Behind the Iron Purdah

binoo:

:)

i smiled….even after articulating this article you had to come back and spell it carefully…I just want to clarify here that I am neither opposed nor in favor of those who want to wear hijab. That is a personal choice and I am all for it. What I was trying to talk about here was the insidious trend towards removing women (or women removing themselves) from the public sphere..

hijab is a fashion statement not a religious one…

lve

t

I think as the time progress, the participation of the women has evolved in all sphere of life in Pakistan.You take any university, top scorers are girls, any office whether government or private , you will find women and their number is growing day by day.When It comes to hijab, I do agree with you it is really a discreation not an obligation both in Islam and in society.

Imtiaz84 is right and well said ... very nicely put article bina sucg issues need to be debated more and more

re:#26 by ranjit
Most of Pakistan is tribal. From what i have read, tribal men in Pak would not miss women if all women were to be exterminated (as u suggest). I am told that pathans of NWFP are comfortable with homosexuality and bestiality. A common joke that is told in that part of the world is that a bird flies over that area with its rear end covered with one wing for fear of the Pathan!
On a more serious note, i do not know what is right. Is it good to be conservative or is it good to be a liberal?
Islamic fundoos are wrong when they force women to wear hijab just because they can`t see them as their equals. At the same time, the much touted women`s freedom in the West has some bad side to it. I see women happily married for many years suddenly getting divorced because husband has probably grown tired of the marriage and goes fishing in greener patures! Then there is the teenage pregnancy, single motherhood etc etc. One wonders where the women`s lib has taken the women in the West. Visitng India recently, i see Indian women falling prey to the same maladies as the western women did in the 60s. The middle class Indian women are breaking loose and they are forging new identities but in the process they are giving up their age old customs which they view as binding them to some steroetypes.
Buddha was right when he advocated the middle path.
Sridhar

(maaf kiji’aye post thoRi lambi ho ga’ee hay)

rabia # 12:

well said:

The muhala-mullahs in Pakistan are a product of the culture and don`t reflect Islamic values, they just use the religion as a means of control.

and

Anyhow, my basic point was women are and always have been on the short end of the stick. Pakistan is no different than the rest of the world.


…the insidious trend is nothing new…it is human nature to grab power…power tolerates not vacuum…

the dynamics that need to be reexamined are the separation and domination of the religious forces by the state power…(they were joint only till shortly after the prophet’s –(saw) death)…but in a span of over 1500 years since then the political forces have skillfully maneuvered the religion (forces) to serve at their beck…the best the religious forces have to show for in history is as a junior partner…a recent example of this would be the strong alliance between the wahabbis and the saudis … or the tenuous link between the MMA the machiavellian mullahs association and the occupying army...

never in the past 1500 years has the time been right…nor opportunities as available as now for the rigid and reactionary forces to grab (more) power

the near isolation of muslims worldwide…this emerging ghettoisaton of muslims…their (read: yours and mine) inability to stand up and fight regression amidst themselves has only emboldened these reactionary forces to grab more power…

if

if only muslims read

read into their religion and remove the blind spots, remove the blinds from their eyes…they would not be so docilely hoodwinked by these regressive forces that want to push the baby back into the womb

lve

t

FarzanaVarsey #28: “In what way are they better-off than men? They just possess better camouflage.”

Good question…..

There are some ways in which the elite women, in Pakistan, are better off than men. Though, on the whole, they are still worse off. They are better off in the following areas: they do not have the pressures of earning a living or even getting a education. They can pick and chose what they want to do. They can work if they want and not work if they don’t want. They are provided with a lot of labor at home. There is a cook, a driver, a sweepress, an ayah to look after the kids etc. They just have to order around their staff. They live in a very protected environment till they are married. Assuming they get a decent husband, I would say they have the most comfortable lifestyle of anyone in Pakistan (males included). Far more comfortable than the extremely busy lifestyles of professional women in the West…

My wife has to do nothing when we are in Pakistan…….Everything of hers is looked after…….She has to work 24x7 when we are in the West……. Though she enjoys the added benefit of the West, where she has no cultural pressures on her going out, staying in, dressing in a certain way, etc.….My schedule doesn’t change much, whether I am in Pakistan or here……..

“And why should leadership be a prerogative of the elite, anyway?...It has been my experience that the best change takes place when `key` workers (that is those from one`s own environment) are trained to teach the others from their social/economic class. I have noticed this in rural as well as urban projects I have been involved in.”

You are correct. However, you are thinking of India. The situation of women in Pakistan is quite different. I am basing this on the various interviews I do with Indian candidates and working with them. So I could be off. But I don’t think I am.

