Me Tarzan, You Pseudo-Puritanical-Silent-Maid-Who-Slaves-To-My-In satiable-Ego-For-Life
It is very, very tempting to lump the male of our species under a single category – i.e. insecure, self-indulgent imp who boasts a chauvinistic pride based solely on an alphabetical mishap (designated ‘XY’ by geneticists.) But, I shall temporarily lend credence to the postmodernist notion of diversity and resist such a temptation.
Not too long ago, Raza Rumi made a humorous contribution to the issue of gender stereotyping by creating different boxes Pakistani women must inevitably fit into “or else….†I would like to attempt a similar parody – of Pakistani men. I have socio-politico-feminist reasons for doing so. Nothing too personal, rest assured. My meagre understanding and observation of Pakistani men has led to the groupings you find below.
The aim is to see if the boxes “tick†and what the Pakistani man has to say to that. There’s no denying that in our society it has almost always been the woman who has had to defend herself, no matter what the circumstance. The man prosecutes but is seldom prosecuted. Has he no responsibility for the debilitated condition of women in Pakistan? I include in this the “liberal†Pakistani male who is well-versed in the slogans for woman’s lib, but silently and secretly accepts the sexist codes embedded in our social make-up. Perhaps the Hudoods and the Hisbas offer him a kind of a guilty comfort – a telling reminder of his superior rank, making for a very cushiony fallback position should his ego get so desperate?
The point is that by just keeping quiet he is perpetuating the status quo. Now it is easy to forgive an ignorant man, but not an educated man’s passivity.
Chichora extraordinaire: he is the plankton of our society. You will find his type, always flashy and smirking, floating about in abundance in the dirty waters that make up our bazaars and gallis (mind you, he has also been spotted on the streets of Southall and many other desi ghetto areas across the globe). Blessed with a natural affinity for ogling and elbowing, he cannot help but make the woman feel like she is the first and only woman he has ever seen. The ability – to effortlessly yet expressively reduce the woman to an object – is truly unique to this group.
Proud owner of a whirligig-wife: “marriage†was a business transaction and “wife†his purchased item. He actually believes he owns her like one would a 15 sq. m. utility area, or a whirligig to be spun at his whim. Her very existence is defined by his demands/moods/wants/needs.
I used to know a woman in Pakistan, mother of four, who was owned by such a man. One day she set herself on fire. Alas, fate can sometimes have a very cruel sense of irony: she survived the suicide attempt, and now lies paralyzed and strapped to her charpai, dependent on that evil man to feed her liquefied food from a straw.
Men from all socio-economic backgrounds can fall into this category. On the one extreme of this group you find a battered and broken-spirited wife who has been used and abused throughout her marriage. She may try to kill herself or avoid doing so for the sake of her children. On the other extreme you have those jittery, slightly neurotic, wives, who jump at the mention of their husbands. They are trained poodles, craftily brainwashed by their owner to always behave in accordance with his specific and strict code of ethics and etiquettes. Constantly fearful of making a wrong move at the grave displeasure of her owner, I can’t imagine life to be any more than a litany of lament for her. (I’d equate the relationship to bonded labour but I don’t wish to benumb your senses with too much reality.)
Napoleon-complex: also known as Small Man Syndrome, its members subscribe to a rather intense, at times aggressive, policy towards women. Having nurtured his own inferiority complex by fixating on a physical or mental “inadequacy†of some kind, he seeks compensation for his “shortcomings†via dominance. Caught up in a maelstrom of self-doubt and suspicion in others, he projects his insecurities onto women (conveniently considered the weaker sex.)
Whereas most men would be inclined to judge women based on unfair stereotypes, I feel the tendency is more accentuated in this group. He has a need to prove and establish his superiority. He may adopt a more machismo look; buffing up to resemble Salman Khan or flagrantly affronting innocent passer-bys in public displays of aggression. Or he may try to convince you that he is very funny, or very rich, or very clever, or a ‘very’ of something that is enough to delude him to thinking that he commands more power in relation to someone else. Such extreme competitiveness can be channelled positively in the workplace, but his unfortunate misgivings reinforce the sad power plays between the genders.
