Pakistani Bloggers

The Best of Pakistani Blogging

We Should Stop Portraying Women as Weak and Start Teaching Men How to Behave

www.pakpositive.com

Humans have evolved and excelled through different stages, formed clans, tribes, city states and nation states. Certain norms, values and practices kept them distinctive from each other. These norms and values formed the basis of culture. That culture being shared by people living in a certain geographical locality and also their norms and values act as binding force between them, as it was termed as Al-Asabiya by Ibn-e-khaldoon. That cohesive force and shared values gives birth to a society.

Similarly Pakistani society possesses a culture, shared by majority members; language customs and ideology are the few to be named. Our society is characterized as diverse and the most resilient on in the comity of other distinctive societies. However, there are some practices that might not be considered as good and they are deep rooted in our social fabric. Arguably one of the most prominent demons in our society is the women oppression and subjugation.

Perhaps it is being the talk of the town but the causes are randomly spoken out. Before getting into the discussion let us get our statistics clear. Provided by Ministry of Human Rights Affairs, Government of Pakistan. Human Rights violation cases reported in year 2014-15 are:

  • Honor Killings = 363
  • Rape/Gang Rape = 332
  • Child Abuse = 93
  • Acid Attacks = 89
  • Domestic Violence = 78

These numbers seems to be quite low and that is true, because these are those cases which are being reported. Or let me put it that way: these are the cases reported by women brave enough and have some access to the law. There are many other un-registered cases that are quite horrific and out-numbered.

In all cases like Acid Attacks, Domestic Violence, Honour Killings, Forced Marriages, Harassments etc. women are the victim and men take pride in discussing such stories.

Recently a bill has been passed in Punjab named \"Women Protection Bill\". This seems obnoxious as depicting and justifying women as weak. Rather protecting women we should teach men how to behave and give respect, also appreciate those men who are doing it. Only focusing the side of picture that paints women as weak, they can\'t do anything and need protection, is not the right way to solve the issue. By paying attention towards the right upbringing of boys and educating men (by force if necessary) could make the difference.

Our society tags a women that is outspoken and stood for her rights as a liberal one, judging her as not a good women. Such people must learn the life of Hazrat Khadija (RA) as a trader and after marrying with the Prophet (PBUH), he never opposed her rather helped her.

Islam is a religion that brought women out of the oppression and gave exclusive rights for the first time in the history of mankind. In that sense Islam was a liberal religion and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was the liberalist. When our society sees progressive independent women as liberal then it must not be consider bad rather good.

Under Islamic world order whenever women are given respect and they themselves has taken initiatives, they broke the shackles and went far beyond the stars. Hallmark in such times could be seen as when women have done business (trade) she became Hazrat Khadija (RA), when went for Sufism or tassawuf she became Hazrat Rabia Basri, when went for rule she became Razia Sultana and women like Benazir was born as the first ever Muslim leader.

The root cause for the oppression and not letting women to touch skies is the insecurity of men that she (sisters/wives) might get ahead of them. In society like Pakistan this is the unearthed fundamental cause in the unconscious of men. In order to address the menace this cause should be more focused by educating men on how to behave with a female and how to give respect. It is not a shame at all that men being taught to respect women. Men are human beings and no one is perfect, therefore, if men consider them more powerful then they must also acknowledge that with more power comes more responsibility and when the responsibility is not being fulfilled then they must at least realized and educated.

Another cause is in our education system; we give knowledge, a lot of it, but unfortunately without wisdom. Knowledge without wisdom is like a flower without fragrance, it might get caught by many but cannot attract people from long distances. People of my generation who grew up in 90s (in Pakistani society) must have gone through a children magazine called \"Taleem-o-Tarbiyat\". These two words were used together but now Tarbiyat element has faded away and Taleem only became the focus. This tends to make people who know everything but don\'t know how to respect others in general and women in particular. We need to get these two things back together.

Those who dishonor and are disrespectful to women are not the real men. The Man is one who knows how to give respect and bring out women from oppression as taught by our religion Islam.

Women oppression is such a demon which is destroying our generations and moreover damaging the fabric of our society. We have to think different and focus on causes rather on effects to root-out this menace from our society.

women\'s rights www.pakpositive.com