Violence Against Women

emma,

good to see this article here. a few points though:

there`s a part of this article in quotes, and yet when i look for the source, it isn`t readily given. i see that there is mention of the government in the preceding paragraph. is what is within quotation marks a statement from someone in government? it`s not quite clear.

i am in agreement about the situation of women in pakistan, but i feel that you veer towards generalization sometimes to make your points. i certainly do not think that things are improving in terms of violence towards women, but i wonder if i am the only one who is slightly uncomfortable with your portrayal of pakistani women at some points.

i like this:

Lack of education and general misconception regarding women rights are major hurdles in the emancipation of women, thus this bleak ignorance nurtures the seed of violence watered by suppression, chauvinism, and injustice. Majority of them is unaware of their own rights, it’s not the religion but the social fabric and false norms, which bring discrimination between man and woman, make dominant the former and deprived, the latter.

best,
ana

Thanks Ms.Alam for taking effoerts and putting the article and I agree most of you have written. You have correctly put what are great obstacles for women put by men and gods and man made laws. Instead of improving ``hadood`` laws those laws need to be abolished as massaging or changing little things will not change nothing. Under cover of traditions women will be supressed in for long time.
There will be no help from goverment in near future as they are there to rule not to reform. I have come to conclusion ``moderation and moderate`` are most dishonest people and they will not deliver any thing but just enforce status Quo and always will give justification and saying saying things need to be improved but time has not come and so go slow, hold on fort. General president is good man and he is modern in his personal relationships but he can not do much has his survival depends on people for whom women are few points above cattle.
It takes man sensitivity and time and maturing to understand suffering. For many women life is hell and these is escape only by being dead. When I was small my mother use to cry and at age of 12 I asked why you cry. She told me son do not worry women always cry and you should not worry about women crying. It took decades and maturity for me to understand the the misery she and many have to go through. Sadly most men get imunue to suffering as fact is sad thing.
I have three daughter and I always concisouly try to be just to them and being sensetive. Still I regret of things and feel was wrong today as aftermath. I encouraged them to study and always sat down and studied ther books and taught and have just still pleasure of remember of seeing them getting educated.
Most I worried about was their travelling by public busses for colleges. As men were so rude to them my elder daughter was so humilated by bad behaviour her mother told me she is thinking of quitting I felt so helpless. Then I had to cajole and plead and beg not to do such things.
I can not change world but can be better in my personal life. One has to correct mistakes if you find them. I am conservative and simple person so never have TV in house so avoid bad influence from India that has helped. I had banned lipstick for two elder daughters but younger threated me so I thought about it permitted and I regretted why I was so insensetive. I always encouraged younger to think like man with confidence. Once she complained she is woman and not going to good position etc even after studies in mans world. I told her look `` I tell you are as good as or better as men in your engg college so do not talk of despair. But if you feel you are inferior to them then you are, onus is on you.
I hope as things economically improve then things will hopeful become better for women.
Thanks for your article. Good day.

Pakistan is problem to women but at same time pakistani women get special treatment like reserved number of seats. That is ok acceptable. But problem is in general seats also they can contest also this is not fair I think for men its at cost of men . B.Bhutto was one of strong primeminister .
Mr.Romair wrote some hindu( ?) woman got top job at cocacola company( 1 million dollars per month salary). So this dark woman must be putting fear in white mans hearts as she can hire and fire white men. Also Mr. Mittals daughter is top shot in steel company. They must be afraid of her as she tells daddy and she closes factories to reduce costs. She spent 100 million dollars for her own marriage. She is sindhi and her daddy comes from state adjacent to sindh. She said she considers B.Bhutto as role model.While Soniya Gandhi is strongest and powerful woman in world and first time Woman controls nuclear bombs of India or any country (B.Bhutto was not allowed to get control coaf of pakistan contrlled crowned jewels they call as code for atom Bomb.
So this is not bad as these women as strong as any big man. Women have problems as top rulers they tend to go for war to humilate men. As Indira gandhi went to war and putting humilating conditions on Y.Khan took revenge. While jew woman made war gainst Arab forces and defeated mens and due to Nassar got heart attack and died as woman humilated her that was too much for arab man and general of army. same way english pm woman thacher made war against Aggentine army and defeated and humilated opponents, she made geogrge bush make war saying act as man, same problemo in russia acatherine Great, she made wars and troubled people same problem in lanka Lady president tear down plans of Man PM to make peace and went for war and bangladesh both begums are fightening like dogs, its credit to mrs bhutto amd mrs soniya gandhiji never made war. SO I am for women but just do not make PM at this time as they have tendency to make war. This is due to women angry attitude and just like women think country is like baby and like Tigress they get fast angry and tendency to fight. That is only problems so at this time with bombs with Mrs Gandhiji and if Mrs B.Bhutto becomes PM chances of war goes up. I do not know there is biological basis of war orientede attitude or it has Anthropogical basis but we women fight lot. Also lot of men are afraid of their wife (Urban). Sigmund little intelligent Jew wrote I studied women all life and more I study more i get lost. I do not know much about this things. just my feeling.
I wonder women Rulers can lead to wars? Record is not best. Readers can throw light. I wonder is that reason boy child always become king? More one thinks more its get complicated, Igronance is bliss.

