A 400-year-old panchayat system is meant to protect only men. Men alone reap benefits from this system that operate out of the formal legal system of Pakistan. This is a system that proliferates male privilege. The same system made up of all-male village or tribe...
The rishta aunty is the biggest omen of patriarchy. She reinforces the segregation of sexes and takes the agency of young women into her own hands by choosing who young women will spend the rest of their lives with. Probably pushed to the sidelines of...
I grew up in a school where corporal punishment was the norm. Another norm was I being on the receiving end of it. Teachers were almost always displeased at my reading and writing ability. It took me longer than my classmates to read a passage. Words...
Misogyny, in Pakistan is largely a bipartisan exercise. However, with Khwaja Asif’s recent tweet about Firdous Ashiq Awan joining PTI and insinuating that she is a “newly acquired dumper,” he made PML N take the cake for misogyny. I won’t be surprised if secretly, he’s...
"I can't fade." Tanzeela Mazhar is the woman who took a man down on charges of harassment in the workplace. She has so much of what young people today call swag. When she walked in to meet with me this is the last thing I...
A tragedy always has a greater one lurking behind it. Waiting to descend like a slow mist over the aftermath of what is the first strike. Pakistan however has had a series of them. When Mashal Khan was dragged through the corridor of Abdul Wali...
Over a thousand women are killed for honor in Pakistan every year. At the Women of the World Summit in New York this month, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker from Pakistan spoke about honor in Pakistani society. She said her films on the...
As if it wasn’t already difficult enough for a woman in Pakistan, there is this bile-inducing custom to have a woman weighed in against what material and monies she brings into a marriage. Dowry determines a woman’s worth in this culture. About 95% marriages are...
Where did Syed Raza Ali Gillani’s toxic masculinity come from? His all-boys education that can only breed contempt and bone-chilling fear of female sexuality; his feudal roots or his deep-rooted sense of insecurity about being a pious devout. Wherever it came from, it was rewarded...
Antara Ganguli’s Tanya Tania is like being in Karachi and Bombay at the same time. It is like being there at a time when these two cities were both ugly and beautiful. Reading it you have that same feeling you have when you butter your...