These days we can notice the ‘Khatoon-I-Mashrik’ women of east on streets demanding women equal rights. When you take a look at India, Pakistan or Iran recently all these countries faced protests, where girls & womens came on street demanding what they call FREEDOM, Azadii from Head Scarf, Azadi to wear jeans, Azadi just to do anything, slogans like “meri marzi meri Jeans”(delhi,India), “Mera jisam meri Azadi”(Islamabad,Pakistan) were raised by protestors. Playcards displayed messages like “ye char deewari,Chardar Gali-sadi lash ko Mubarak”, “My body is not your battleground”(women holding ply card in Islamabad, Pakistan)
These people term it as ‘Feminism’ . when you type word feminism in Google you get this: Advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men.in this definition it seems nothing wrong, but when you really understand it & come across Extremist Feminism which is like a far right group you see the destruction it brings to human society by challenging its basic fundamentals.
Kashmir a society which is opening up our womens are on roads driving, our daughters are on roads with Scotties, our womens have freedom, we have first women Chief Minister of state but our society is still termed as “patriarchy” meaning a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it. The feminist movements always fan the insecurities of the patriarchal stakeholders of society. Recently, the third annual ‘Girls on Bikes’ rally that took place in Pakistan. Unfortunately, the reaction on it by misogynists was no different. ‘Girls on Bike’ rally is a part of feminist movement organized by ‘Girls at Dhabas’. The rallies were held in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad. This rally was an attempt to claim the public space for women. It was an assertion of female’s right to public spaces through cycling and occupying the road of major cities. However, not everyone viewed it as a productive step. Many people took to social media to express their disappointment and many in support of it.
We say that Jammu Kashmir is a state where women get the liberty, but I’m sorry to say I don’t feel the liberty in this state and particularly when it comes to driving. It’s a male dominant field where women drivers are not treated properly. Huge problem which women face when driving is the dirty looks of the opposite sex, the moment they see a lady driving, male drivers try to bring their cars too close and pass indecent comments or in some cases start following. All these things just make the other person confused and can lead into serious damage like accidents. . It’s high time that men should realize this that women drivers must be given the same respect which they deserve while being behind the wheel. We must come in support of our womens give them equal rights. Islam has given more rights to womens than any other ideology. Then why womens of muslim societies are on streets? Their rights have not been given to them we must accept it. Our society is “Patriarchy” but womens which are also part of our society must know their value & rights. No society can stand without contribution of its womens. Humanity stands today because of these pairs we call “Married Couple”. What if we start challenging this basic unit of human race? Well I need nothing to prove just take a look at western society where from idea of “my body not your battleground” came. In America average age of virginity loss for girls is 17.2 & for boys 16.9. Every 2 minutes there is a sexual assault in America, on an average, there are 321,500 victims (age 12 or older) of rape & sexual assault each year in the United states alone only with many cases going unreported. Yet we are talking about rape (Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without that person’s consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person who is incapable of giving valid consent, such as one who is unconscious, incapacitated, has an intellectual disability or is below the legal age of consent. The term rape is sometimes used interchangeably with the term sexual assault.) then there is consensual sex (Consensual sexual activity happens when each partner willingly chooses to participate.) this kind of sex is no more a crime in modern liberal societies. Live in relationships are legalized, young couples are having illicit relationships in todays world. Our Kashmir is no stranger to any of these problems, Scandal after scandal, Rapes are growing & now we see Rape been used as weapon to terrorize community like in case of Asifa a minor raped in Hindu Temple of Kathua District of jammu Kashmir & People come in support of Rapist there because victim is from different community & findings are even more shocking, this rape was pre Planned & one of accused rapist was invited from Meerut university to rapnce a Bakarwal girl. Sedated with anti-anxiety drug, raped for several days & killed by her rapists, destruction of evidence by two police man, finally charge sheet was filled amid fierce resistance by goons & gangs of Pro-rapist people. Asifa awaits justice. We don’t say Feminism, liberalism is a cause of these problems & crimes but they are not solution either. Some where a feminist approach will not help our society to be a better place so will not Male dictatorship. Islam is a religion of peace & diginity of women in islam is high. It was islam the first ideology that defined rights of a women when she was given non, today our womens need to understand their rights given to them in islam & deman them within the framework of society. No one opposes protests but the demands should be reasonable & justified. I suggest womens of my society to be original, be fashionable, be modern, according to your culture not copying some one else. Why leggies better fashion than shalwar? Who certified it? Come on let’s accept we are giving up our freedom to & with these protest we are speeding up the process of being mentally a slave of some ideology which we don’t understand at all.
