by JayJay
The life of a Pakistani woman is not easy. It is not a hidden fact that she is subjected to discrimination and harassment, within and without the so-called sanctuary of her home. However, harassment and bullying becomes more intense and blatant when she steps out of her home for work or education. From catcalls to verbal innuendo to physical harassment, she has to endure it all, mostly at the hands of strangers, on the streets and on public transport. This harassment does not stop, or rather become more palpable in many cases, at her place of work. The act of harassing women, with sexual tones and motives, by fellow employees or supervisors/managers is referred to sexual harassment. Wikipedia defines sexual harassment as:
Harassment or unwelcome attention of a sexual nature. It includes a range of behavior from mild transgressions and annoyances to serious abuses, which can even involve forced sexual activity. Sexual harassment is considered a form of illegal discrimination in many countries, and is a form of abuse (sexual and psychological) and bullying.
An editorial from The News on October 1 has summed up the issue well, by pointing out to the absence of appropriate legislation to deal with this growing phenomenon. Offering some the broad suggestions, the editorial reads:
As a first step, the government and the private sector should join hands to start a campaign in which sexual harassment in the workplace is defined. This will make working women understand what is acceptable and what is not acceptable behavior in a workplace. The second step in this national exercise would be to ask employers to put into place a proper policy that defines sexual harassment and clearly spells out what action is to be taken against someone found guilty of it. In addition to this, employers need to have a mechanism which enables any employee subjected to such harassment to approach an appropriate forum for filing a complaint. The complaint should be treated confidentially and investigated, and if guilty the offender should be punished according to the employer’s code of ethics for employees. Of course, given that many companies have an environment which is more or less male-dominated and where men are in most decision-making senior roles, it may be a bit much to expect that things will change overnight. However, to do nothing would also be a sign that we as a nation are not willing to evolve and provide justice to those who are victims of this menace.The menace of sexual harassment at the place of work has been comprehensively and effectively addressed by the West where workplaces are no longer the sole domain of men. Pakistan has a lot to catch up on this matter, and quickly so, as more and more women are entering workforce. It makes economic sense both for employers and the government to have an effective and clear legislation and corporate policies to protect women against harassment. Not only skills and talent of education women can be brought to use more effectively by attracting them in a safe workplace but it has been seen worldwide that presence of women in offices helps boost productivity, besides infusing fresh ideas and way of thinking.
While enacting a piece of legislation and formulating policies is most critical step, a concerted awareness campaign is necessary to influence general attitudes and social behaviors. Without bringing about change to prevalent perception of working women in Pakistan, there is little chance of success in overcoming the problem of sexual harassment. The fact of matter is that most women in Pakistan brave into men-dominated workplaces out of economic necessity, rather than to fulfill career aspirations. The position of women in workplace in Europe, North American and even South East Asia has become entrenched, still it is not odd to come across a public service announcement to press the message on the issue. Such public service announcements are even more necessary in a society like Pakistan where we leg behind even comparable countries in accepting the role of women at work.
Tina, my display name clearly gives idea to the audience about my background; ….
it can be easily judged that you are under influence of west and ready to accept even the evils of that society…., and your hatred against Nazis also answers a lot of questions.. : )
Nevertheless let me give the audience a contrast of the role of a Muslim woman who isn’t under influence of West and a so-called modern beauty queen, this contrast has not been written by a religious scholar but by Henry Makow (PhD). the original article can be found by googling internet with “Henry Makow’s name”.
I am just giving it some presentable form.
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The Muslim woman’s focus is her home, the “nest” where her children are born and reared. She is the “home” maker, the taproot that sustains the spiritual life of the family, nurturing and training her children, providing refuge and support to her husband.
In contrast, the bikinied American beauty queen struts practically naked in front of millions on TV. A feminist, she belongs to herself. In practice, paradoxically, she is public property. She belongs to no one and everyone. She shops her body to the highest bidder. She is auctioning herself all of the time.
In America, the cultural measure of a woman’s value is her sex appeal. (As this asset depreciates quickly, she is neurotically obsessed with appearance and plagued by weight problems.)