Re: # 3
correction coas=Chief of army staff of Islamic republiscs of Pakistan( aka Pakistan)
Kindly correct spellings in your mind while reading, trying best to write correct spelling)

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Nice Article,,
It enlighten foremost unsolved problem of Pakistan.
Totally agreed,

I can see Emma Alam`s dilemma, frustration, anger and desire for rebellion. Though I support her stance, the issues are complicated. And, we need to disect the issues discussed by her in clear groups.

First: Religio-social issues which originate in the religion, Islam. Second: Sociopolitical issues which originate in the politico-economical frame work in Pakistan. Let us for simplicity limit ourselves to the range of issues at hand, namely, related only to Pakistan.

All patriarchical religions have a built-in bias against women (For a Chowk discussion of these issues see my board on Religious Scriptures and Women in Year 2003.).

Now limiting myself to Islam, I believe:

(i) Islam was initially equitable for women in economic sense AS LONG AS each woman resigned herself to the domain of the man in charge at the moment of her life. That was a victory of sorts in the Seventh Century AD. At that time the inter-gender equality was inconceivable because even all men were not considered equal. Universally, pyramidal structures existed. Whichever, man could muster largest number of killers on his side was to be served by all others directly or indirectly.

(ii) Islam has continued to develop and maintain the tyrannical structures needed to systematically terrorize all women by first keeping education low in among all men and secondly by denying education to girls almost totally. This is done to keep them for baby factory work.

(iii) This is consistent with the general intolerance among Muslims to all humans who do not yield to the supremacy of Muslim ruler. No wonder the Masjids are the beneficiaries of the King`s wealth. The Masjid`s in turn perpetuate the delusional religious atmosphere to which the majority of uneducated Muslim men succumb keeping them under the thumb of the local rulers.

(iv) The end result of all this is that Islamic religio-social systems have been untouched by the modernity and enlightenment which has been found in modern Christianity and Hinduism (which by the way was never so anti-feminine because of the very early weakening of the temples` organization and systematic requirement that a wife was necessary for religious ceremonies, in addition to the military defeat of Hindus by Muslim invaders. The last one resulted in the moderation of Hindu male and simultaneous bumptiousness of the Muslim male.).

So what is to be done?
First: Divorce education from religion. Most of the educated Hindus know little of religion except there family traditions.
Second: Reduce to eliminate the state funding of the Masjids.
Third: Educate the Mullahs.
Fourth: Develop constitutions within the States whose highest aim is to improve the lot of humans in their own country instead of conversions of Kafirs.
Fifth: Have actual democracy with equal voting rights for all with totally joint electorates and local elections.
Finally, keep your fingers crossed that a military general will not subvert the society and its aims.

Emma

We just have to look at our own mothers to see what happens to women in Pakistan. When my mother got married my Nani said to her `you leave this house in a doli, when you leave that house it will be in a coffin`

My mother is of a different generation and time who accepted their parents decision without question. The mantle is with the younger women who will have to empower themselves, cause the men are not going to do it, as it goes against their interests. You have a long struggle ahead of you, God bless and good luck!

