by Nighat Said Khan and Simorgh Women's Resource and Publication Center
The following two selections come from representatives of two feminist activist groups in Pakistan. The first is excerpted from the report Women in Pakistan: A New Era? by Nighat Said Khan, CHANGE International Reports, 1986. The author is an independent development consultant and an active member of the Women's Action Forum in Lahore, which she describes below. The second is selected from a speech given by a member of the Simorgh Women's Resource and Publication Center in March 1986. The center, founded in 1985, provides documentation services, participates in research and action programs and is presently designing a women's studies course.
On December 15, 1984, six women's organizations in Lahore passed the following resolution:
"General Zia-ul-Haq has asked all the citizens of Pakistan to judge his performance on the basis of the past seven and a half a years (in a referendum). For women, these years have been the most repressive since the creation of Pakistan, for we have seen not only the enactment of retrogressive laws but have suffered the encouragement of an atmosphere that is derogatory and denigrating to women.
"In addition to this, these past years have threatened women's participation in all spheres of national activity and in some cases have actually curtailed women's participation such as in the field of sports, culture, the media and the administration. When we add to this the atmosphere of vilification against women; the increasing crimes against women and the encouragement of viewing women only as sexual objects we can only say again that these seven and a half years are years for which the nation must be ashamed.
All this has been carried out under the garb of Islamization. We warn the women of Pakistan of the dangers inherent in the continued process of Islamization as it is perceived and implemented by a few self-proclaimed guardians of Islam. A mandate for the continuation of these policies, as asked for in the referendum, must be rejected by the women of Pakistan.
What is the life of an average Pakistani woman and what is her place in society? The Constitution of 1973 declared that a woman is equal before the law and that in Pakistan discrimination on the basis of sex is illegal. Yet legally, politically, socially and economically women arc more equal to the animals that most of them look after than to the men who own those animals. Pakistani society is uniformly and unconditionally patriarchal in which women are viewed as the property of the men to whom they are related. Woman's identity, her honor and her sense of self lies in the hands of the male to whom she "belongs." Her primary roles are that of daughter, wife and mother. Her rights under the Constitution and under Islamic Law are denied to her in practice. She is rarely "allowed" to inherit or own property, exercise control over her earnings, decide on whether she wants to be educated or whether and to whom she wants to get married. In fact all decisions are made for her and by and large she accepts this unequal position as qismat (fate), that is, her price for being born a woman.
This holds true for urban, middle and upper-class women as well as the majority who live in the country. Exceptions exist of course, particularly in the middle and upper classes, although even these women are restricted and discriminated against in numerous ways. Contradictions also exist. For instance it is not unusual in Pakistan to have women ministers and ambassadors, women vice-chancellors of major universities, senior civil servants and senior professionals in both the private and public sectors. This perhaps is understandable in a rigorously class-based society, where many of these positions depend more on a woman's background than on her sex.
But these are exceptions. For women in general life consists of illiteracy; of malnutrition and ill health; of hard work (usually unrecognized and unpaid) and long hours; of a denial of herself as a person and of an extremely subservient position and status within the home and within society. Not only has little been done about this in the Decade for Women but women's contribution to the family, the community and to national development continues to go unrecognized, by the family, the community and in national statistics. It is not uncommon, for instance, for male members of a family to deny the contribution of "their" women (the "my wife does not work" syndrome) or for community leaders, contractors or factory owners to say "we have no women workers " when women can be seen in the fields, on the construction sites or in factory lots. Further, it is not unusual for the government to quote its own statistics to prove that women are not yet playing a significant role in development or contributing to the national economy.
Government programs supposedly geared to bring about a change in the lives and conditions of Pakistani women have failed mainly because of a lack of political commitment. Far from "developing" women or "empowering" them, these policies (and other general policies) have further marginalized women in the development process, as well as reinforcing the attitude that women are only fit for "feminine" skills.
If government development policies have not helped women, policies in other areas have made the situation much worse. The legal position of women has been attacked at various levels and many laws have been passed that deny equal rights and an equal status for women. The most damaging of these have been the changes in the Law of Evidence, which states that in financial and other matters a woman's witness is half that of a man's, and the Hadood Ordinance, which apart from everything else does not differentiate between adultery and rape. Similarly the proposed Law of Qisas and Diyat, which states specifically that a woman's worth is half that of a man's, along with the changes envisaged in the Family Laws Ordinance, the Child Marriage Act and the Dowry Bill, among others will diminish the rights and status of women still further.