In recent past there were controlled protests in Iran where collage girl took off his headscarf protesting Hijab law of Iran. In Iran it is mandatory to cover your head. These protests turned out to be controlled, funded & openly supported by west. Estern media gave that one girl so much coverage that it turned blind eye from millions of other womens rallying in support of hijab law in Iran. When this propaganda failed then came a video showing few womens burning hijab & these womens were said to be from Indonesia, Iraq, few other middle countries, oppose this propaganda womens came with “Hijab my choice” movement on internet millions uploaded Hijab videos & pics.
Why does west want that our womens should give up Hijab? Why is hijab a thorn in our enemies eye? The Great revolutionary leader Imam Khomeini (R.A) has said:”Enemy fears more our women’s Hijab than our martyr’s blood” If women knew how men perceive them when they look at them,they would have covered themselves with iron armor. It is an old war tactic used from centuries where enemy first weakens opponents & then attacks & enjoys an easy win. Enemy wants to break our social structure from inside by fooling us by slogans like freedom & women empowerment, for god sake what empowerment is there in wearing jeans? What has burning hijab to do with equality? What a Bikini has to do with freedom? During recent Iranian Protests Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, marked the day with sharply worded tweets skewering Western countries for the immodesty of their women and trumpeting the virtues of the headscarf, or hijab.
“By promoting modest dress (#hijab), #Islam has blocked the path which would lead women to such a deviant lifestyle,”Imam Khamenei tweeted in English. “Iranian women today, declare their . . . independence and export it to the world while preserving their #hijab.” Today there are womens who achieved greatly while wearing Hijab. I present example of none other than Ilhan omar who became first Somali-American legislator winning Minnesota house of representatives seat, Ibtihaj Muhammad first women don the hijab & compete for USA in Rio Olympics & won her first medal. Nadiya Hussain(UK), Rahaf Khatib Runner wearing hijab, list is long many islamic countries have women teams performing wearing hijab.
Women are naturally vain and want to be admired. Contemporary feminism teaches them to want to be admired both for traditionally feminine traits such as beauty and motherliness and for traditionally masculine traits such as professional accomplishment and financial independence and success. Women come to believe that if they are perfect in all possible areas, they will be admired in all these areas, and then they will be happy. Men are naturally sensual and want a physically easy life with their physical desires satisfied with little trouble. Contemporary feminism teaches them that if they have a perfect woman, they can have it all, too. The woman who is perfect in every way will satisfy her husband’s physical desires, make sure the kids are taken care of somehow (or make sure there are no kids), and take the financial stress and pressure off of her husband by making plenty of money on her own. Since reality does not usually work out this way, both men and women raised with feminist ideology find themselves unhappy.
Nicolas Davidson author of book-“The failure of feminism” writes “The Feminist Era is over,” Davidson declares. “Organized political feminism speaks neither for women nor for progress; it increasingly reflects the views of an embittered minority which has long since forfeited the respect of the ‘transitional’ generation of its parents and has now lost the pulse of the rising generation.”
Michael Levin, a professor of philosophy at the City University of New York, Levin is hardly as sanguine as Davidson that feminism is a spent ideology. He argues instead that it has been all too insidiously successful, and is likely to remain so for a long time, largely because it has captured the courts, the government bureaucracies, the educational system from kindergarten through graduate school, and the major philanthropic foundations, which distribute millions of dollars to fund “women’s rights” projects
The ways in which courts and governments implement the feminist agenda—trying to fit the two sexes into the same Procrustean bed, as it were—has produced a laundry list of discordances that is hilarious when it is not horrifying. In the new, sex-integrated military forces, most female soldiers simply do not have the strength to meet the minimum tests routinely required of men: lifting standard-size 90-pound boxes of ammunition, throwing a grenade far and accurately enough.
The worst violations against human nature occur in the “nonsexist classrooms” of the elementary grades: textbooks cannot use the words “housewife” or “mother,” and teachers are instructed to break up the single-sex social groupings that all children find natural.
Levin is not entirely without hope for the human species, even in the world feminism has created, for he believes that human nature—particularly the abiding desire of women for husbands, children, and families, no matter what they say in public—will out. “Feminists may be beyond rational persuasion, and will continue to proclaim their errors with complete assurance,” he writes. “But they are, in the end, asking women to make them unattractive to men and to forgo love and children. Feminism will be forgotten, commanding only the loyalty of barren women whose genetic lines are running to extinction.”
Our society has to collectively take decisions & remember collective means participation of womens of our society their rights must not be snatched if we do so then it will lead to rebellion & that will be a doomsday for our society. We see a disastrous ideological catastrophe that terms Lawlessness as liberalism, Prostitution as Feminist freedom, that does not believe in institution of marriage, that wants to change meaning of human relations, that advocates need based relation, well there are lot of problems but one solution that we all sit together & find what is wrong & where we are mistaking. Once we started thinking on our problems instead of denying them, the solutions to those problems will follow.
( The author a freelance content writer writes frequently for “Kashmir Horizon”. His views are personal)