Sexual Harassment in Karachi: Whose Fault?

I hate the fact that everywhere I go I am made to feel that I can’t because I’m female. It’s making me angry, defensive and stressing me out. Just driving one place to another - they make me feel like I should not be on the road as they harass me as much as they can because I am. It’s a two way road but he will try to run me off the road by driving in the centre. If I overtake because he’s driving too slowly he will make sure to honk when I pass by. If he sees me trying to make a turn from far off, he’ll flash his lights from that distance because he doesn’t want me to go before him. If I’m driving alone at night he will follow me driving dangerously close forcing me to take risks that as a normally careful driver I wouldn’t.

The message they seem to want to give to me is that I shouldn’t be venturing out on my own and if I am they can treat me like a specimen under a microscope. I am at their disposal to stare at, glare at and harass. Rather than giving me right of way, they will go out of their way to make sure I don’t get it. If I park and walk a bit to collect my groceries, they will sing under their breath, whistle or make a lewd comment – and I’m just trying to get my bloody household essentials. If I’m driving home from a hard day’s work, two men on a scooter will dance provocatively, hoot and weave dangerously close to my car while they pass me by. I can imagine those in the other cars laughing at this spectacle. All I can do is look straight ahead and try to drive on as fast to suppress my anger, humiliation and fear. Each time it’s a narrow escape. I didn’t want a drive home from a lecture to be something that can endanger my person or life. I just wanted to hear the damn lecture.

But as soon as I enter a public space my secondary status as a woman in this city/country hits me in the face. Standing at the bank in the ladies line, men intercept and the attendant behind the counter doesn’t say anything. When it’s my turn, some man tries to shove his papers in front of mine only to withdraw when I bark – THIS IS THE LADY’S COUNTER. The entire idea of having a separate lady’s counter or separate lady’s section on the bus I find perpetuates this misogyny – as if women should be segregated like pariahs of society - not to advantage them but to exploit them further. Rather than dealing with the problem, women are brushed aside. No awareness raising, no education, just give them a separate line.

If I complain about it it’s always is made out to be my fault. A bearded man grazes me from behind while I walk to a religious shrine and when I YELL at the man who did it he tells me it’s my fault for walking on the side of the road. If I complain to family members they admonish me for trying to do things on my own. ‘Why the hell are you driving on your own?’ Or, ‘why didn’t you send someone to the bank for you?’ Or, how can we forget, ’if you covered up from head to toe this wouldn’t happen’. But how long can they dictate where I go and what I do? Why should I succumb to this harassment by restricting my movements? Why is it always my fault?

The last thing on Earth my family members want me to do is term it sexual harassment. As soon as I do they’ll either defend their Pakistaniyat (which is obviously a very male Pakistaniyat) telling me it’s like this in other places as well. Or, they’ll tell me I’m upper class, Westernized, blowing things out of proportion. Or, they’ll tell me its part of city life. The important men in my life will dismiss my complaints but get furious when they hear these comments or see those lewd looks. But they will still claim that I blame men for everything. . .that I use gender discrimination as the trump card to justify all injustices. Their solution is to shelter me as much as possible. And in a way they are right - women with drivers, or armed guards or male escorts are much less prone to harassment. But they can’t understand that that’s not the solution I want (and nor is it feasible). I want to carry on with my day to day life on my own - picking, dropping, working. . .without being harassed. I also think cringing at the term sexual harassment is a modern manifestation of the tribal honor code: my family members don’t want to be reminded that this is a sex-related issue as daughters/wives/sisters – public – sex are words no one wants to connect. But it is sexual harassment and it is in front of me everyday. Everyday I am sexualized by looks, comments, gestures and actions.

It seems like enduring sexual harassment while living in Karachi is a given. I recently traveled to Columbo and Mumbai and it’s not like this over there. I could walk on the streets and no one would try to ensnare me in leery stares. Why in Karachi? Zia’s Islamicization? What the hell went wrong? How on Earth did we end up with a generation of men that believe that they can do what they want to women? Wherever I go, the message I get is that I have no rights on account of being female and they can do what they want to me.

And the frightening thing is that it’s true – I have virtually no rights living as a woman in Karachi, Pakistan. There is no law protecting me – only them. Predominant in the Pakistani legal and political system is that a woman’s body is everybody’s business to debate, fight over and use to prop up male interests such as political clout, tribal sense of honor and religious patriarchy. The Hudood Ordinance and uncontested gang rape rulings of tribal panchiyaats are testament to that. And because the law gives the message that anything they want to do to is justifiable it’s the message that is perpetuated in wider society as well.

