Women March ( Aims, Actions & Achievements)

By: Hafizah Ali

A mobilization & movement which was named as women march (Aurat march) was emerged couple of months ago at couple of times right before the pandemic corona virus. The aim and objective of the march was to ensure women rights and women’s equal rights and status of their presence in a society. Before discussing the movement and role of pakistani media in that very situation, It is important to know about the background of Feminism. Well” feminism is a sub-subject of human rights and gender equality. These rights include the status of woman as a human being, also as an opposite gender, as well as the empowerment of women in the society socially, politically and financially. Woman plays a vital role in the society as a mother, as a daughter, as a sister and as a friend to ensure her extraordinary importance and presence. The status and rights of women is an old and long argument.
Islam came with a message that was revolutionary at the time (610 AD). It uplifted the status of the poor and underprivileged in society. For women, this meant an end to female infanticide – a common practice in Mecca in those days – and claimed equality of the sexes in stature and worship. While these may not seem remarkable claims nowadays because of some narrow minded and sick mentality people with in the society ( they are very few) as their aim is to keep the woman under their influence. But Islamic ideology then resulted resulted in a transformation of consciousness and lives within the early Muslim community. There are dozens of strong, dignified and independent women in early Islamic history that have become household names and role models for generations of Muslim women. The women of Muhammad’s family have not faded into obscurity – the Prophet’s wife, Khadija, was not only the first convert to Islam (a woman!) but also a financially independent businesswoman. We have many other examples where Islam provides equality and equal opportunities and rights to both genders.
Before french revolution feminism was not in it’s active and effective form, but with began of french revolution which inspired women to ensure their status in the society. The progress of feminism have been explained in different forms and stages. At times women expressed and took extreme steps for their rights in respective era. Well” feminism first come up with demand for women voting rights in 1800s. With further increment in rights list, in 1900s feminism demanded to equalise the social and cultural inequalities. Towards the end of 1900 centuries a strong voice was raised aganist sexual harrassment and exploitation. These are the different stages of women rights movement, as well as feminism movement. At times it also been treated as controversial and been criticized because of the extremists and extremed minded groups of feminism. There are groups of women who are called as left extremists, who believe that men are the only problem in their life, which developed a feeling which is called as hatred for men. But those women are also present who consider feminism and fight for their right is a waste of time, and they presume that they have been given complete rights and they don’t need any additional rights, these group of women are called as right extremists. Beyond these two perspective there are a large number of women in our society who have other genuine problems like sexual harrassment and exploitation, child marriage, demostic violence, honor killing, negligence of basic health facilities education and lack of freedom of expression which is the basic right of human being as well. Their voices have never been heard because of the other two types of women mentioned earlier.
couple of days ago the movement women march (Aurat march) was also one of the initiative to ensure women rights and their status in the society. In one of the local media channel the representative of woman March (aurat march) tried to explain their stance, the host of the show tried to proved her wrong by giving more time and importance to the left and right extremists representatives in discussion. The show was conducted to discuss about the slogans which we used and quoted in the March movement. the words are “mera jisam mari marzi”(My body My choice), the representative of women march (aurat march) tried to justify the slogan by explaining that the quoted words means if any exploitation like sexual harrassment or child marriage is done with any woman or girl, here the quoted words ” mera jisam mari marzi” bounds anyone to misbehave or misuse of woman in wrong way just because she is an ignored and minored human being, the woman’s who have been harrassted or the girls who faced child marriages where their bodies are not even biologically approved to get married.
But problem is with the way the movement is presented and also with the media that just not only misinterpret themselves but also mislead the public through their different shows in which they tried to prove woman march (aurat march) as a waste of time.The role of pakistani channels during the march was an absolute kiosk and then in situations after the March media created hype, tried misleading the people about the mobility, maligning those who were part of this march, and enhancing controversies and caused fights between the activists and civil society. Most of the talk shows were conducted just to make those people happy who are not in favor of women rights nor in favor of human rights. They believe in might is right.
At last but not least it’s important to understand right over misunderstanding. Equality over misperception. Tranquility over ego. Positivities over negativity. I am sure sooner or later inshallah our society will realize why it’s important to give rights to those who exist similarly within our society and by doing that we can claim that we are staying in a morally,ethically balanced society.

Thank you

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