A

---

Ana

Nice to see you here, is your blog down? i cant acces it!

ally:

emailed you re: my blog. didn`t think this was the place to respond to that.

love, ana

Emma,

Hear hear!

And Here, HERE!

Thank you chowk.com for yet another article that calls for gender equity and respect and yet is congenitally incapable of applying that practice on this website.

Re: # 7

inquirer,

........ good analysis .......... unfortunately even the author doesn`t `get it` as is apparent from the wishy-washy last paragraph .......

If you take a word ``wo man`` its can complete with ``man`` Right.
Yesterday I was the surfing channels on TV for an hour I just found women, from Newscaster, fashion designer, Doctors, engineers students and so on .. whom are from kuwait Bharin, Qatar,Iraq,Iran,Bangadesh, Lebnon, Pakistan and of course India.

But Still some of them always thinks like poor country singer who is always broken hearted and cry about his poor life.

Hi Gals C’mon! Please stop blaming the Culture, Taboos and Government. ,You don’t chose your family but you chose your friends . If you always think and act like ``Becharee`` / “Maskeen” or broke Saudi women, what you think! That will change the world no way !

Your are making yourself desperate, Let take a example of women in India, Pakistan even in America they also have more issues then yours but it s not the end of the world.

We American proclaim that Women suffer in Asia. Did you every seen a Women Chief of the State in America. Of course your answer is No, But you know Indra Gandi, Benazir butto, Khalda Zia, Hasina Wajid, Gloria, and new women leader of Germany and Latin America and lots.

What you think the Henry Clinton or Candy Rice will be the president of USA?
No way !

Enjoy your life! Life is fulfill with lot of Fun, Entertainment and Love.

Yes I know the feeling of the girls and women in Pakistani society form every single Schooling, Transportation, Office, Susral and more. ( note I am not a Gay by the way)

But think Positive and Think global!

Later
Ahad

``The Quran in particular is addressed to all Muslims, and for the most part it does not differentiate between male and female. Man and woman, it says, ``were created of a single soul,`` and are moral equals in the sight of God``(emma A)

bibi -- your prayers for Quran and Sunnah laws for the emancipation of women in Pakistan -- have been answered -- not by God -- but by your Western educated Prime Minister -- who has just emancipated your gender from the violence and degradation of those medieval woman-tormenting gender-degrading, psychologically-debilitating, criminally assaulting -- Islamic Hudood laws!

Here is what he has to say how he is going to emancipate you:

``Women Protection Bill to be in accordance with injunctions of Quran, Sunnah: PM

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said Saturday that the Women Protection Bill will be in accordance with the injunctions of the Quran and Sunnah for the protection of (Pakistani) women.....``

this is called the Homeopathic Treatment of the ailment -- give the same poison that caused the disease to the dying patient and he or she will sit up and be cured of the disease for ever........as Ghalib would say: ``agar aur jeetay ruhtay vohee intazaar hotaa``.......

with a PM like that and a rapist-protecting President like Musharraf you have to go a long way -- bibi

Khoda mufooz rukhkhay ghum ko aisay ghumgusaaroN se.....

This has now become a sort of tradition on chowk. Every month or so we see an article that talks about women’s rights in Pakistan and the article is followed up by obligatory “wah wah” posts by known feminist on this site (female numbers feminist or not, are declining fast on this site) Then we would have a few hangers on who would blame Islam on every ill of the society and finally someone would talk abt how his mother had to follow some rituals that he hopes his grand daughter would not have to follow. In between, Hamid would praise some unintelligent poster without even bothering to read the post. (btw, I think Hamidm reads every word of Asadi post for his breakfast, lunch and dinner breaks to learn something new abt the power elite before the day is over.)

Before I go into the other aspects of the article, let me reproduce the obligatory ending of all the feminists articles.
Here is how it goes, “the need of the hour is to redress the current plight of women, and that is not possible without their access to justice.”

This need of the hour entails many things and in this article the emphasis is on JUSTICE. It is like saying that since all men in Pakistan already have ACCESS TO JUSTICE, now women should have it too.

