The Dirty Old Men of Pakistan,
by MOHAMMED HANIF
APRIL
1, 2016
Karachi, Pakistan —
IN the world we live in, there is no dearth of pious men who believe that most
of the world’s problems can be fixed by giving their women a little thrashing.
And this business of a man’s God-given right to give a woman a little thrashing
has brought together all of Pakistan’s
pious men.
A few weeks ago,
Pakistan’s largest province passed a new law called the Punjab Protection of
Women Against Violence Act. The law institutes radical measures that say a
husband can’t beat his wife, and if he does he will face criminal charges and
possibly even eviction from his home. It proposes setting up a hotline women
can call to report abuse. In some cases, offenders will be required to wear a
bracelet with a GPS monitor and will not be allowed to buy guns.
A coalition of more
than 30 religious and political parties has declared the law un-Islamic, an
attempt to secularize Pakistan and a clear and present threat to our most
sacred institution: the family. They have threatened countrywide street
protests if the government doesn’t back down.
Their logic goes
like this: If you beat up a person on the street, it’s a criminal assault. If
you bash someone in your bedroom, you’re protected by the sanctity of your
home. If you kill a stranger, it’s murder. If you shoot your own sister, you’re
defending your honor. I’m sure the nice folks campaigning against the bill
don’t want to beat up their wives or murder their sisters, but they are
fighting for their fellow men’s right to do just that.
It’s not only
opposition parties that are against the bill: The government-appointed Council
of Islamic Ideology has also declared it repugnant to our religion and culture.
The council’s main task is to ensure that all the laws in the country comply
with Shariah.
But basically it’s a bunch of old men who go to sleep worrying that there are
all these women out there trying to trick them into bed. Maybe that’s why there
are no pious old women on the council, even though there’s no shortage of them
in Pakistan.
The council’s past
proclamations have defended a man’s right to marry a minor, dispensed him from
asking for permission from his first wife before taking a second or a third,
and made it impossible for women to prove rape. It’s probably the most privileged
dirty old men’s club in the country.
Some of us
routinely condemn these pious old men, but it seems they are not just a bunch
of pampered religious nuts. In fact, they are giving voice to Pakistani men’s
collective misery over the fact that their women are out of control. Look at
university exam results; women are hogging all the top positions. Go to a bank;
there is a woman counting your money with her fancy nails. Turn on your TV;
there is a female journalist questioning powerful men about politics and sports.
One of these
journalists recently was grilling a famous mufti opposed to the bill.
Bewildered, the mufti said: Are you a woman, or are you a TV journalist? She
was professional enough not to retort: Are you a mufti, or just another old
fart?
It wasn’t supposed
to be like this. Three decades ago, most Pakistani women who had paid jobs
worked at menial tasks, and the others were confined to traditional professions
like medicine or teaching or, occasionally, law. There was a small and brave
women’s movement. Women were writing novels and making movies, but they were
few in number. Now they are flying planes, heading companies, policing the
streets, climbing mountains and winning Oscars and Nobel
Prizes. There are millions of women across the country running
little beauty parlors from their homes, employing other women and gaining a
measure of independence.
But for every bank
teller, there are still millions of women who are farmhands or house help. For
every TV journalist, there are many more women who live in half-slavery,
scrubbing and cleaning, and shouldering the heavy burden of protecting and
raising their kids.
Let’s not just
blame the mullahs and muftis. Misogyny is way older than any religion. Even
people who have never seen the inside of a mosque or the Sufis who want to
become one with the universe wouldn’t think twice before treating a woman as
something between a pest and a pet goat.
Some members of
Parliament stayed away when this bill was being passed in the Punjab assembly.
They probably represent a majority. Some of us even call ourselves feminist.
“See, I have never stopped my sister from going to school, never given my
girlfriend a black eye. That makes me a feminist, right? But we must protect
our families. You don’t want a family-loving feminist man going around with a
GPS tracker, do you?”
What really scares
the so-called feminist men is that a lot of women are actually quite bored with
talking about being a woman. They talk about their work. A film director talks
about bad actors. A development worker talks about idiotic funding patterns. A
maid talks about her cellphone and the quality of detergents.
There’s a woman in
my neighborhood who walks fast. She is always carrying two kids in her arms.
Not infants but 3-, 4-year-old sturdy kids, heavy weights. She walks fast.
Probably you have to walk fast when you are carrying two kids. She doesn’t
expect a lift from the many cars passing by. She can’t afford a cab. She is
walking toward her bus. Always with the two kids in her arms and a bag around
her shoulder. She gives Quran lessons at people’s homes.
173COMMENTS
I don’t think all
those pious men, or anyone else, can tell that woman with the two kids how to
walk her daily walk. If someone asks her how it feels to be a woman in this
society, she’d probably answer, “Can’t you see I’m working?”
Mohammed Hanif is the author of the novels “A Case of Exploding Mangoes”
and “Our Lady of Alice Bhatti,” the librettist for the opera “Bhutto” and a
contributing opinion writer.
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