Feminism is misinterpreted in Pakistan

WRCM 101

Forman Christian College

(A Chartered University)

Muhammad Subhan Gill

261942854

Argument Analysis Paper: feminism is misinterpreted in Pakistan

WRCM 101 Section TT

Instructor: Ms.Nadia Iftikhar

9 January,2023

Muhammad Subhan Gill

261942854
Feminism is misinterpreted in Pakistan
WRCM 101

Feminism is the ideology, which is in the environment from a long time now, that
aims about establishing equal women rights in politics, economics, personal and social
life. But it has now been shifted only to fight for the rights of women and cursing the
men of society. Moreover it has also covered the rights of other gender and fighting
for the different sexual orientation of people. But on this Gloria Steinem says,” A
feminist is anyone who recognises the equality and full humanity of women and men”.
Beside this if we scan rest of the world we can see how other nations define and
campaign for the feminism which goes parallel to words of Gloria Steinem while goes
perpendicular to the actions of Pakistani people. Also that we see different kind of
entertainment programs within the protest movement done by these feminists, which
reflects the mentality of supporters. But having a discussion on this problem has lead
to many arguments which have been supported by various grounds.

Firstly talking about the literal meaning of the word feminism. As we have seen
that supporters at various places talk about the rights such as that of dressing by will
as women are deprived of such as that the dress code designed for the women by the
society and if someone breaks the code they get an extreme reaction by public. But
seeing the other side of this argument and going parallel to the literal meaning of
feminism we see that neither does these rights are given to men in the local society
and that they get the same reaction by the society as do women have. Moreover
talking about the reaction of people on the dress code then how can we forget about
the full name of our country which justifies the reaction and making this argument
baseless. And summing up this argument with clearing that this is not even a right
which the feminist are talking about and obviously how can we forget that there can
never be a rule on how a person can view something or what he/she can view. (Dawn,
2022)

And another argument which has been disturbing feminist is the range of their
demands which starts from the talking about the unidentified gender to multiple sexual
orientation. Yes here I am discussing about the transgender community and another
community known by the name of LGBTQ. Protest and campaigning for these 2
communities is something which doesn’t come under the column of feminist as the
literal definition of the word states. But having a talk with various feminists we see
that most of them more or less talk about these groups and leaving behind all the
issues that should be discussed by them. There is no doubt that these communities also
have rights which need to be discussed and worked on but they by no means come in
the frame of feminism. And seeing the international image we see that they have
drawn a very clear line between them unlike locals. Adding to this we live in Islamic
Republic of Pakistan, and as the name has clarify that relations like these cannot exist
in this country as the religion here doesn’t accept this. (Dawn, 2019)

While seeing the other side of the picture we get to know about the perception of
men, who declare that women are not accepting what they are made for and want to
change the meaning of their lives. As our religion says as well as the history says that
women have always been given a rank lower than that of men. There are several
reasons for this which includes firstly the body type of men which is having a skin

Muhammad Subhan Gill

261942854
Feminism is misinterpreted in Pakistan
WRCM 101

type that is more rigid than that of women. Men also say that women uses all the
resources given by men to go against them. Adding to it men also state that women
just need liberty from men rather than any kind of right. To support this men give a
very common example, which is that whenever a men gets some sources he thinks of
getting married but on the other hand whenever a women get some sources she is
willing to leave the men.

Moreover women are not willing to accept what they have and what they will get but
rather they just want to eliminate men from their life because they think that they are just
trying to cut their wings which in the eyes of men are not capable of flying. Men say that the
way they work is way harder than the women but women want to make same amount of
money with less effort which forces men to go against this mentality. Further women also do
different kind of entertainment performances during their fight in the support of feminism,
which can be seen every year in the so called aurat march, on 8 March, which just makes
impression that women need to escape from all the responsibilities and just enjoy by their
own. Contributing to this are also the banners they are carrying which sometimes even
questions about the purpose of life and few other questions which are just useless at all and
cannot be addressed in any meaningful way.(Dawn, 2020)

Going thoroughly through the text we come to know that how far we come from the true
meaning of the word feminism and how badly has this misinterpretation been applied that
correcting this is a bigger task than fighting for the feminist. Including to this the mentality of
these feminists can also be gauged by the way they work. Hence misinterpretation has just
eaten all the roots and soon this tree is going to fall on someone.

Sources:-
Link 1:
Sandhya Karamat, ‘’New decade New feminism”,2020, Dawn newspaper
https://www.dawn.com/news/1540664
Link 2:
Newspaper’s Staff reporter,‘’Feminism is struggle for equality, injustice and peace”, 2022, Dawn
newspaper
https://www.dawn.com/news/1678643
Link 3:
Ismail Gul Khilji,’’True feminism”,2021, Dawn newspaper
https://www.dawn.com/news/1637531
Link 4:
Writer from Mumbai,”Islam and Feminism”,2011, Dawn newspaper
https://www.dawn.com/news/633708/islam-and-feminism
Link 5:
Irfan Aslam,”Rafia Zakaria’s critique of white feminism”,2022, Dawn newspaper
https://www.dawn.com/news/1687656

Muhammad Subhan Gill

261942854