Just Another Woman

NasreenK: Thank you , thank you. Exactly.

random (Re #42): My Lord, I almost fell out of my chair reading that one. Making things funny in print can be really difficult, but your words just broke out like a troupe of clowns. Thanks, guy (or girl?).

Re: Aliya (reply # 35)

I have similar feelings. Because Chowk publishes both journalistic pieces as well as stories, sometimes it gets hard to separate fact from fiction.

The way this particular story is written, it implies fact. I certainly read it as fact. Therefore, I was especially uncomfortable to see a private letter reproduced, and talk of ``my cousin`` from Ms. Shamim.

Whether ``Shiela`` is really Ms. Shamim`s cousin is a very material fact to me. If I was her, and I wanted to write a highly personal story based on true events, I wouldn`t identify the person as ``my cousin``, without making sure she was aware and agreed.

Re: all others who think I am denying the right of divorce to women - nothing could be farther from the truth. Nor am I saying that Shiela did the wrong thing in seeking divorce. I am just saying that the institution of arranged marriage is flawed, and that our society has a high degree of misconceptions about sexual dysfunction. In this story, from what is presented originally (I agree with Shandana here), the events are presented very superficially. No insight into the husband`s actions is presented - so I cannot make a judgement. I am a humanist first, a physician second, a feminist third, which I guess rules out a knee-jerk support for the woman in this story in the absence of sufficient data.

And yes, generally speaking, my bias about abandoning people when they are sick does show. If you love someone, is it only for good times? It goes without saying of course that if you don`t, don`t marry them in the first place. Shiela after all was brought up in the US, was educated beyond college, and was 33 years old. Just as much gumption and individual thought as we expect from Qaiser might also be expected from Shiela (instead she seems to be making her decisions `according to her cousin` on what her cousin is saying). The father`s actions of course, are totally inexcusable. He is the most to blame for Shiela`s misfortune, rather than the `very, very, bad` Qaiser.

On an unrelated (to this story) note once I knew a homosexual man in his 50`s with AIDS. He had become blind from reactivation of chickenpox in his eyes and had very disfiguring lesions of Kaposi`s sarcoma all over his body. HIV had affected his mind to, so he was a pretty cranky old guy. His unaffected partner of several years was still around and taking care of the old guy, just refusing to quit, with no hope of an inheritence.

Needless to say people are strange - some want to run away at the first sign of ill health in a spouse, others actually want to adopt children with mental impairments, HIV etc. May we have more of the latter, and less of the former. One day I might just want to write about `Rick` - the amazing gentleman who has three adopted children with advanced AIDS, and just adopted two more (I do have his permission to do so).

Anita

Anita Zaidi:

--If my writing conveyed that I (Anne Shamim) have a bias against sexually dysfunctional people, I am a total failure. Sincere apologies for a confusing piece of writing that seems to be taking up so much of your time.

--I refuse to divulge any more about this couple (e.g. the letter, etc.). Maybe it is a ``journalistic`` piece and maybe it`s a total fabrication, but then again, maybe it`s somewhere in between. Or maybe it`s a total fabrication written in a journalistic vein, merely to point out that this might as well have been real. And maybe Sheila is really my cousin, but perhaps she is just a figment of my imagination. Or maybe she really IS a cousin, only not mine. MAYBE THE SPEAKER IS NOT ANNI!!! Could that be possible? Hmmm.

--It would be kind of boring without you. Thanks.

Dear Ms. Zaidi,

You still do not seem to have gotten the point. This story is not about why the gentleman in question has a sexual dysfunction. It is about how Sheila`s life was destroyed by her father and her husband.

Your claim that you are humanist first and a physician second sounds hard to believe. It appears that you are a physician first and always.

Regards,

Nasreen Khan

Re Zaidi

``it gets hard to separate fact from fiction.``

Do you experience any accompanying dizzyness and shortness of breath?

``that our society has a high degree of misconceptions about sexual dysfunction``

Okaaaay!!! Sooooo!!!???? Even my cat knows that.

``No insight into the husband`s actions is presented - so I cannot make a judgement.``

Feel free not to judge.

``If you love someone, is it only for good times? ``

What is this www.platitudes.com? Reality check, Sheila deserves some good times.

