Guest Post by Aisha Sarwari
“This is why I am not in favor of working women.” Said the Colonel and security in-charge of one of Lahore’s largest office blocks. “Excuse me?” I said.
Before I could unleash my monologue on the tirade of women’s mobility, I am interrupted by the drama unfolding in the Colonel’s office where two security guards, a police man, a fellow plaza worker and the culprit who “teased” me shift uncomfortably in their chairs.
A few moments ago, I was walking up the stairs from the parking lot, late for a board meeting, shoving my car keys in my ancient purse, while two men who appeared to have camaraderie with each other were coming down. As they passed me, the uglier guy with glasses greeted me with strange familiarity and boldness.
I was used to the whistling, the smirks, the humming of latest Bollywood songs or even a religious proclamation of how great God is. But this sort of thing, however, had me stop and take notice. I asked for a clarification from him, and he went on to make generally trivial chit-chat about his friend giving me a call later.
Understanding full well that chauvinists thrive on women’s passivity, I learned to give in to my indignity and forgo the fight of telling random men off. Sometimes even when I want to fight back, their timing is too perfect and their precision that of a seasoned actor on Broadaway. Before I can feel the stab of inferiority and their power to communicate a stark message, they are gone, under the folds of a society that is so sickly South Asian. Everyday it is a battle, but I trivialize the over-sexualization of a partially segregated society whose religion rests on a mother/whore dichotomy. It’s nothing, I say, not worth it. But the truth is its very bloody and it wounds me each time and it leaves its mark every time it happens.
So this time, I fought back. I called for two guards who were directing traffic in the underground basement. New at their job, they refused to budge because they didn’t have “orders” to move from the spot that both of them were designated on to stand. I couldn’t believe it. This was no time for bureaucracy. Exasperated, but still somewhat in control, I let the guys flea, but I went to give the wannabe pedestal guards a piece of my mind. I could hear myself becoming a whiny powerless nagging woman. I hated it, but what could I do? I had to ask them why the hell they didn’t come when I called them, a total idiot just got away.
By then enough men, old men, young men, men with family values, men who believe women need protection and those who just wanted to watch a show from the other side had gathered to catch the “honor-less” folk. They asked me to identify the person. I found myself increasingly being part of a large Victorian drama — Damsels in Distress. I hated this too.
So due to cleaver James Bond action the men caught one of the guys who tried to get away. There was some motorbike skidding involved. Eventually the guy removes his helmet. I ask him if he was the person whose friend was attempting to be entertaining. He said yes and I proceeded to ask him why he was laughing about it and didn’t tell his friend to take a break. At which he became a local Punjabi Sultan Rahi and stopped short of beating his baboon chest, mouth foaming action and all. He asked me who the hell I was to tell him anything, that I should shut up and know my place. I went ahead and told him to talk in English after he learned the language, and also that I was now going to make him regret what he just did.
Thanks to his daring proximity the thought of slapping him did come to mind, but why should I lie, I was scared of him. Taken by the nerve to be so aggressive toward me in front of a crowd of armed guards, I didn’t want to test which of the genders has a knack for violence, it was a well discovered territory for all women.
I took a deep breath and called for Mr. Pathan, the chief security guard who in the true sense of the word was a guard. He arrived on the scene with his 3 inch by 6 inch mustache folded towards the edges in a circle loop. Once he arrived, he grabbed the lad with his neck asked the rest of his supervisors to take care of the bike while he walked briskly toward the Colonel’s office, asked the girl to follow. Once he discovered the girl was me (He thinks I am Syed), he broke into a fit of ass-whopping of the lad, where he asserted who exactly possessed the lion’s mane and where he was in the food chain. This was his territory and there was some order here. The kicking, shoving and slaps continued two floors up via the car slopes and into the office.
I greeted the colonel who was kind enough to keep a reserved parking space for me for the past few months, “because I was a woman” after a couple of vandalism incidents with my car. We sat down and I narrated what happened. The fellow plaza worker talked about what he saw. When I gave my version, I knew I could never explain the concept of “perceived threat” and how much that can terrify a person. It is the unsaid rule that if you dare to report, or take action it’ll be marked as a protest against the status quo and there will be retaliation, and the last word won’t be yours.
The Colonel said that it is hard for these guys to differentiate between the “type” of women they see. Some women hold men’s hand in the parking lot. What he meant to say was, this was a simple case of miscalculation. You lady, are a married woman, with kids, I know your boss, your husband and so via the men associated with you, you deserve respect and I’ll punish these men accordingly.
Already the guy, thanks to Mr. Pathan’s mighty blows was a lamb, apologizing profusely after he heard the police man suggest jail, where he’d eventually call in his friend and settle the score. I asked him to define what he was sorry for, and it was quiet clear he was sorry about landing in the crap that he found himself in, not for the harm caused to me. The fellow plaza office worker, though harsh with the guy, was ultimately asking me to forgive and let him go. Men, after all have to protect other men, it was harmless, understandably a misjudgment that should not get you in so much trouble for. You can get into trouble for theft, murder and burglary but this is just a woman.
The Colonel asked me. What do you want to do?
Men oppress women because that’s how it is. Its more natural for a woman to clean shoes apparently than it is for a man, that is in women’s nature, the cooking, cleaning and the menial tasks the surround child rearing, as well as the overwhelmingly huge ones that need emotional strength of an elephant, business intelligence of a working woman and those that require spiritual stability and nurturing forgiveness. All this time, no one asked us what we want to do.