New Age sexists: he is of the variety I mentioned at the beginning: sexist by his sheer silence. He doesn’t ogle other women or try to “own†his own. But he passively accepts the system; acting immune to the discrimination he sees around him.
He is the liberal parvenu and poseur: more concerned with affecting the manners of a woman’s-liberationist rather than making any effort to understand and implement the principles he’s supposed to espouse. Because at the end of the day, he’s not the victim, and so why should he bother? And let’s not forget that he actually gets to enjoy the many perks of living in a sexist, patriarchal society.
So, do Pakistani men continue to be conscripted into the groups outlined above? If so, Why? What can Pakistani men do to break these moulds – thus breaking a very entrenched and harsh form of gender discrimination in our society? Finally, is there a Pakistani man who is doing something/anything to combat sexist attitudes towards women? Please come forward and bewilder us all.
@Watan Aziz
I fully agree with you. The human response to freedom, fear and love is essentially the same with minor cultural differences. You have very nicely mentioned a fact that is rarely understood by even the educated people that we meet in our daily lives or by visionaries that we see debating in the media. It is due to the lack of this understanding that people tend to advocate alternate forms of government over democracy by arguing “Our people are not ready for democracy”.
As for the question asked in the post:
I understand that there is a social issue and the current state is shamefully bad, but while categorizing men we should also consider the same women get so much preferential treatment in our society as well. For example, if a woman acts and looks like a lady then she is also treated like a “sister” most of the time. I am not saying that it is good or bad, but it does happen. It is something that ordinary pakistani men seldom get credit for, just because no one is applauding for them in the west.
It is also a reality that in pakistan a women can either be an “immoral women” or
a “moral woman”. Women in the roles of friends and colleagues are still alien to our culture. If we are talking about women in the work place then, I would say that men should be more open towards women and stop considering each interaction as an invitation to flirt, however, when we talk about family, women should learn to protect the exclusive rights of their companions and stop abusing them in the name of female empowerment. That is way it happens in the more liberal world as well; if you don
I find it amusing that even as we approach year 2008, we find it hard to just digest humor. On a more serious note women (in their numerous roles) in Pakistan are almost always responsible for shaping the personality of men. The biggest joke in all is that in the eyes of many they remain absolved of any responsibility in this regard to this day.
The human nature, its limitations and its excesses are not limited by artificial political geography of nations/states.
I have interacted peoples from all over the world, studied their methods and their ways. No difference in innate nature; just language and climatic bias of local living.
This post requires a second rendering, a more comprehensive and exhaustive study of models of good and bad.
However, there is present a paradox: write humor and expect serious riposte?
Just answer the questions asked in the article.
Pakistan is embroiled in a million and one issues. Alas we must pick and choose which ones we write about. But you have to be rather deluded (or ever so complacent in your machismo) to think that sexism, and the male passivity towards it, is not a pressing issue in Pakistan.
Needless to say, this isn’t a deep intellectual treatise on the nature of Pakistani sexism. It was never meant to be; it is a post on a blog! But the topic is relevant to all of us and it is unfortunate that nobody has yet answered the questions posed.
Male chauvinism is prevalent in every society. I didn’t think that by writing about its variant in Pakistan I’d be construed as doubting its universality. And, if the phenomenon is universal, so are the categories. But I find the comparison to the West useless (and an excuse to shrug off the issue); we should keep our focus on what is happening inside Pakistan. I’m convinced that these “groupings” exist (nay, are ROOTED) in Pakistan and enlist a VAST membership. That is a problem… don’t you think?
As for the categories themselves, they pertain exclusively to the types of “sexists” I find in Pakistani society. They do not pertain to all Pakistani men.
Some of the comments posted here exemplify the way in which the status quo is perpetuated. Finding faults in the woman, her experiences, her views. From suggesting that I’ve had lousy personal experiences to suggesting that this “feminism” is the latest trend amongst urban over-educated women. Instead of accepting a glaringly obvious reality.
The aim was to go beyond the sad, yet typical, scenario of me having to take on a defensive position before the predominently male ATP audience. The aim was to ask what you, the Pakistani man, can do to effect a change in the sexist attitude towards women in Pakistan.