-made rage that followed.
The rage was essentially not about the language used, but the right to use that language. Language is power. Furthermore, the words and images were also about sexual power. One placard read, ‘Warm your own food and your bed’. Another read, ‘You do it and you’re a stud, I do it and I’m a slut’. Yet another said, ‘My body, my decision’.
Probing questions
Divorced and happy’, read one of the placards. It must have shocked the patriarchy. They must be bad women if they are because which ‘good’ woman would be happy if divorced. If you are not miserable, you are a terrible woman, especially if go to town with your new husband. And then, this patriarchal coterie, red in the face, will shout it’s against their religion. And if you argue that Islam gives permission for divorce and re-marriage, they will go purple in the face and blurt out words like ‘culture’ and society’. Aurat March is asking question like, what is more important — the monolithic patriarchy, the oppressive concepts of culture and society or the religion which gives women the right to choose their husbands, the right to divorce, the right to property, the right to re-marry. Their answer of course would be anything that keeps women ‘in their place’, right under the thumb of patriarchy.
Nida Usman, the founder of Lahore Education Research Network and Women in Law, says, "The march was a liberating experience. I’ve never felt so safe in a public place. I went with my four-year-old son and my 65-year-old aunt. It was beyond age, gender and class boundaries. There were students, teachers, maids, etc. There was sisterhood and solidarity."
Women movements across the globe have earned them the right to vote, inheritance, more opportunities for work, etc. Which of these has been detrimental to societies and men? How have men suffered because of these changes in law? Men, however, continue to feel threatened with women coming into public spaces and uniting against patriarchy. Equal pay is still an issue. Equal opportunities, too. But how can women have equal opportunities when they are still fighting for education, for the right to divorce, for the ownership of their own bodies?
Critics said the participants are a privileged lot, so they have no idea about the struggles of the oppressed women. Maybe that’s true. But that doesn’t disqualify them from supporting those who aren’t. There’s something called empathy. Men should try it!
from The Tribune https://ift.tt/2HRtA8G
via Today’s News Headlines
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