But this is not the end of the story. The position and the status of women has been attacked at many levels in the name of Islam. The women of Pakistan have borne the brunt of "Islamization" policies, because it is easier to segregate women than it is to change to an interest free economy, to stop corruption, or to implement the many other aspects of "Islamization." The segregation of women therefore became the linchpin of Pakistan's Islamization. In his second speech to the nation Zia [who took power in a 1977 coup] promised that the sanctity of purdah (the veil) and the security of women in the four walls of their homes would be protected, meaning that those women wanting to observe purdah would deserve protection.
Later, however, the government started issuing directives that all women government employees should wear "Islamic dress." Effectively this meant wearing a chaddar over their normal clothes and covering their heads. This was then extended to educational institutions and women generally were told they should do the same. The sari was also declared "un-Islamic." Although these directives were largely ignored, except on television, the government focus on what women wore - in other words on women's bodies - encouraged an atmosphere wherein the government, and men in general, became judges of a woman's modesty and morality. In the winter of 197879, for example a woman in an upper class residential area was publicly slapped by a strange man for not covering her head, something that would have been unthinkable in the same area prior to 1977. The focus on protecting the "morality" of women (although not of men) led to male-female couples (in some cases fathers and daughters) being harassed by the police and by other men and made to prove their relationship to each other.
All immorality, corruption and vice was attributed to women. Women were to exercise complete austerity, for it was their demands for consumer goods, etc., that led to male corruption; it was women who had to reform society by becoming "good"; it was women who had to stop violence against themselves by locking themselves up. Women's spectator sports were segregated; music and dancing classes for women were banned; and there were even questions raised by influential Islamic scholars on a woman's right to paid work. To make matters worse, in May 1982, the government launched a campaign against obscenity. While this in other circumstances may have been commendable, the issue - as defined by the government - was that obscenity was caused by women. Therefore women's pictures were banned in the press, and female models on television were restricted to those commodities "relevant" to women. This directive was followed by another that female models could not appear for more than 25 percent of the allotted time for a commercial.
All this was also projected in the media. The "good" woman stayed at home and looked after her husband and her children. The working woman was portrayed as morally lax and the cause of the disintegration of the family, of social values and of society in general. This vilification against women by the media became particularly absurd when an Urdu daily newspaper proclaimed that the women who were protesting for their rights were nothing better than prostitutes. The government, despite its campaign against obscenity, did not ban the newspaper - although banning newspapers is common enough under the Martial Law regime.
The result of all this was a further deterioration in the status of women, for they could be blamed then for all evil, and all anger and frustration could be played out against them. In the past eight years the violence against women has increased phenomenally and at every level. In a survey done by a leading newspaper it was revealed that 99 percent of "housewives" and 77 percent of employed women were beaten by their husbands; women are murdered over land disputes; they are blinded by husbands; they are kicked to death; or burnt in anger. More women are abducted; more women sold; assault and sexual harassment has increased tremendously and rapes are reported almost daily in the press. The atmosphere has in fact deteriorated so much that on one occasion in 1984, when a man tried to intervene to stop a group of hooligans from harassing some women at a bus stop, he was stoned to death by the male crowd at the bus stop.
Much of this violence against women, as already argued, is a direct result of government policy and attitudes towards women, and much of it is not only sanctioned but perpetrated by the state. The Hadood (Islamic Punishments) Ordinance for instance, doesn't differentiate between adultery (consenting, if illegal, sexual relations) and rape, but also requires the witness of four men of honor to prove a rape case. Rape therefore is seldom reported, for social and psychological reasons, but also because if a woman cannot prove the rape she can be punished for adultery since she has admitted to fornication! Similarly rapists are seldom convicted since it is difficult to find four male witnesses. Also, since adultery is now a crime against the state, many women were flogged for adultery (on one occasion a blind woman was also sentenced) until women's organizations pressured the government to stop the flogging of women. Much of the violence is also perpetrated and/or encouraged by the police.
