Pakistani women’s struggle for rights! Millions of women are still living a very hard life without knowing about or exercising their rights.

 This painting is about pakistani women's rights to live their lives to the fullest. this painting took 1 week to be completed. "And for women are rights over men similar to those of men over women.” (Quran, 2:228) This post sums up everything a woman can be if she is not chained to patriarchal norms. Women have struggled for the right to vote, empowerment, employment, education and more, for centuries. Women’s Day as a commemoration dates back to 1909 when the first National Woman’s Day was observed in the United States on February 28. On March 19, 1911, International Women’s Day was observed for the first time in Germany, Austria, Denmark and Switzerland. In 1975 the United Nations declared March 8 as International Women’s Day, and since then it is being celebrated worldwide. Pakistan also celebrates Women’s Day with great fervour. Today women in Pakistan can be seen in every sphere and excelling with great energy; however that does not mean they have not gone through a struggle to achieve something in life. Millions of women are still living a very hard life without knowing about or exercising their rights. The Nation interviewed a number of women from different spheres of society to learn about the efforts women are making in their daily lives to survive in society. Lawyer Nida Usman Chaudhry, a lawyer and founder of Women in Law and LEARN, said, “As a female lawyer the struggle begins from the very first day when we enter law school. Even when we are making a point in class that itself is an issue because usually people don’t want to listen to or respect a woman’s point of view. “After making dedicated efforts to attain a law degree, when she wants to start practicing as a lawyer, they are usually told to avoid litigations and going to court, In short to not be a trial lawyer. They are given the impression that they would be a liability in law firms if they are taken to court for cases so they should stay in offices and do the back end work. “When a women finally enters this field they are given hints that they are not welcome. When women lawyers go to court for a hearing they are given the impression by their male colleagues that they should not be there and that they are taking a ‘piece of the pie’ away from the male lawyers,” she said. Regarding accepting cases from clients Nida said, “It’s a big challenge as people generally avoid hiring female lawyers. In law firms if a woman steps forward to hear the case of a client they are not taken seriously, nor are they give full details of the case. In court the judges are still respectful and supportive but the lawyers usually call female lawyers with odd names like ‘Bibi’ instead of refering to them in a more professionally appropiate manner,” she said. About what Women’s Day means for her Nida said, “For me it’s an ode paid to women who struggled to get their rights and due to them many ladies are living a better life. No doubt women in Pakistan have come a long way which can be seen in almost all professions and there are many female role models, still women are trying to get their basic rights.” Entrepreneur Sadaf Naz is the founder of ‘Her Ground’ an online subscription based service providing feminine hygienic products at the doorstep of their customers. Speaking about the importance of women’s health care in her life and how important it is to accept that women are an integral part of the society, she said “I was in 9th grade when my menstrual cycle started. As I was not aware of it I thought I’ll be dead soon. When I told my mother (who is a teacher) she asked me to speak to my elder sister, who gave me a cloth to use. In a town like Okara females still use cloth and no one really cares about personal hygiene.” Then Sadaf Nazmoved to Faisalabad for further studies and her life changed for the better. “After shifting to Faisalabad I came to know about sanitary napkins. A friend of mine was shocked that I was unaware of this ‘blessing’. I found them very comfortable to use. But later when I would go to buy these [sanitary napkins] the shopkeepers would make it a point to give remarks or stare at me or smile. Later when I moved to Lahore, I was confident enough to buy them but my friends at work place weren’t. I was surprised that salesmen in Lahore were no different, that gave me an idea that I should provide sanitary napkins to females at home and in school, because everyone is not as confident as I am so I wanted to make their lives easy.” Sadaf explained that she was discouraged from starting this venture, “Initially I was told not to take up this venture but soon people realized that I am adamant and won’t back off. As a woman I feel our menstrual cycle should not be considered as something to be ashamed off. Due to this cycle our generations have grown. Unfortunately in Pakistan even today women are not aware of their personal hygiene and are struggling to buy sanitary napkins without being shammed.” Single Mother Michelle Chaudary, the founder of Cecil and Iris Chaudary Foundation