Aurat March: An Elitist Movement

Can you imagine a woman slouched over a burning stove back from her tiring day cleaning houses lashing out to her husband and saying “khud khana garam kar lo” [heat up your own food]? Realistically, her clan of women would vehemently advise her against it. According to a study, the highest prevalence of domestic violence was recorded among the working class and lower middle socio-economic classes. While I understand the sentiment behind the slogan, I believe it to be unsubstantiated and detached from Pakistan’s reality.

The supposed acts of defiance against the strong foundations of patriarchy are hollow. Showing up in designer clothes in airconditioned cars while claiming to fight for the freedom of women nationwide is merely a performative brand of selective feminism. Instead of addressing basic issues that plague our society, “feminists” have decided to put up a show. Who cares if women in Balochistan do not have access to basic menstrual hygiene products? Who cares if women and children make up the majority of 20 million homeless people? Who cares if girls from remote areas of Pakistan are still deprived of their right to education? Who really cares about these issues? As long as they can easily come out on the streets for a superficial display of feminism with nonsensical street plays, it is all good and well in the la la land.

Truth be told, Pakistan’s Aurat March is just a personalised version of white feminism. Only those issues will be addressed that are faced by the elite. How dare you ask me to stay at home and not be out at ungodly hours of the night, I am a modern woman who should be able to roam around the city whenever I wish for it! How dare you ask me to sit properly? Let me do away with basic manners and sit however I want even if it makes people uncomfortable!

What began as a movement towards ensuring the well-being, empowerment and development of women went down the drain pretty quickly when participants prioritised provoking the nation with outrageous, vulgar slogans instead of raising awareness on real issues that affect real women. Now a slogan (I am sure, well-intended) “mera jism meri marzi” [my body, my will] was supposed to ignite a productive discourse on bodily autonomy and gender-based violence, but it was tainted with remarks of vulgarity and obscenity. We support bodily autonomy but we can not support outright obscenity which by the way is a public offence as per the Pakistan penal code.

It should not be unimaginable if Aurat March hurts religious sentiments. A reactive Haya March was initiated to counteract the Aurat March which gained a bit of traction on its own. That proves that there are still women who are not entirely convinced of the march’s objectives. If Aurat March truly cared for women of all classes, sects and ethnicities, it would have tactically recognised and mitigated the challenges these women still face instead of laughing in their faces and calling them every name under the sun.

Moreover, social media has acted as a catalyst for the widespread of elite feminism. Want to take a guess on who does not have access to social media? The other 70% of the total Pakistani population, so no your passionate rants will never reach an illiterate girl yearning for access to education. Who it will reach are keyboard warriors who are chronically online and living safely in a bubble of their own delusional reality. This phenomenon has been perfectly capsulated in the dialogue from the movie Darlings “dunya twitter waalon ke liye badli hai humare [lower working class women] liye nhi” [World has changed for people on Twitter, not for us] demonstrating the glaring truth that world is still the same cruel place for women but now with a veil of performative feminism to sell a pretty picture.

The divide between the elite and working class women is so vast that women battered by their circumstances scorn as they look up. Women must participate in decision-making at all levels if we are to live in a nation founded on democratic principles. (Important keyword: All levels.) To the fullest extent possible, they must be provided with equal opportunities to practise changing society. To truly be free from oppression, patriarchy must be destroyed for this reason. The current, fourth wave of Pakistani feminism spectacularly fails to involve the majority of stakeholders in the discourse.

Here is to hoping that some miracle knocks some sense in the minds of established activists and they try to bring every impacted party onto the table for an effective discourse, without which every Aurat March is just an annual festival to beat up some drums, dance around and hang out for a while, shouting hollow slogans!