Pakistan: An uphill struggle for gender equality
What a “win for women,” said The Nation in an editorial. On International Women’s Day this week, thousands of Pakistani women across the country turned out to rally for equality, both under the law and in the home. The third annual Aurat March—Urdu for women’s march—brought together women “from different walks of life” to agitate for basic rights that both Islam and Pakistan’s secular constitution afford them but which are often denied them in practice. Protesters demanded access to education and freedom from violence—more than 1,000 women are murdered here in the name of honor every year—as well as an end to sexist demands. At last year’s march, a placard reading “How do I know where your socks are?” caused men to erupt in outrage that their wives might dare refuse to serve their every need. Fear that slogans would be similarly provocative this year sparked a “media tirade against the movement,” mostly on radio and television. Yet despite threats from Islamists, the demonstrations went ahead peacefully in almost every major city, with the only major disturbance occurring in Islamabad, where a few rioting men threw stones and injured several marchers.
The day’s success doesn’t mean Pakistan has suddenly become a friendlier place for women, said Inamullah Marwat in the Daily Times. On a talk show ahead of the march, a discussion of the slogan “My body, my consent” degenerated into a verbal brawl between women’s rights activist Marvi Sirmed and writer and director Khalil-ur-Rehman. Rehman lit into Sirmed using
“such language as we only hear in the streets”—he told the campaigner that “no one would even spit on your body” and called her a “cheap woman” who should “shut up.”
The mainstream media denounced Rehman’s behavior, but the comments posted under every Pakistani news article about the flap were overwhelmingly misogynist. Many Pakistanis find the idea that a woman might refuse her husband intimacy to be un-Islamic. Others believe that it is obscene for women to even mention their bodies in public. Women’s empowerment still sparks waves of male anger.
Yet feminist activists have not been blameless, said Rehman Malik in The Nation. I’m wholeheartedly for their cause and I support the march, but it is upsetting to see women on TV engaging in “cross-firing and heated arguments” that are “insulting for both sides equally.” Women and men alike would benefit from a more civilized discourse.
But you can’t change society by being polite, said Sherry Rehman in The News International. Rights don’t just “fall into anyone’s lap, not in Pakistan, not anywhere.” We are literally fighting for our lives—a woman dies in childbirth every 20 minutes in this country, “mostly because they are married off too young.” Some 50 percent of Pakistani women have no say in their health-care decisions. And dozens of women every year have acid hurled in their faces for daring to reject a suitor. In a country defined by such abuse and inequality, “it’s a little amoral to not be radical.”