explained that Women’s Day is a very important event for women as it recognizes the efforts women made to gain their basic rights. “I hope someday women’s day is celebrated for success of women rather than a reminder for their basic rights and struggles.” Michelle said, “In my professional field I never really faced any trouble as I was very sincere with my work. But that doesn’t mean every woman is blessed. Women who are working in professional fields have to make double efforts, firstly they have to prove to men that they can do the job, secondly they are no less when compared to men. Another issue that ladies face when coming from a Christian or other communities people think that they can harass them. No doubt Muslim women face harassment in workplaces also but Christian women are taken for granted.” Michelle said that being a single parent she had a huge responsibility. “People think we have no value in the society and they can walk over us any time they like. As I am living along I have to be careful who even comes to my house, as people in the neighbourhood think it’s their responsibility to keep a check on activities going on in my house. This makes life extremely difficult for me and many women are like me. We can’t even breathe freely,” she said. Survivor of sectarian violence Dr Fatima Ali Haider is a survivor of sectarian violence. Her husband Dr Ali Haider and three- year-old son Murtaza were gunned down outside FC College in Lahore five years ago. This changed her life completely; after the incident she and her friend Dr Narmeen Altaf started a setup called ‘The Grief Directory.’ Dr Fatima said, “I was a very dedicated house wife and lived a very sheltered life, but the day my husband died I faced the harsh realities of life.” She explained how people tried to control her and her children’s life after she became a widow. “As a widow everyone tried to take control of my life and my two children. Number of family members kept telling my elder son that I and his younger sister was their responsibility now. He was in his teenage years and I could not see him lose his innocence so early. I gathered myself and had a straight talk with him, and told him that I am the mother, will look after all your needs and you just focus on your studies. It took him a while to understand this.” Our society does not let a widow live peacefully either; “I have to constantly live in a very careful manner. My religion, my dressing, going to the market or parties is always being judged. Being a mother of a daughter I have to see how she is dealing with things around her. The other day she was asked to write about her father, a father whom she had not even seen. How was she to write about him? Teachers should be considerate about such issues too, but as a mother I have to deal with such things.” “Dr Narmeen has been a very big support in my life after Ali Haider’s death. She has brought me back to life and embraced my children as her own. This explains that if women unite and help each other, a lot of issues would end. Before I became a widow I never gave importance to this day [Women’s Day] but today I think this day holds great significance. Each woman should not only be aware of her rights but also be able to achieve them when needed.” Dr. Fatima said. Pakistani Woman working abroad It is not very common for unmarried women, from middle class families go abroad to work alone, and those who do have to put in a lot of efforts in convincing the family. Rida Iqbal is one such woman from Lahore who is currently working in Dubai. She belongs to a Pathan family but as she says, “As compared to other parts of Pakistan we Pathans living in cities are fairly liberal and don’t place too many restrictions on our girls.” “My parents were never very conservative. Yes I had curfew times in college days and I think that was not very wrong too. But the day they gave me permission to work I was told by both parents, we trust you; you have to act as a responsible citizen of this society and daughter. Since that day I’ve achieved all that I want too.” “When I got the offer to work in Dubai my parents did not hesitate a bit in saying yes. Even though I always wanted to be independent, which many people also dream of, on reaching Dubai I realized what independence really entails. I had to pay the bills, which is an accepted fact in Pakistan that it’s a man’s job,” said Rida. Regarding her job she said, “The Company I was working with in Pakistan sent me to Dubai to set up their office here, so found myself working in pretty much a Pakistani environment, and I was faced almost the same issues that woman in Pakistan face. I was not even being paid a decent salary and had to struggle to ensure that I got paid enough to meet my expenses etc. “It's time we run against the tide and be less judgmental towards our fellow ladies and gentlemen both. If we start including men in our conversations, in our struggles, tomorrow our daughters won't have to face the troubles we face today as it would have included the fathers, sons and brothers in our journey,” she said. Journalist Women working in the field of media and