Since enlightening moderation is the buzz word nowadays, all the articles are sprinkled with references to “Enlightened Moderation”. And then another necessary ingredient to make the article a success is a reference to the Quran which claims that “Man and woman ``were created of a single soul,``. Finally, an honorable mention of cruel feudal customs like honor killing and how women carry the burden of keeping the society pious by covering themselves head to toe in raishmi ghalaf or lihaf or pillow covers. (Pillow covers are good as they end up showing all the contours of the pillow hidden there.)

Are women’s rights a problem in Pakistan alone? Is this a problem for Muslim women alone? Why Pakistani feminists are obsessed with the idea that if a few laws are changed everything would be hanky dory for women in Pakistan?

Let us just look at the women rights situation in the countries west of Pakistan. Are things any better? I think they are worse. Now I am not going to bring in the most modern country on the East as women there have more rights than the women in the western world and that country is so perfect that child marriages, dowry, and stove burning do not happen there. So I will just hop to other countries. Let us see what right Chinese women have? For crying out loud, that country has no civil rights for the whole population what to talk of women alone. Try Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and countries in between. Even Japan is struggling with women rights issues and they don’t follow Islam or nobody talks “Enlightened Moderation” in those countries at all.

The first failure of Women rights activists from Pakistan is that they cannot distinguish between the political demands and the women rights. The minute they start criticizing the government, they start losing whatever little goodwill there is in some government quarters for the women. Why can’t the activists keep their political views separated from the women’s issues?

Why they always have to quote some silly little aiat or surah from the Quran to support their demands? The minute you do that you give power back to the mullah because the society including the women accepts the mullah to be the interpreter of the religion.

The women’s rights struggle should be based on universal principals and not on fighting religions and speaking out against the political authorities. Follow the HRC policies, they are extremely active, but they stay away from becoming political partisan despite often coming out against the current government.

This post is already too long…I will come back to this later…Generally, most of the feminists from Pakistan are looking for some cheap publicity and name recognition thru some newspaper articles. I seriously doubt that they even have a clue about what women`s rights are.

I just read a few paras and was deeply disappointed. Despite 9 years of Chowk`s existence, the kind of articles that are written on the plight women today are no different from those of the yester years. The world has changed a lot in the past decade. Many women have grown up, made significant progress in life, decided to run their own businesses, and are the leaders in the corporate world. Why are we indifferent to that picture? I did not see a single article/write-up on Pepsi`s Indira N. I understand all major publications are repeating the same 2-3 paras about her. The world needs to get a different picture of a South Asian Woman. Let`s put it this way - It`s simply embarassing and disturbing to read about our women dedicating their lives to their families, religion, culture and traditions.

Providing a writer an opportunity to share his or her thoughts is one thing, but promoting age old ideas and notions again and again to show sympathy to the cause of women is boring. The latter also defeats the purpose of having an ezine where you are able to read ``illuminating`` thought process.

The problem again should be taken at its root...

The problem with Pakistan is , in every field, unconstitutional governance... and NOTHING else.

Pakistan`s constitution provides very emphatically for women`s empowerment and equality and it is a known fact that as long as the constitution was allowed to operate freely women were progressing in Pakistan... Just see the periods between 1947-1958, 1971-1977 and 1988-1999 ... this is when the women`s movements have been the strongest... 1947-1958 saw superb women`s activism ... as it was the women who had proved to be the most successful of all agitators in the Pakistan movement (the ML civil disobedience movement in Punjab in 1947 was led and fought by women) ... you read newspapers and journals frm that period right after indpendence and you see that the issue of women`s role in politics and society as a nation-builder was emphasised ... Raana Liaqat Ali, Jahanara Shahnawaz, Salma Tassadaq, Shaista Ikramullah and countless other women leaders fought together ona one point agenda... women`s liberation and they were successful in getting the Family laws amended and succeeded in restricting polygamy greatly...

Similarly 1971-1977 also marked tremendous progress for women ... most professional women, businesswomen, doctors, engineers on high positions today were part of the great PPP push for women`s development in the 1971-1977 period.... and the NGOs we see today proliferated in 1988-1999 period ... especially from 1988-1990 and 1993-1996...

Give Pakistan`s constitution in whatever mangled form it is now 30 years of breathing space and all ills will solve themselves... I am sure of it.