As an adolescent, her role model is Britney Spears, a singer whose act approximates a strip tease. From Britney, she learns that she will be loved only if she gives sex. Thus, she learns to “hook up” rather than to demand patient courtship and true love. As a result, dozens of males know her before her husband does. She loses her innocence, which is a part of her charm. She becomes hardened and calculating. Unable to love, she is unfit to receive her husband’s seed.
The feminine personality is founded on the emotional relationship between mother and baby. It is based on nurturing and self-sacrifice. Masculine nature is founded on the relationship between hunter and prey. It is based on aggression and reason.
Feminism teaches woman that feminine nature has resulted in “oppression” and that she should convert to male behavior instead. The result: a confused and aggressive woman with a large chip on her shoulder, unfit to become a wife or mother.
This, of course, is the goal of the social engineers at the NWO: undermine sexual identity and destroy the family, create social and personal dysfunction, and reduce population. In the “brave new world,” women are not supposed to be “nest” makers, or progenitors of the race. They are meant to be neutered autonomous creatures that indulge in sex for physical pleasure, not for love or procreation.
At his press conference on Sunday, Donald Rumsfeld said that Iranian women and youth were restive under the rule of the Mullahs. He implied that the US would soon liberate them. To Britney Spears? To low-rise “see-my-thong” pants? To the mutual masturbation that passes for sexuality in America?
Parenthood is the pinnacle of human development. It is the stage when we finally graduate from self-indulgence and become God’s surrogates: creating and nurturing new life. The New World Order does not want us to reach this level of maturity. Pornography is the substitute for marriage. We are to remain stunted: single, sex-starved and self-obsessed.
We are not meant to have a permanent “private” life. We are to remain lonely and isolated, dependent on consumer products for our identity, in a state of perpetual courtship.
This is especially destructive for woman. Her sexual attraction is a function of her fertility. As fertility declines, so does her sex appeal. If a woman devotes her prime years to becoming “independent,” she is not likely to find a permanent mate.
Her long-term personal fulfillment and happiness lies in making marriage and family her first priority.
Feminism is another cruel New World Order hoax that has debauched American women and despoiled Western civilization. It has ruined millions of lives and represents a lethal threat to Islam.
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tina if infertility is a third world problem then why do we have this huge population growth??? and why in europe we have more old people then young people??? why is the west countries bringing in young people from abroad for work??? why is europe trying to put a ban on what they call “importing wives” for immigrants??? Why is Kylie Minogue and other women like her now resent their decisions for holding on for a little while longer for babies??
dont think of every western action as modern and good… Ghori is right
I am fairly orthodox, but I fully agree with Qandeel here. With the exception of decent educated families, attitudes towards women - young women in particular - in our society are apalling; at time it makes one want to die of shame.
One may not agree always with a woman’s point of view on these issues, but it is invaluable nevertheless. Education to instill respect in attitudes towards women is extremely important.
As for the infertility issue, it is a fact that poor women in the third world suffer from infertility more than rich women in the West. Reasons are poor nutrition (which leads to cessation of menses), injuries incurred through previous births/female circumcision (scarring, infection), general lack of medical care and exposure to pollutants. Age is one factor, but only one, a woman in good health should be able to have children well into her thirties (I won’t say forties although many women manage it).
So if the men are oh so concerned about infertility and the pain of childlessness they can quit pointing their fingers at the West and again look in their own backyards. But that fact is they really don’t care, it’s all just propaganda to them.
Give the choice or the control to women themselves and they will always choose to have children–only a very tiny minority forgo it, and they probably should if they feel so strongly about it–but they will have fewer and under safe, healthy conditions after completing education and so on.
I am sitting here desperately racking my brains to figure out how anybody can possibly think this is a BAD thing.
Can someone enlighten me?
Sultan Ghori (name says a lot by the way), with the world population what it is, women having less children is a huge plus, not a minus. The growth of the human population in India is about the only thing impeding their economic success at this point, marking the difference between India and Europe and China.
Rest of your argument is just typical male chutzpah, AIDS and other diseases are exploding in conservative societies and are on the wane in Western world. Please educate yourself on this issue. South Asia is the world’s STD hot spot right now. Liberation of women does not spread diseases, rather prevents it.