journalism have to make a lot of efforts to survive in the profession. One such journalist is Annam Lodhi. Annam lived abroad for a long time and came to Pakistan to pursue her passion. “As such there was no pressure from home except for the fact that I have to stay moral. The family has always been very supportive and trusting.” Annam spoke about her university days and how she was asked to behave like a girl, “During University life, I was told again and again I am a girl and I need to act like one and girls can only work in certain fields. I was scolded by my female teachers for being very loud and bold – not by the males. The female teachers would call me to their cabins and tell me how to dress appropriately, how to talk to men etc.” Regarding her experience on the work place she said, “Work environment was a whole different story. I have been working in the media since 2012, I started off as a content writer in a magazine called Laaltain. The staff was kind and open minded so I did not have issues. “Then I switched to a TV channel where I was subject to everyday misogyny, the boss would take all my ideas, the clerk would advise me that as I am a good woman I shouldn't stay in the office after midnight. Since I was a full-time student I was at the office from 4 pm till midnight or later. TV channels are male dominated and that was obvious; vulgar comments, unwanted advances were common and thought natural. Then I moved to a newspaper and life changed, I was welcomed and was happy.” There are various pros and cons of being a woman Annam explains them by saying, “Yes, being a woman also has several advantages, I am respected more by people, from all walks of life. While there are some more advantages the downside is way more painful. From the watchmen to my driver every man on the street, apart from harassing me, also takes it to be his duty to protect me and inform me what “good girls from good homes” do. Even today, if I feel like having ice cream at midnight I think a zillion times and always drop the idea because I know I can’t leave my house,” Annam said. Justice seeker Khadija Siddiqui, was stabbed 23 times in broad day in the heart of Lahore by her class fellow. She went to court to seek justice against all advice from various quarters. While she was got some relief from the court it was not till she was ridiculed and put to shame for being friends with a male class fellow even in the court room. “Our women are climbing mountains to driving taxis which is a great achievement. I feel men who believe in women empowerment should also come forward and be part of the Aurat March which would make the struggle gender inclusive, women are breaking stereotypes and shackles and are showing how we firmly stand up for truth and justice. Speaking of her quest to seek justice from this system she said, “You have to snatch and run for justice in this country otherwise it is next to impossible. When a case is proven in trial beyond the shadow of doubt there should be little or no room given to the convict to appeal over and over, it is imperative that criminals receive complete punishment and in course more is also done for their rehabilitation.” She said that many loop holes in the system make it a huge battle to seek justice. “If by any chance a woman reaches the court to fight a case, the best weapon people have is to stigmatize her character, so her family would automatically or she herself back out. This is one of the saddest realities today. Divorcée Sehar Daad, a Digital Rights Activist took divorce after 17 months of marriage. She went through physical, mental and emotional abuse by her husband and in-laws, during the time she was married. She became pregnant however due to physical abuse she had a miscarriage; that was the time she decided to call it quits and move back to her parents’ home. “When I went back to my parents’ home, they were the only one who supported me. My elder sister was also a divorcee and a single mother while my mother was a cancer patient; I was under so much emotional and mental stress that I considered suicide. However, my brothers and sister-in-law advised me to not be foolish as this happens with everyone, and I should deal with it in a better manner,” said Sehar. She had to face a lot of nasty comments from people around her too, “Few days after my divorce, my mother died and just after her forty days rituals, my father also passed away. Relatives would talk in undertones saying he died because of me, which was one of the most painful moments for me. Then the family started asking me to get married again. However I was not ready for that yet.” Regarding Women’s Day Sehar said, “People and mostly women don’t understand the power of women’s unity. After our parents death my sister and I moved out of the house and started living independently. We had to face some hardships in the initial days but once we set up our work, things improved and today we both are running the house independently and looking after a child too. If women want they can conquer the world, but our women are told that they can’t exist without a man, this is not true. No one tells a man