The initial leadership for any movement has to be taken by the empowered amongst the group. Martin Luther King was after all a Dr. And Gloria Steinam wasn’t working as a sweepress. They are the only ones who have the room and resources to start something. It is only after they have broken the glass ceilings that, “key” workers can do something.

This is missing in Pakistan. I have seen very very few Pakistani women who are willing to take leadership positions (medicine and teaching being the only exception). Take a cross-section of Indian and Pakistani, “bhabhis” in the West (or in Pakistan). You will see so many of the Indian wives with professional careers. While hardly any Pakistani women will have such a career. Even though, they are from similar economic backgrounds as the Indian girls and have supporting husbands and similar opportunities. At best, most will just write articles, etc. I think it is laziness and a lack of desire to be activist……..

There is, in fact, an interesting and dangerous contradiction developing in Pakistan. The most, “activist” women seem to be appearing from the two groups which at their core are the most harmful to women in Pakistan. Elite conservatively religious women are very active. And elite feudal women are very active.

So the women pushing, “women’s activism” in Pakistan are products and advocates of systems that suppress the most women in Pakistan………This is the biggest long term tragedy for women in Pakistan…....These women will blame each other, but never the and that feeds them.......This, in itself, shows the lack of professional urban women leadership in Pakistan. A leadership that needs to replace both these groups.......A leadership, which probably does exist in India……..So while I generally disagree with most of our Indian colleagues who keep painting India as being way ahead of Pakistan, the one area where India is factually and actually way ahead, is progressive urban women…….

Liberation of women in Pakistan requires three things:

- An end to feudalistic land holdings and mindset. Women are the biggest victims of this. This will liberate the 66% of the Pakistani women who live in rural areas. It will end things like honor killings etc. also
- An end to anti-women Islamic conservatism and mindset. This will liberate the 33% of the women who live in urban areas
- The empowered (hopefully not from feudal or religious class) urban women taking leadership positions in various sectors of the society

P.S. by mindsets, I don’t mean things like burqas and hijabs etc. Clothes do not equate to liberalization. I mean professional, social and economic progress……..

re: men and hijab
In the west, men and women can be friends. They could even be lovers if they want to. The choice is their`s and personal choices are respected in the west, however queer those choices are. Such choices are not available to most women in the Subcontinent, certainly not to most women in the Islamic world. Therein lies the difference.
The point i was making in my last post was: too much of anything is bad. Too much of freedom in the West is proving to be bad in the social sphere. One good American Cultural value system is Dating. It is a way boys and girls meet and get to know each other and develop respect for each other. But when this becomes a way of having sex (as i am afraid it has), then it has lost its value.
I have advocated that Indians in India should imbibe this American value system of dating and so should the Pakis. This does away in one stroke all the inequalities that exist in a society. Imagine if a boy and girl get married (after dating)just because they like each other and not because they belong to a certain class/caste and were forced to mary by their parents. Dating can do to the Indian society what social reformers of the past could not. I am glad that middle class Indians are slowly imbibing this concept.
Sridhar

kaal ji:
#51

you are indeed correct. islam doesn’t have to be present for women to be complicit in their own demise. it can happen in any religion. in fact i’d go one step further and say that religion doesn’t have to be a factor at all. women competing against women is ever present in corporate america. unless of course we say that the idea of a “man’s world” even in its ostensibly secular guises originally stems from organized religion.

miriam

Keeping in mind the feudal and conservatively religious environment in Pakistan, and what can and cannot be done, the following simple laws would go a long way in liberating and empowering women.......

1. A complete ban on labor of females of school-going age in feudal areas, i.e. no girl under the age of 22 (or so) will allowed to work in the fields

2. Free schooling for all such girls in feudal areas. Any landowner who disallows this on his land, will be prosecuted

3. All family law court cases will be decided by female judges

4. Any purchase of a house/loan will, by law, require the wife to be a co-signer, i.e. she gets half the house as in Canada

5. If religious interpretation of laws, related to women is (or has or must - chose your favorite preposition) to be done, it will be done by a group consisting solely of women

These are the things which will liberate women. Wearing or not wearing hijabs, fashion shows, sleeveless shirts etc. are all well and good. But dress is really not related to liberalism..........

miriam:

kyun tung karti hO?

****

digressons

there is no law
there is no order
there is no god
there is no ... well you get the drift

there is only army
and occupying army

la ilaha il lal army.. wal mushy jurnail al army

anyone who subscribes to this kalima can work miracles in pakistan

others can post diatribes like this on chowk

lve

t

Just like rape isn`t a crime of sex, but a crime of power, similarly suppression of women isn`t a crime of religion (or anything else). It is a crime of power, also. It is a social desire of strong groups trying to dominate others, thereby, getting a bigger piece of the pie for themselves. They will, thus, use anything to suppress anyone in a weaker position. Those who have access to land will use that. Those with access to religion will use that. And those with access to money will use that.