``It goes without saying of course that if you don`t, don`t marry them in the first place.``

Yadda yadda yadda.

``Shiela after all was brought up in the US``

An absolute fabrication of Anita`s imagination. Gotta get what she`s smokin`.

``once I knew a homosexual man in his 50`s with AIDS. He had become blind ...``

We wait with bated breath for further scintillating discussions of medical case histories.

Re Slink reply 22

``prefers living like an inflatable doll in somebodys house, letting the words of a perfect stranger shatter her self esteem.``

What! This is not an aberration. The vast majority of women in our culture are socialized to be this way. She doesn`t prefer it, its not an equal choice for her as it is, say, for the man. I cannot believe this misplaced scorn, you make her out to be a brain dead bimbo choosing the easy way out.

``only exacerbates the awful stereotype of Eastern men as tyrranical chauvinists``

Are you compensating desi men for the bad raps they get by dispensing a healthy dollop of mysogyny. Sheila cannot swap horror stories (I fought the patriarchy and won! ) maybe she doesn`t want to be a hero, maybe she doesn`t want to hang out and smoke dope. So what! Does it make her story less valid. Her story may not have a new and fresh twist, may sound like ``cardboard cutouts`` but that is the very reason for its powerful appeal. The issue does not get airtime and Annogul has eloquently put it up for debate. Judging from the varied responses there is no consensus on it either.

``set the stage for a `selfish husband doormat wife` ... one wield the spectre of `rights`for (of course) everyone will automatically line up behind it``

Please give people credit for having a brain despite the fact that they may support a `fashionable` position. You seem to dismiss the argument simply because you feel more comfortable taking a marginalized position. That may work for you but please don`t pass it off as a general panacea for the Shielas out there. When you judge Sheila as a doormat, I suspect you are frustrated with actual people out there like her, whom you know and cannot respect for being passive and not taking charge of their predicament. You as the observer are being disingenuous by not acknowledging emancipating influences such as your own socialization (parental, education), role models, status, power, and other tacit privileges. I did it, she can`t - die loser! Truly petulant. If a black man does not successfully fight back when he is being lynched by a white mob, does he deserve to live?

re rishi:

how amusing that you should mention that. one of the problems with being featured on chowk is that people have expectations of you. for a woman like me, brought up in the same atmosphere that sheila was brought up in yet having chosen to be what i am, it creates BIG problems. i guess i been `defanged`.

shandana

Just an observation: A lot of discussion about the `moral of` and `morals in` this story by most respondents . Perhaps if this piece was more fiction like, and less journalistic in it`s form, this TV talk show like air could`ve been avoided.

re Shandana:

``how amusing that you should mention that. ``

-- mention what, shandana ?

one of the problems with being featured on chowk is that people have expectations of you.

-- So.... ?

for a woman like me, brought up in the same atmosphere that sheila was brought up in yet having chosen to be what i am, it creates BIG problems.

-- what are you talking about here ? If you were brought up in the same atmosphere as Sheila and if you are what you are, then i would only applaud your perseverance and your courage. Why should that create any problem, let alone BIG problems....

i guess i been `defanged`.

-- when were you fanged Shandana?

--You might want to read my previous comments on all your articles before you would jump into any conclusions about my intentions to fang/defang you.

Rishi

re slink

``does it make more sense this time around? ``
nope. i understood what you said the first time around. i still disagree with it.

i never used rich and progressive together. i used progressive as merely one example of good fortune.

just being pissed off at women like sheila doesnt help. you are suggesting they stop being martyrs and give themselves a chance. here is my suggestion, why dont women like you, who have `broken` from their conditioning give them a chance?

Let`s distill the issues here:

1. Sheila`s father was wrong to pressure her into an arranged marriage with someone she hardly knew.

2. Qaiser`s family was very wrong to pressure him into an arranged marriage when they knew he had problems to begin with.

3. Qaiser was wrong to take out his shame/frustration/anger on his innocent wife.

4. Sheila did the right thing by getting out of the abusive marriage. She had no obligation to try to `fix` him and no incentive to do so since she was not in love with him. She only stayed in the marriage for as long as she did out of a sense of duty and because she didn`t have any other viable options.