that they can’t exist without a woman.” Daughter Hina, a school teacher speaks about her experience as a daughter feels that being a female in this society can be a curse. Hina spoke about Women’s Day and said, “Being born as a female child sometimes seems to be a curse in our society even today. Many countries especially South Asian, are plagued by gender discrimination since ages. When you are a daughter, it is usually the father who supports us in every possible way. Had it not been due to my father, I wouldn't have been able to complete my education from a prestigious institution but would have attended a lower class education institute. My brothers were always given what they wanted, not that I received any less yet there was some discrimination. My father fulfilled my all wishes and does till now, and I am grateful to him. “However it is true that in our society, women are usually enemies of other women. Hence, my mother always sided with my brother. May be it is the story of every home. But I still feel her indifferent attitude even though I am twenty six years old,” she said. Qurat ul Ain is a daughter who after completing her studies looks after her parents at home. Talking to the Nation she said “I believe that Women’s Day is of no use to the common women of Pakistan. This day comes and goes, but the problems of the women are here to stay. They don’t have any mechanism to lodge complains against all that they go through and if they do then they have to go through the hassle of protecting themselves from the wolves out there.” She also said, “I’ve lived in a cocoon and had a very sheltered life. I have really had to struggle like some ladies, however I’ve had an emotional struggle. There was a time when all us three siblings had the same limits; those limits are no more there for my brothers but I still have to abide by them. Once I asked permission to do a job but it was refused which made me really angry, however later I realized my parents are right. Firstly it’s not safe outside and they can’t take the stress of waiting the whole day for me, secondly they need me at home to look after them. Thirdly those limits and rules are now instilled in my mind I have just accepted this life.” While we talk of Women’s Day and Women’s Rights let us remember the words of the Prophet (PBUH) said during the Last Sermon on the 9th of Zil-Haj 10 AH (March 632 AD) “Observe your duty to Allah in respect to the women, and treat them well.” Here’s a story, told by Herodotus, about the fierce female warriors known as Amazons. Many thousands of years ago, a group of Greek raiders ventured into what is now northern Turkey. Travelling across the steppe, they came across a group of warrior women. The Greeks kidnapped them, locked them in the holds of their ships, and set sail for home. But the Amazons escaped. They recovered their weapons and killed their captors. Because they were horsewomen, and didn’t know how to sail, the ships drifted far off course. Eventually, though, they landed in the Crimea. The Amazons went ashore and stole some horses. They started marauding, gathering loot, and building up their strength. Nearby, there happened to be a settlement of Scythians. Most Scythians were nomadic, horse-riding people of the steppe. But these were Royal Scythians—wealthy traders who had settled in towns. To avoid being raided, the Royal Scythians sent out scouts, who discovered that the strange marauders were Amazons. The Scythians found this intriguing. They had planned to send soldiers to kill the marauders; instead, they assembled a party of nice young men. Life in town was luxurious, but it lacked a certain something: the Royal Scythian women mostly stayed indoors, doing chores and feeling bored. Maybe a few fearless, untamed Amazons could spice things up. The band of bachelors travelled out onto the steppe and found the horsewomen. They set up camp and hung around until, one afternoon, one of them encountered a single Amazon, walking alone. “Wordlessly he made advances and she responded,” Adrienne Mayor writes, in “The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World.” “They made love in the grass. Afterward, the Amazon gestured to indicate that he should return the next day to the same spot—and to bring a friend. She made it clear that she would bring a friend too.” Soon, the Amazons and the Scythians consolidated their camps, and the young men extended a proposal: Why not come back and live with them? They had money, houses, and parents—surely settled life would be better than life on the steppe. The Amazons, incredulous, made a proposal in return: Why not leave town behind and live as they did: riding, raiding, and sleeping under the stars? The men packed their things. Herodotus reports that the Sarmatians, the people descended from that union, created a society characterized by gender equality, in which men and women led the same sort of life. It’s a story, Mayor points out, in which the “answer to the question of who will be dominated and tamed is no one.” The natural question, when you’re faced with a story like this, is: How true is it? In “Amazons,” Mayor—a classicist, based