The solution, thus, isn`t in the disbanding of the arenas people use to suppress women. Just like the solution to rape doesn`t lie in banning sex or castrating all the males in the society. Nor does the solution to honor killings lie in shooting all the feudal Assembly members and land owners who, as a combined feudal group, never allow any legislation agianst it. Similarly, the solution to women`s suppression isn`t banning religion or shaving the maulvis.

The solution lies in empowering individuals who are victims of such crimes, to a point where they can hold their own against anyone suppressing them, in any sphere. The best way to do that is to get women to a point where they are the ones who make the decisions about what is specifically related to women.

In such a system, within the context of Pakistan, religiously conservative women can debate with liberal women on how women should dress, behave etc. There is nothing wrong with such a debate. If they decided they should wear burqas. Fine. If they decide they should wear bikinis. Fine. Similarly, within the US context, pro-life and pro-choice women can debate amongst themselves on abortion. At the moment, these decisions are made by an overwhelmingly set of male representatives.

Re: # 50

Miriam bi,

You read my post and picked all that was insignificant to discuss ........
In real space and time, I treat all women with high respect and regard, no matter how they dress or how they speak. But I was projecting, not my situation, but of millions of men across the globe. The men you know must definitely be the best of men, but what about the men you don`t know?

{so, let me get this straight. you as a man are unable to control your base instincts. therefore, it becomes incumbent on every woman out there to do it for you by covering herself. isn’t that the same argument employed to keep women from occupying public spaces?}

I never talked about a burqa, a hijab, or a veil anytime in my posts. You will never understand my concept of a hijab without a hijab. So I will not even attempt to explain to you. The other girl in my story wasn`t wearing one ... I write about not even recalling what she was wearing. And specifically mention that she was not wearing a burqa or a hijab. In my idea, if you don`t have a hijab over your modesty, no amount of ``pardas`` can conceal a woman`s shamelessness.

Finally all I can say in an attempt to explain my point is that I make it a point, when in public to have a veil of modesty over my demeanour (which manifests itself in the way I dress, talk, and act), and I think I command respect from most I meet. Now I am not against women dressing inappropriately in public or uncovering their modesty............. I never said that. All I am saying is ........ This is what happens out there.......... If women are OK with it ......... what do I care? I am not a Mullah. Who am I to say what to wear to whom. I just related plain practical, age-old facts .......... as bare, and natural as they can get. Like you mentioned about knowing men who are have no ill-meaning thoughts when they see a woman inappropriately dressed ..... I know men like that too (self included), and I know men who are like ``me in the anecdote``. I know women who don`t have a problem being perceived as sex symbols......... and I know women who have a problem of being perceived as sex symbols and take practical measures to see that they are perceived in the right light.

- SS

hey Bina, this was a really great read. I was reading the reviews of this art house flick a few weeks ago - Matribhoomi [Motherland], A Nation Without Women. it sounded a little too violent for me to just walk in and watch so I`m saving it for a day when i can face up to it, but it addresses a number of things you mention in your article.

one of the things that`s always struck me about situations like these, whether matribhoomi or margaret atwood, is the sheer violent nature of the societies thus affected. there seems to be something harder, less civilized in a way about societies that have ceased to listen to their feminie side.

anyhow, keep them coming...

`` gentleman acquaintance once told me that if I wore a hijab my sex appeal would shoot up...what these men won`t do to market their shackles... ``

Hmm, Hijab and bikinis...sounds pretty cool ;)

Re: # 50

Forget about Islam, forget about Pakistan, forget the mullahs ..... and then let me know your opinion about modesty. Not from any religious point of view, not from any gender point of view. Forget even what I said or wrote. Across cultures and nations ........ I live in the USA, considered the most advanced in terms of personal freedom. And is wel known for women dressing up scantily. They have been doing this for years now. It`s a part of their accepted culture now. Everybody should have got used to the female body by now. But I still hear, innumerable times, in innumerable places, lewd comments, or at least passing remarks, and ``glances`` at the ``freely`` dressed female, from teenagers to senile men nearing their death beds. A very matter-of-fact and practical observation I made. I guess people who are out-right against hijab, women or men, see nothing wrong in this kind of relationship between a man and a woman. It troubles me a lot.

-SS

ranjit #26, {``I have a suggestion for the wahabi, sunni fundos of Pakistan. Please go for the ultimate purfication of your country and just kill all your women.``}

Ranjit Bhai,
I have to be fair in my criticism. What you are suggesting to Pakis is already happening in high-tech India - thanks to the female infanticide as a result of sonograms and selective abortions. I hope that silly practice is stopped quickly.
Thanks,
Salim