Colonel Saab, I want him and his friend to know, that sometimes you can pick on the wrong woman, a pissed off one. Can you do that please? I asked him.
He placed his cigar on the ashtray and sighed.
Artwork by Abro.
i read that the man was acting over-familiar…and got beaten squarely for it. Serves him right! he got his due. why all the self-flagellation on the part of male readers here?
if u r in a situation where u can grab a heavy bribe, or take advantage of a hapless man or a woman, or be unethical in your profession without fear of being caught, then u tend to forget the teachings of your religion or the constraints of law or the taboos imposed by the society. if something prevents u from doing the wrong thing it is your ghairat–that ubiquitous thing which has no adequate translation in english. an upright, decent, liberal society is based on it. unfortunately ghairat has been maligned by cowards who kill in its name. real ghairatmand would never raise his arm against a weaker person, he would be ashamed to tease a weaker person, he would fall in his own opinion after accepting a bribe, he would feel soiled after being unethical and he would consider himself a party to the crime if he witnesses it silently. when we inculcate these standards and values in our next generation we need not be afraid of the influence of tv or internet or unscrupulous company on our children.
we tend to blame everyone except ourselves for our predicament. the argument seems to be that the society needs to be cleansed before we become decent. in pakistan, it is our post partition generation that has given a free for all license to their next generation. we need to put the value system back in place. let us start with ghairat–a very indigenous value.
the root cause of all our problems is baigharati. if we inculcate ghairat in our children they would not behave like this. this was the difference between that pathan guard and the others. it involves a refusal to stay silent when seeing something wrong happening, because that will make u a lesser person. the solution is not more conservatism as some may imply, but for the fathers and mothers to put some ghairat into our kids.
Aisha,
Thank you for writing this.
First of all, this harrassment is not confined to Pakistan, India, or other South Asian countries. I live in America (I’m an American of Indian origin) and I lived in Italy for four years and traveled quite a bit. It happens to me all the time and in every country. I’ve concluded that it’s a universal thing.
It really infuriates me. What gives a man the right to talk to you a certain way? To use a certain language to you? Or have the nerve to physically touch you? I know there are some who think “Well, she’s dressed that way,” or “she’s asking for it.” Bullshit. I dress very conservatively, and I still get hassled.
What makes me even more angry is that on the one hand, I detest the fact that I have to follow social norms, which most of the time places a man in power. On the other hand, I DO let these social norms dictate my behavior and choices. For example, when I was living in Italy, there were many South Asian men. Apart from the men who are my father’s age and used to sing Bollywood songs when I walked by, I was also beholden to the norms, conceptions and so on that pervade South Asian societies. And in a way, I didn’t want to give anybody a “reason” to harrass me. I hated how before leaving the house, I would make sure that I wasn’t exposing anything because I didn’t want comments, glares, and whistles- which I got anyway, no matter if I was wearing a big poofy jacket with everything covered up. I cringed whenever I heard someone yell something dirty to me across the street in Hindi. I resented the fact that if I was seen walking and/or talking with a male friend who could clearly not be a husband (I’ve never been married), some (not all) South Asian male strangers thought it was perfectly acceptable to either ask me who that man was and what I was doing with him or say sexual things- because presumably, since I talk to men who are not family, I must be a prostitute or “easy”. (Certainly, not all the men who engaged in “Eve teasing” were South Asian; not all South Asian men did this. It was pretty much across the board, regardless of ethnicity. And in America, I get it from everyone- Black, White, Latino, and yes, South Asian. But I’m talking about South Asian men because I am most familiar with our social norms- norms which are arguably similar in non South Asian societies).
To be clear, I am not a “feminist” in the Western sense. I do not believe that women achieve equality by disrobing. I do not believe that we can assess women’s equality by how much it is acceptable and permissible to expose skin. At the same time, I do not think it’s acceptable to place the worth of a woman on how she is dressed. I disagree with how the female body is used as the point of reference for social interactions- by both those who argue that letting it all hang out is “liberation” and those who use a woman’s body parts, dress, etc to valorize her and thus argue for “covering up.”
Lastly, about the mother/whore dichotomy– that is pretty evident everywhere. In Italy, it’s the Virgin Mary/whore dichotomy. Virgin Mary is represented by your mother; anything opposite of that is a whore. You hope that your wife is like your mother- ie a Virgin Mary (I’m totally generalizing; it’s such a socio-religious interpretation that I am making, not a societal observation. But this dichotomy probably does influence people’s ideas, conceptions and etc to varying degrees).
[quote comment=”48731″]Umar et al,
The problem is not liberalism but that form of conservatism which says that all women who aren’t covered by a burqa are bait.
Can’t believe you are so slow as to blame exactly the opposite party for this.
This eve-chasing is the hallmark of a chauvinistic conservative society, not a forward thinking progressive one.
[/quote]
so why is it then the so called Modern Colonel and the security guards n other men all backed out and yet the conservative PATHAN, who always bears the brunt of punjabis racist jokes, was the only person to step forward 2 protect her dignity?
i am not discussing liberalism vs conservatism here, i am merely referring to the fact that we shd have a balanced media which shd project the rite image and cultural values which we r proud of, not the westernised dating/affairs filth which only a few posh families of lahore/isb/karachi r mistakenly proud of.
the side-effect of these channels is that the new generation is getting corrupted even further! they begin2think that singing songs2a girl at a busstop is normal, just like a bollywood movie!