Since 1981 the women of Pakistan have however not been taking all this silently. From 1977 until September 1981 the women, as well as the nation, were waiting for the elections repeatedly promised by Zia-ul-Haq. The women were also a little stunned and confused, and none too sure of the implications of the Government's Islamization policy. The Hadood Ordinance of 1979 therefore went uncontested until 1981 when a judge sentenced a man and a woman to stoning to death and 100 lashes respectively under the provisions of this Ordinance. This case was the catalyst for the Women's Action Forum (WAF). At that time a women's consciousness-raising and action group set up in Karachi to bring women's organizations and individual women together to fight the retrogressive measures being taken against women. Within a month, a WAF chapter had been formed in Lahore and soon after one in Rawalpindi/Islamabad.
WAF therefore came about in response to a need for Pakistani women to fight for equal rights and an equal status in this society and to fight against any changes in the law or in society that affected them negatively. It sought to achieve its objectives by increasing an awareness, primarily among women, of their existing rights and of the rights which are their due; of their equal status in society and their contribution to it; and of the legal, economic, social, cultural and familial discrimination against women in Pakistan. By helping to raise the consciousness of women. WAF hoped that all women individually and collectively would struggle on their own behalf to bring about a society where women and men would be equal, and where the status and roles of neither were predetermined.
WAF does not align itself with any particular political political party or group. Although each chapter functioned somewhat differently, the influences of WAF on women's organizations, individual women and on the "woman's issue " has been far greater than its membership numbers. Apart from bringing together, and in many cases revitalizing existing women's organizations, WAF also gave impetus to the formation of several new organizations and in several cities. Separately and together, these organizations have been struggling at various levels to fight the retrogressive trends in the last eight years. This is done by holding seminars and conferences, by lobbying with women's groups, interest groups, trade unions, political parties and government. By writing papers and distributing pamphlets, by petitions and campaigns, by rallies and public meetings, by pickets, demonstrations and by going to jail, the cause is furthered.
In many cases battles have been lost, but also many have been won. The most important was that the women's issue has become a national issue, debated among the people and the press, and all the political parties, including those of the Right, address themselves to women. In fact, the parties in the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy, the opposition group, have the same position on the changes in laws on women as do the women's organizations. All political parties have included women's sections in their manifestos and many have taken a more progressive position than previously. Trade unions and other class/interest groups have similarly started addressing themselves to women. Peasants' groups such as the Sind Awami Tehriq (Sind People's Movement) even have a separate women's wing. The government has also been put on the defensive and various gestures have been made to placate women and to gain our support.
Yet the criticism against the active women's organizations, particularly of WAF. is that they are small groups of "elite," "professional," "urban" women who have no roots in the culture of the nation. Certainly the membership of active women's rights groups are articulate urban women, and certainly the membership is small, but the voice raised by this small group may well be in the process of being heard by a larger and larger number of women. Why else would such a small group be "counted" by so many sections of society? Why did Dr. Attiya Inayatullah, the present Minister of State for Population, warn the women of Pakistan not to be taken in by the "handful" of women activists "who are working against the present government to hinder the process of Islamization in the country?" And why does the President himself feel that this small group of women are working for "some vested interests" and must be pacified? Dr. Inayatullah may have scoffed at the numbers, and General Zia-ul-Haq may denounce us as "unpatriotic" but in appealing to the women of Pakistan not to listen to us, they both paid a tribute not only to the "handful," but to Pakistani women everywhere. For in that appeal was also the insecurity that the women of Pakistan were not necessarily supportive of this government's policies on women, despite the propaganda, despite the media and despite martial law.
For a copy of the complete paper by Nighat Said Khan, write CHANGE International Reports: Women and Society, 29 Great James Street. London WCIN 3ES. England. Women's Action Forum is located at P.O. Bo.x3287. Gulberg. Lahore. Pakistan.
From The Quest: Toward an Alternative Perspective on Women in Pakistan, Simorgh Women's Resource and Publication Center.
While working with other movements, the women's movement, but especially the feminist movement, must remain autonomous so that the women's issue is not subsumed by other simultaneous struggles. This last point needs to be emphasized because this need for autonomy in the women's movement is so often subject to ridicule and attack. But the rationale behind this need is no different from the rationale used in support of the autonomy of other oppressed classes. We do for instance support the autonomy of peasant and/or worker struggles; we support the autonomy of class/ethnic and national movements, etc., because we argue that an oppressed class must work out for itself the nature of its oppression and the strategies to fight it. This is even more true for the women's movement because the situation is more complex and long term.
