Are you a good woman?

 Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Islamabad (Point News Today. DW News. December 11, 2024) My daughter-in-law has taken care of the entire house. She wakes up at dawn and makes breakfast for the whole house. It is not customary to hire employees to work in our homes, the daughter-in-law does all the work herself. This is the definition of a good daughter-in-law in Pakistani society.

My wife is allowed to step out of the house against my will.

She even talks to her mother on my phone. When I get tired of working all day, hot food is ready. She spends the whole day at home and indulges in luxury, but I do all the hard work. She is very afraid of me because if something goes against my mood, she raises her hand in anger, so she is in control. Well, it is also necessary to keep it under control, otherwise these women get out of hand.

This is the definition of a good wife in Pakistani society.

The question is important. Are you a good woman? The sixteen days from November 25 to December 10 have been designated as a movement to end gender-based violence around the world, and when it comes to gender-based violence, women have been at the forefront for centuries. A UN report has revealed that the most dangerous place for women is their home.

According to a UN report, 85,000 women were intentionally murdered by men in 2023. Of these 85,000 women, 60 percent were killed by their partners or family members. The report also revealed that around 140 women are killed every day worldwide by their spouses or family members.

In Pakistani society, even today, a father kills his daughter for not making round roti, while brothers, husbands or uncles still walk around in society with their chests raised, calling their brutality honor killings.

Qandeel Baloch is a living example of this. The hunger of the family accepted her, but then, by wrapping personal differences in a cloak of honor, society was told that Qandeel was “not a good woman.”

You are a good woman as long as you are happy with what is being given to you. Be it education, the right to make decisions about your life, the right to marry as you wish, the right to share in property, the right to have children, the right to wear the clothes of your choice, the right to work, or the right to live openly.

But out of all these rights, the givers will decide which right you will get and how much. If you bow your head and show submission, you will be called a “good woman.”

But if you go to the Women’s March and raise the slogan “My body, my will,” this society will label you as a bad woman. If you come out for women's education and your right to education, you will also be considered a rebel against this society like Malala Yousafzai and this land will be made narrow for you.

If you come out of the house for economic independence, the same society will also kill your character and sexually harass you, but all the titles of purity will be very comfortably adorned on the forehead of a man.

In a patriarchal society like Pakistan, men have been controlling the lives of the women in their homes and women have been bowing their heads considering it their right. Men's resistance to women's rights, along with men's mental prejudice, also creates the danger that these empowered women can demand their rights and break the chains of patriarchy and equalize men in society, and this fear is reflected in the criticism of the Women's March by men.

But for how long? For how long will women have to have their rights taken away for the medal of "good woman". How long will the properties of sisters remain in the possession of brothers just so that the Mecca of sisters remains safe?

Article 34 of the Constitution of Pakistan states that “steps shall be taken to ensure the full participation of women in all spheres of national life.”

But do women have that opportunity in Pakistan? 50 percent of women who complete MBBS in Pakistan do not work because they have to settle down at home, and to settle down at home, the first condition is usually that a girl does not work. In this patriarchal society, such burdens of expectations, responsibilities and respect have been placed around women that a woman cannot scream even if she wants to, and even if she has the strength, she cannot break these shackles of relationships because she is “a good woman.”

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