The government succumbing to the MMA (a religious party) on what may seem like trivial matters – the religion column on passports, having a segregated girls’ marathon in an enclosed space after MMA activists burnt cars and smashed windows to protest women publicly participating in sporting events – chart out a bleaker future. Rather than taking a stand against irrational religious orthodoxy, the government, no matter how progressive it claims to me, gives in to their demands for political gain. It was the same with national curriculum, the blasphemy law and of course the Hudood Ordinance. And I believe the damage this does is virtually irreparable.

What bothers me though is why can the government take a stand against these groups when it comes to foreign policy (siding with the US against Al Qaeda) but not when it comes to protecting the rights of disadvantaged groups? And why doesn’t the US government – so hung up on democracy – push the Pakistani government to take a hardline stance on protecting the rights of women and minorities? The implicit message conveyed by the policies that both of these governments are trying to push is anything but democratic. And by submitting to the demands of the MMA the government is cementing a future where religion can be used to encroach human rights. The message that conveys is that minority rights, education and social welfare are ‘soft issues’ and therefore not so important. What is important is the ‘hard’ issues such as defence and further privatization of the economy only alienating minority groups further.

I am afraid because I get so angry and I yell and scream and one day I might even hit someone. What scares the hell out of me is that if he screams back at me, hits me or worse, what protection do I have? Pepper Spray? What if he throws Sulphuric Acid on my face which I’ve read about so many times in the paper? As an upper middle class woman influence buys me some protection – a cell phone call to a relative who knows a high up police person. But at that particular moment, his misogynistic mentality has more immediacy than my potential class influence. The thought scares the shit out of me. That thought along with that of all those men on the road gawking and watching. If he does anything to me I know they won’t do anything. I cant imagine how Mukhtaar Bibi felt being paraded naked in front of all those people? How did she survive it? You’re a caged bird and they derive pleasure from watching you flounder when you’re injured.

And, how am I supposed to bring up a daughter in this social climate? In a place where I took my twelve year old baby sitting charge to an open concept mall where I could see all floors from my seat on the ground floor. When she went upstairs for five minutes to purchase something on her own she returned only to tell me that some man had leaned toward her and blown in her ear and she was afraid he would kidnap her. God. I am never going to leave her alone. But how much can I protect her? How much can I protect myself? And my daughter?

I don’t want to live a life behind glass windows and metal doors but they harass you into relying on them. I had the walls raised in my house because I feel so vulnerable wherever I go. It’s like fingers are pointing at me and I’m being pummeled from all sides. If I complain they tell me I’m a feminist. They can do what they want, say what they want, piss on the streets if they want and I cant even get my bloody household essentials or open the gate to my house? Does getting angry about that make me some elitist bra-burning, man-hating feminist?

I also can’t help but think that in our society it is class not citizenship based on which you obtain rights. For a woman, class status buys dependence through limiting interaction in public. The higher the wall, the more servants - the more respect/rights you get/have. Someone like me who drives is being punished for not hiring a driver. When they look at me it’s with contempt because they think I can afford it but am trying to be Westernized and independent. And it’s men as well as women who think this way. A close relative was on her way to pick her kids from school when a bus hit her standing car. When she climbed on the bus to demand the driver’s papers a female passenger on the bus went on an on about how my relative should hire a driver and that it was all her fault. The way our society is structured perpetuates elitism. I think gender and class are interwoven. That’s why I think that we are not inherently a misogynistic society but that political and economic factors have made it so. That’s why I also think government policies are just making things worse.

I can’t help but think that I’m hanging by a thread - living under the pretense of normalcy in my car and house with raised walls. I know that even if I keep all my windows closed, put barbed wire on my walls, leave early to buy my groceries and drive as fast as I can I cant escape a situation that is deteriorating rapidly. If anything goes wrong, an accident, a disaster, theft - I’m stripped off the shelter these glass windows give me - and am at the mercy of this country where I, as a woman, have virtually no protection.

But then I also think I’m stupid for wanting things to be normal and not expecting that the temperament laws and the political climate have set is not going to encroach on my life. I think, how can I carry on pretending when I should be trying to do something about it. I’m sitting here, writing this, hoping things will change without me trying to do anything. But I don’t want to come under the fire of religious orthodoxy. I don t want my womanhood to become a subject of public discussion. I don’t want to endure the humiliation. I want to live the honorable life as wife and mother and not make my womanhood a subject of public discussion. I want to live my life undisturbed and ignore the beggars, ignore the violence in Gulistan-e-Jauhar, ignore the articles on rape, wives being maimed with sulfuric acid or rising rates of domestic violence hoping it will go away. That’s where, I will admit, the fault lies with me.