But what are we up against? The forces of the Right only seek to segregate and immobilize women, at home and at work, and the progressive forces, while sympathetic to women's rights, assume a pose of patriarchal benevolence toward women and resist examination of the more fundamental issues raised by feminism. Sometimes in fact the women's movement is more misunderstood and attacked by progressive forces than by the Right who at least are more honest in admitting the threat that the women's movement poses for them. The progressives accuse those of us initiating this movement as elitist, westernized and segregationist; and, as far as feminism is concerned, they refuse to see this as a force that could herald a major change in society. Or perhaps they do. Perhaps they do resist and resent this precisely because for the first time women have initiated and are in control of ideological production. This in itself is threatening because by losing control of ideological production the balance of power necessarily shifts and in this case in favor of women.
We have deliberately brought in the word feminism, as opposed to "women" because feminism as a concept is so often even more misunderstood than the women's movement and sometimes attacked even by women. But what is feminism and why is it so often misunderstood? In its essence it means that feminism goes beyond legal and economic reforms which are against discrimination, and is for an emancipation and liberation from all forces of oppression by the state, by society and by males. This includes a struggle against women's subordination within the home and an exploitation of women by the family and by culture and religion. Feminism is no more than a struggle for the achievement of women's equality, dignity and freedom of choice through women's power to control our own lives and bodies within and outside the home. We use the word "power" here not as a mode of domination over others but as a sense of internal strength, the right to determine one's choices, and the ability to influence social processes and the direction of social change.
In other words feminists seek the removal of all forms of inequality, domination and oppression through the creation of a more just social and economic order, nationally and internationally. While feminism also entails an autonomous movement at certain stages of the struggle, it is in fact more integral in that it seeks to integrate the feminist perspective in all spheres of personal and national life, as opposed to the equal rights groups that often end up reinforcing the notion of a separate women's sphere. As feminists we look at more fundamental changes and differentiate between reform struggles and strategies and the more radical changes which are based on challenging the existence and the mode of functioning of existing institutions.
Feminism therefore is neither Eastern nor Western. It is a transformational process, an idea, a dream, a quest, and in that it is no more bound to international boundaries than any other idea may be. The women's movement in Pakistan, and feminists in particular, are often attacked for being elitist and westernized and for wanting to impose a "foreign ideology." But the idea of feminism is no more foreign or elitist than many another idea, some of which form the linchpin of our national culture, our politics and our economics. As a vision it is no more foreign than the vision of democracy, of parliamentary or presidential systems, of the development of capitalism, of private property in land and absentee landlordism, or of the ideology of the Left. Perhaps the idea of feminism was not born in Lahore (although forms of feminism have always existed in our history) but then neither was the East India Company, nor the industrial revolution, nor J.J. Rousseau nor the Greeks (the fathers of democracy). Marx was not born in Lahore and Lenin did not plan his revolution while sitting in Gulberg! Indeed Islam itself is not indigenous to this soil. Like other ideologies it came as a foreign force, as an idea and indeed even as a vision. It may have been accepted by the people but it was not born here and in that sense is as foreign as many another ideology that we may adhere to.
As for elitism, the women in the forefront of the women's struggle are no more elite than those in the forefront of other struggles. No movement, group, political party, trade union or peasant organization, at least in Pakistan, is initiated by the "masses," no vision has found a following without a visionary, and no revolution has not had its well healed and usually highly intellectual vanguard. This is as true of Islam as a vision as any other ideology.
Then again we are told that we are un-Islamic. But what is Islam? Is Islam a vision or is it merely a ritualistic exercise? If it is the former then we can only be judged by God, if the latter then perhaps men can judge us. However, and fortunately, - the spirit of Islam comes from God. It addresses itself to all believing men and women, but the ritual or the interpretation of God's message comes from men. Women have always been discouraged from religious interpretation. This is no accident because except for the early years of Islam, women have always been excluded from religious discourse. This exclusion in fact is a matter of deliberate policy to keep women out of the circuits of power and to deprive them of the right to control their own lives. Even when religion is used as liberation ideology, women and the feminist dimension is not addressed, and indeed where Islam has successfully brought a form of liberation, history proves that women have been further suppressed. A classic example of this is the recent transformation in Iran.
This order of things must be changed. Muslim women all over the world are aware of this. Slowly but surely they are getting together to challenge the situation and to retrieve for themselves the essence of the liberation message, the essence of themselves and the essence of justice.
Simorgh Women's Resource and Publication Center is located at P.O. Box 3328, Main Market. Gulberg II, Lahore, Pakistan.