Women at Liberty

I remember being struck by this sight as I walked down the Liberty Market roundabout last year. Even then it somehow occurred to me that this was a special moment that i needed to capture.

In Pakistan the presence of women in the public sphere is abysmally low, mainly due to the fear of catcalls, jeers, leers and groping that all women can and, more often than not, do face when they step out of the house. But in the Musharraf years thanks largely to his active women promotion policy in the media and elsewhere (whether or not at the behest of America is a moot point here), the sight of women in the public sphere became much less of an anomaly--that he slipped up and let his mentality shine through in his comment on Mukhtaran Mai and Pakistani women in general is a sad fact that detracts from the other things that he did do right. Urban centres saw more varying degrees of attire on women than I have ever seen before and women seemed to be playing a more active public role in many arenas such as sports, media, banking and even flying.

The voice that Musharraf gave to the previously largely complacent upper middle class urban majority (ironically most so in the case of civil society rising up against him in the judiciary issue) is the one that is today holding up against the Taliban most vocally in Pakistan's larger cities.

Getting back to the picture. If you notice you can barely make out any men in it, which is what I found fascinating and wanted to capture in the frame. It was a strangely liberating experience for me to see such a thing in a Pakistani bazaar--women sitting without fear out in the open, relaxing, eating chaat and taking a break from their busy shopping. From the conservative manner in which they are dressed it can be conjectured that they do not belong to the upper social strata of society thus their breathing freely in the open air is all the more heartening. Not that I buy into the idea that women in Pakistan belonging to the middle and upper middle classes are more free in any truly substantial way than are their less economically fortunate counterparts.

With the shadow of the Taliban looming large over us fear and oppression has crept right back into society. The other day a friend was telling me that there have been reports of young lads going around Liberty and slapping women who have uncovered heads. A Facebook status of a friend of mine who is visiting Lahore these days informed us that she had just witnessed a man beating up his wife with a wooden pole right in the middle of the road. All those who are forever harping about how respectable Muslims and Pakistanis are just need to look at the level of hostility towards women in this country and the larger Muslim world to find gaping holes in their theory. In the 'elite' institution that I teach at ideas are as pedestrian as one would expect on the streets. The ground we had gained in the past decade or so seems to have been lost in one fell swoop, maybe because it was ultimately only cosmetic, maybe because the chauvinistic ideals of the land are too deeply ingrained for just one single, not so popular President to be able to change so soon. And now things are only going to go from bad to worse.

Till such time as they are still in the flux some brave women of Lahore have started cycling on its streets (along with a group of men). The organization is called Critical Mass, Lahore and ever since its inception in December has garnered a loyal following of around 30 people. I love cycling and would love the opportunity of being able to use this means of transport on my city's roads without any fear, but for now doing it in a controlled environment is a good start. If only the political scene did not look so ominous one could hope to impact people's mindsets by forcing them to watch women out and about on city roads, and once the novelty factor would wear off, accepting it as a normal, everyday occurrence.


While women in the country (and i will reiterate most Muslim countries) find it hard to breathe the fresh outdoor air and to feel their limbs alive and free, defenders of the 'East' abound persuading us to believe that women here are somehow deeply respected, even revered. The worst kind are the 'born again Muslims and Easterners'. Amongst women it is usually your average Convent educated aunty who has suddenly rediscovered her 'roots' and goes around eschewing Goras, Hollywood, Jews and in some cases even *gasp* her whitening cream. Two colleagues I know are shining examples of the above. One is poisoning young minds through the teaching of a warped version of Islam while the other with her own psychological issues cannot see anything wrong whatsoever with the darling little Princes she has been teaching (read spoiling) for years. One teacher, musing upon my brother's marriage to a Shia girl, declared the other day that the family my sister-in-law belongs to is 'mixed breed, not pure' Syeds . These are the teachers of our land teaching to the errr.....'creme de la creme'. What more can one say.

But sadly the scourges of chauvinism, racism and stupidity don't just plague one side of the planet, there are many examples of it all over the world.