at Stanford, who is by all accounts the world’s leading expert on ancient female fighters—argues that, even if it is not literally true in all its particulars, it is still broadly true. The evidence, she writes, points to the fact that there really were Amazons: in some archaeological digs in Eurasia, as many as thirty-seven per cent of the graves contain the bones and weapons of horsewomen who fought alongside men. (“Arrows, used for hunting and battle, are the most common weapons buried with women, but swords, daggers, spears, armor, shields, and sling stones are also found,” Mayor writes.) These were the women the Greeks encountered on their expeditions around the Black Sea; they inspired similar stories among travellers from ancient Persia, Egypt, China, and other places. In Greece, they were objects of romantic fascination. Their societies, in which both men and women were able to embody the martial virtues, provided a counterpoint to Greek society, in which only men could be valorous. Greek stories about Amazons, Mayor argues, expressed the ancient Greeks’ yearning for gender equality. Mayor doesn’t teach; she is a full-time scholar and researcher in the Classics department at Stanford, where she studies the folklore, myth, and science of the ancient world. (Her 2010 biography of Mithradates, the “Poison King,” who tried to take over Rome, and who inspired fear as a deadly toxicologist, was a finalist for the National Book Award.) “The Amazons,” Mayor told me, has been in the works for decades. “As a kid, I was a tomboy,” she said. “I played with toy cowboys and Indians and soldiers, and noticed there weren’t any girls. Then, as a college student at the University of Minnesota, during the Vietnam War, I got interested in military history; I just thought that stories from wartime have the very best of human behavior and the very worst. I got permission to take R.O.T.C. classes (back then, there weren’t any girls allowed). Then I took classes in ancient Greek and Roman history. I was fascinated by the war stories about Amazons. In 1990, I proposed an article about Amazons to Military History Quarterly, and it was turned down. So I searched around, found a male co-author, and had the guy propose the same article, and it was accepted.” It’s a pleasant coincidence that a critical mass of evidence about the historical Amazons has coalesced at the same time that our culture, in characters such as Katniss Everdeen, is settling into an Amazon moment. (Earlier this year, Jill Lepore wrote about how the character of Wonder Woman was based, in part, on stories about Amazons.) For a long time, Mayor said, “Most people argued that the Amazons on Greek vases were purely symbolic—that they represented, for example, young women who weren’t yet married.” The interpretation has been challenged by “a wealth of archaeological discoveries that show that there were women who behaved like Amazons—who wore the same clothes, who used weapons, who rode horses, and who lived at the same time as the ancient Greeks.” It’s now possible to know, in a concrete way, what Amazon life was like. The Amazons were likely Scythian nomads who travelled the territory north of the Black Sea—roughly between the Balkans, to the west, and the Caucasus, to the east. They were not, as Mayor puts it, “man-hating virgins,” but simply members of “a people notorious for strong, free women.” (No one knows where the word “Amazon” comes from—it isn’t Greek—but there are a few possibilities, including an ancient Iranian word that means “warrior.”) The Greek way of war centered on infantry—that is, on armored, brawny men. But, on the steppe, “the horse was the great equalizer, along with the bow and arrow, which meant that a woman could be just as fast, just as deadly, as a man,” Mayor writes. Amazons spent days at a time on horseback; often, their legs were bowed from so much riding. Their lives followed a yearly cycle, with occasional large gatherings for feasting, funerals, athletic contests, and “purifying saunas.” The Greeks credited the Amazons with inventing trousers, and the Amazons wore them with long-sleeved tunics and pointed hats with ear-flaps. (It was cold out on the steppe.) They drank fermented mare’s milk—you freeze it, then skim off the ice to increase the alcohol concentration. They smoked cannabis, which is indigenous to Central Asia. They were elaborately tattooed. They fought on foot, when they had to. (One study of Amazon skeletons with head wounds from battle-axes, Mayor reports, showed that “most of the blows were dealt by a right-handed opponent in face-to-face combat.”) There was fierce competition for territory and resources. Amazons domesticated dogs and hunted with eagles. It’s hard to know much about their spiritual lives, Mayor writes, but archaeological evidence and folktales can give us “an impressionistic sense of the beliefs of the women archers of Scythian lands known as Amazons, an intangible mosaic of animism, totemism, magic, of sacred fire and gold, of reverence for Sun, Moon, sky, earth, nature, wild animals, fantastic creatures. And horses.” The Greeks, of course, were fascinated by