I don’t really know or care who “Professor” Ledger is (for that matter also some Nazis have PhDs), but teenage pregnancy is undesirable and detrimental to the health of the mother. The greatest health risk and cause of death to all women is childbearing and the fewer children they bear, the better health they enjoy. BBC did a news piece on this recently and the places where maternal health was the most dismal were Pakistan, Afghanistan, and subsaharan Africa. So for all your talk Pakistan is one of the three worst/dangerous places on Earth to become a mother. Again I would encourage you to educate yourself on this issue.
Dawa-i-Dil, I don’t see how your heart can be in your Da’wa when you clearly hate women so very much, think they should not drive or be allowed to borrow money, etc. One feels very sorry for any women in your household unfortunate enough to be dependent on you.
I am disappointed that so few men have shown up to lend their voices to Akif and others. When people stay silent, it feels to me like they must agree with the staus quo or feel the issue does not concern them.
At the end of this post you find a LINK to a very interesting article related to the latest research on population growth in Europe and the factors involved behind the scene. The two main reasons for Infertility in EU are working women that keep themselves busy in the building of their career and STDs (Sexually transmitted diseases) that are being spread due to changing and changing sexual partners (with will/merzi ke saath).
Before that we continue to that link, I am presenting two Ahadith from Sahih Bukhari.
Sahih Bhukhari:- Volume 7, Book 62, Number 128:
Narrated Ibn ‘Umar: The Prophet (SAW) said, “All of you are guardians and are responsible for your wards. The ruler is a guardian and the man is a guardian of his family; the lady is a guardian and is responsible for her husband’s house and his offspring; and so all of you are guardians and are responsible for your wards.”
Sahih Bukhari:- Volume 7, Book 62, Number 4:
Narrated ‘Abdullah:
We were with the Prophet (SAW) while we were young and had no wealth whatever. So Allah’s Apostle (SAW) said, “O young people! Whoever among you can marry, should marry, because it helps him lower his gaze and guard his modesty (i.e. his private parts from committing illegal sexual intercourse etc.), and whoever is not able to marry, should fast, as fasting diminishes his sexual power.”
Now days in Pakistan women are being stimulated to leave their homes and to come to the streets, to work and to do whatever a man is doing. Aren’t we going to do the same for which Europe is already having negative consequences in the form of Destruction of family system, Diseases and Infertility?
Prof. Dr. Allan Pacey Says:
“Nature designed women to have children in probably their late teens and early twenties”
Professor Ledger says:
“Young people of today will become tomorrow’s patients in infertility clinics”
here to see the article: - news(dot)bbc(dot)co(dot)uk/1/hi/health/4112450(dot )stm
place “http://” in the beginning and replace “(dot)” with “.”
feminism is an “unnatural and one-sided view of equality”
http://sagemovement.blogspot.com/2007/10/feminism- flawed-concept.html
Akif Nizam, I agree, it’s like reductio ad absurdum - except, the conclusion isn’t absurd to them.
As for your confusion about the women’s perspective, I can assure you that not all women perceive all men to be uncontrollable beasts. Tragically, according to many Pakistani men (as has been made evident by the comments here), articles like these bring within their purview the topic of how a women should dress. Perhaps that is why the discussion had to go a bit off tangent and tread the beaten path of how its ALL down to the women to stave off sexual harrassment from men. The man’s responsibility regarding the issue is second to the womans. I think this is ironic and goes back to whole “blaming the victim” thing.
In the West women, generally, do not feel like a cut of veal hanging in a meat-market. People are more tolerent to the idea of a women dressed in, for example, a fig leaf. The more taboo you make something, the more fear (of stigma) and frustration you create.
It has been said that in Saudi Arabia, an exposed female ankle can set many a men’s heart aflutter. It comes down to what you’re used to and brought up to think is “okay”. In the upper echelons of Pakistani societies, aunties walk around in shorts and it is not scandalous and in no way threatening to the fragile state of Pakistani male psyche/prostate. In a small village, a girl without a dupatta could unleash havoc.
At any rate, sexual harassment, sexist attitude - these have very little to do with what a girl is wearing. In fact it has very little to do with the girl!
It is not theological, it isn’t sexual, it is about basic human rights of women in Pakistan. They need to be understood better, they need laws to protect them, they need men to respect them, etc. (I’m getting a bit tired of repeating myself.)