Aurat March caused how many men to cook food for themselves…?

No matter how liberal we become, men and women will always be categorised as discrete units of society.

Feminism is trending nowadays. The concept just lost its true essence since it has been polymerized with modernism by few pseudo-burgers. I wonder a new phobia is in queue waiting to be introduced soon. It would be most appropriate if we name it 'aurat phobia'. We have been raised in such a male dominating milieu that the word 'aurat' infuriates us immediately for no reason. Everyone is striving to break the list of self-attached taboos with this sacrosanct word. The recent thwack of aurat march foists us with this responsibility to get strictly offended by being called aurat and sadly we must carry that albatross around our necks only if we don’t want to detach from the stigma of maverick citizens.

Women from assorted populations came together with placards imprinted with snags and issues just to direct their efforts towards relieving the plight of gender discrimination, so far faced by them. However, the issues are only preponderant among women from rural areas as majority of them are born with the fates to slog. These indefatigable ladies have no other choice but to live in a joint family, cook food, assiduously work with their husbands, fulfil their sexual desires and produce children. Unfortunately, the only fear common among this coterie of women is talaq or second marriage of their husbands in case of even a slight slackness in their regular tasks. These women are pre-warned with the fact that the key to happiness lies in paying homage to their men even by subdue their instinct to nurture. These poor souls have no hold even over their bodies and the good news is that they don’t even have a slight idea of aurat march held last month. I asked my maid few days back to give her opinion on all such stuff and would she unite if there is a chance? Unsurprisingly she had no clue what is happening around so I introduced her to some of the facets, she grinned and reiterated without hesitancy:

“ye sab ameeron ke chonchlay hain baji, mera shohar toh do minute bhi na lgaye mujhe talaaq deny mai agar main road per ajaon”.

“Only rich people can afford all this, I will get divorce from my husband within no minute if I support them.”

The organisers should divulge publicly the success of all that dramaturgy. They must promulgate the number of men who concurred with this theory of feminism and started cooking meals for themselves. I have no idea why these elite class women with financially strong background, having a horde of maids and servants for all these works, came outside just to accentuate the issues off-centred to them. Majority of these ladies were financially independent with sturdy family backgrounds that if, in any case their husbands disdained their ideas, it would make no difference to their lifestyle. This whole march was underpinned by a hefty masculine support as it is highly far-fetched to believe that a lady comes to road knowing the fact, that her husband would strictly averse such dissent because It’s hard to live in Rome and fight with the pope. Aurat march would only be fair if the women who have been suffering came to road with some real issues to foreground.

A woman on road with placard imprinting the pic of uterus with the caption “My body is not a battle ground” in the name of feminism is nothing, but idiocy. What kind of feminism is this? It could be apposite without accentuating such ribaldry and dilemma is, the entire manoeuvre ends up with zero out-turn. Issues like gang rape, workplace harassment, child marriage, female education should be raised separately but not under a flag of feminism. As far as dress code is concerned, although we already trailed behind west blindly but our culture causes feminism to exude in a completely different dimension. We cannot fulminate topless like they did few years back. There is a fine difference between our religious and cultural values. No matter how liberal we become, men and women will always be categorised as discrete units of society and such scoffs should be avoided in future.

The writer is currently doing MPhil in biotechnology from National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Faisalabad, and a freelancer who usually likes to highlight the darker aspects of society.

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