the Amazons’ sex lives. They came up with all sorts of lurid ideas—that they were single-breasted lesbians who killed their male children, or that they mated once a year with strangers to perpetuate an all-female society, or that an Amazon had to kill a man before she could lose her virginity. The idea was that the Amazons had, in some sense, renounced their femininity. The reality of Amazon family life was different. There seems to have been great diversity in approaches to child rearing: archaeologists have found childrens’ skeletons interred with lone men, lone women, and couples. Some groups may have practiced “fosterage”: the exchange of children to cement alliances. The best accounts of “Amazon sex,” meanwhile, suggests that it “was robust, promiscuous. It took place outdoors, outside of marriage, in the summer season, with any man an Amazon cared to mate with.” (Among some groups, “the sign for sex in progress was a quiver hung outside a woman’s wagon.”) You can get a sense of the roundedness of the Amazon life by looking at Amazon names. Mayor worked with a linguist and vase expert to examine some of the words on vases depicting Amazons. Previously, they had been considered “nonsense words,” but they turned out to be “suitable names for male and female Scythian warriors in their own languages, translated for the first time after more than twenty-five hundred years.” These ancient Circassian names include Pkpupes, “worthy of armor”; Kepes, “hot flanks/eager sex”; Barkida, “princess”; and Khasa, “one who heads a council.” VIDEO FROM THE NEW YORKER Much of “The Amazons” is devoted to exploring how the real lives of Amazons were transformed into myth. In Greece, Mayor writes, much of the mythmaking was structured around a thought experiment: “What would happen if our Greek heroes encountered a band of Amazons? Sparks would fly!” “The original title of the book,” Mayor said, “was going to be ‘Amazons in Love and War,’ because there were just as many love stories as there were war stories.” The love stories, meanwhile, differ from one another in important ways. “In the stories that the Persians and the Egyptians told, they were often attracted to the women they were fighting: their impulse was, we want them on our side, we want them as companions and lovers.” In one of Mayor’s favorite stories, repeated in Egypt, Iran, and elsewhere, “a prince fights a warrior princess; they’re so equally matched that the fight goes on and on, and when they sit down to rest, they fall in love.” The Greeks, by contrast, had a “uniquely dark mythic script: all Amazons must die, no matter how attractive, no matter how heroic.” The Greeks admired the Amazons—Mayor points out that, unlike other enemies of Greece, the Amazons are never represented in Greek art as fleeing from danger or begging for mercy. Lasting romance between a Greek man and an Amazon woman, though, is always portrayed as impossible. “Every Amazon that we hear about in Greek mythology is heroic—heroes who are the equals of the greatest male Greek heroes,” Mayor said. In Greek representations of Amazons, she believes, “you can discern some yearning and desire for some kind of resolution to the tension between ‘Yes, we want them as our companions,’ and ‘We couldn’t possibly, because we have to control our own women.’ “ At the same time, Amazons had a special place in the lives of Greek women. “Amazons were featured everywhere, on women’s pottery, on perfume jars, on jewelry boxes, on sewing equipment. Little girls played with Amazon dolls.” It’s a glimpse, Mayor says, into “a mystery of Greek private life.” Thinking about Amazons continues, of course, to be a way of thinking about men, women, and how they might live together. Katherine Hepburn‘s first big break, Mayor points out, was in a play called “The Warrior’s Husband,” in which she played an Amazon named Antiope. The play was a satire of male-female role reversal; Hepburn, twenty-four and dressed in a short tunic and boots, made her entrance by “leaping down a flight of stairs with a dead stag over her shoulders.” (Later, Mayor writes, she “cut a dashing figure in her signature trousers, at once shocking and fabulous, which also fueled her Amazonian image.”) Today, Mayor is part of the “Amazons Ancient and Modern” Facebook group: “Slightly more men than women make up the membership,” she said. She regularly hears from Amazon enthusiasts—not just scholars, but also “women who ride horses and shoot bows and arrows, or who re-create Scythian bows. All these women practice mounted archery every weekend; they’re experts, they travel around the world competing with men and shooting arrows on horseback.” These mounted archers have helped Mayor interpret details in paintings of Amazons: “They notice the use of nomad-style thumb releases. . . heel guards and ankle spurs, they know what it takes to shoot a Parthian shot when you don’t have any reins or a saddle. You have to do this every day to know that.” People ask her all the time whether she herself is a “real Amazon.” “I certainly believe in gender equality and female ferocity,” she says, laughing. “But I’m not actually a horsewoman.”