Come March 8th, the country will witness another “Aurat March”. A valiant effort by the women in Pakistan to bring to light the many ways in which our Pakistani society views our mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives; their issues, challenges, and needs; and fails to acknowledge their contribution and their rightful place in the society.
However, marches of this nature are as much about raising awareness as they are about motivating society to take a course correction without introducing new controversies and distractions.
I believe that while previous “Aurat Marches” were commendable in highlighting the women’s issues, they introduced a number of distractions that drowned key messages and ultimately failed to convince most that society needed to take women’s issues seriously and do something to address them.
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The most significant of such distractions has been the slogan “Mera jism meri marzi” and it singularly did more harm than good. The slogan while catchy did not take into consideration how people at large and our society, in particular, interpret such words and slogans and view those that proclaim them.
The slogan was meant to bring attention to the “gender-based violence directed against women” in Pakistan, instead, it was interpreted as sexual in nature and thus provocative and vulgar. It provided ammunition to those that wanted the march to fail and put those on the defensive who were otherwise sympathetic to women’s cause.
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The effort is not all lost though but the future requires a different approach. Women leading the march must recognize that our society at its core remains patriarchal and conservative. And as such, it is more likely to listen to and address a grievance than to what it considers a provocation or a challenge to society’s norms. If the goal of the women’s march is to find support in the society for their cause then it may make sense to use issues such as slogans and facts as examples of justice denied. For example, a factual statement “Women Need Justice” may deliver better results than “Mera Jism Meri Marzi” and retelling of stories where women were denied justice just because victims happened to be women.
Women need to engage opposing voices in a dialog. It is important to convey that in asking for their rights, they were not encroaching upon the society’s norms or on the rights and freedoms of others.
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