5. It doesn`t matter that Sheila and Qaiser are 33 and 40, repsectively. They might as well be 10 and 17 because in Pakistani families, children are always chamchay in the hands of their parents and elders. Parent-child relationships rarely mature into mutually respectful adult relationships, so the children always feel pressured to obey their parents and abide by their every wish in an over-exaggerated sense of izzat. How many Pakistani adults do you all know that can stand up to their parents and defy their wishes for their own self-interest? Expecting Sheila and Qaiser to stand up for themselves since they are adults and refuse to enter into an arranged marriage is rather unrealistic considering the nature of the Pakistani family.

Anne Shamim: Is Qaiser gay or not? I suspect that he is, considering the letter from his brother Ishtiaq which confirms Ishtiaq`s `lifelong suspicions` about Qaiser. People have `lifelong suspicions` about their siblings being gay, not about their being impotent.

Anne Shamim:

Well, I don`t blame you for reacting the way that you are doing to all the criticism. My point, however, was a fairly straightforward one and I hope at some point you will be able to absorb it.
Good luck.

Shandana:

Couldn`t agree more.

Saad

re rishi
ouch! ouch! that was GOOOOOOOOOD. i agree with you almost word for word.

re bg:

my point was simply this...
this was a badly written story with nothing going for it in terms of character,language, imagery etc. my comments were given in this context.
i was wondering how much of it was conditioning..spousal abuse..hip drawing room term..let us voice our support for the poor woman.
taken by herself there was nothing to sheila that justified such outrage..such anger at the fact that `just another woman` was getting what she was made for.characters like sheila (and yes to an extent women like sheila) piss me off because i know too many of them where i live which, as you so kindly pointed out, is karachi. you might be surprised to learn that for every two such women i know i know another one who has had the courage to be herself, rule herself and live the way she wants to. and (you might again be surprised) these women are not the daughters of rich and `progressive` parents who dont really lose anything by rebelling, these are women who are really putting their lives on the line by staking their claims to freedom of action and thought.
the other point i was trying to make was that choosing to go along with the choices others make for you is a choice in itself, the choice to be a pawn in someone elses game (in this case the fathers and the husbands). it might not have BEEN an individual decision, but it COULD have been an individual decision if she had had the courage to forsake security for condemnation. isn`t that the only way things here are ever going to change?
it is not a matter of `blame one person`. the blame for problems like these rest with the many rather than the few. sure men have oppressed women for centuries, and no women haven`t been `asking for it`(how you read that into my response i dont know!) but i just think its time for women like sheila to stop being martyrs and give themselves a chance.
does it make more sense this time around?

this is getting hot!! what is all the big deal about, yar? a woman was in a bad situation and then got out of it.

here is my humble take on all this: as far as character develpmnet, and the quality of the writing, i didn`t really read this as totally a work of fiction or entirely real either. i think this is a work that is meant to bring readers attention to a very very serious problem in our society. and for that purpose the writing did the job. it was tight, flowed well, and the sentence construction was better than most of what appears on chowk.

Rishi: Thanks. ``Apologetic`` is certainly something I don`t want to be. Of course it hurts if somebody criticizes your writing--I won`t pretend otherwise. But in no way should freedom of expression and to voice opinions (especially about someone`s work, be it art or science or a craft) have to suffer because of it. We`re all grown-ups here. When I stated my evaluation of ``A Strange Love Affair,`` I did so with full realization (and a little hesitation) of the probability of the writer being ``hurt`` by it. But really, I think it would have been an injustice if I had stayed quiet. All too many of us (Pakistanis and maybe even Indians) suffer from the syndrome of being loath to point out that ``the emperor has no clothes on.`` I think the electronic medium makes us bolder in that regard, since we don`t have to do any of this face to face. So, it`s a great start for good, unembellished, (and sometimes brutally) honest criticism.

So, hit me, guys--I asked for it!

About the guy being a BAD guy. For Sheila, he IS a bad guy. A horrible turn in her not-so-great-life. You are right, he has his good traits, but as far as the thrust of the story--his role as a husband, his treatment of a ``weak`` wife--he is a villain. As a citizen of the community, he is wonderful, upstanding, generous. But as an abusive man with huge personal problems he really is a ``cut-out`` like so many others out there. The speaker is the one telling the story, and she definitely sees him as a villain.

Thanks so much for your smart, objective commentary. Support feels so good when it is presented the way you present it.

--AS