Please stop staring at us!

A society can be judged in a number of ways, one being whether a woman feels safe in it. But in our part of the world, particularly in Pakistani society, this is no more than a dream. There won’t be a woman in our society who has not experienced harassment. Staring at women is unfortunately no less than a ritual in our part of the world.

Street harassment has various forms and the most common of them is staring at women. A woman has to be vigilant of her surroundings. If a woman ever forgets to close her car’s window even by an inch, then by the time she gets home, she will definitely find a piece of paper with a phone number and some message in her car. I wonder till when women will keep hearing whispers of ‘SubhanAllah’.

Women are stared at, stalked, followed and objectified! All this in a country where women constitute 52 per cent of the population. Why do the eyes of men pop out when they see such a creature for the first time. And how can women make men understand that ogling and leering makes women uncomfortable and queasy?  Confronting them could create a scene. So, in most cases, we are told to ignore such situations as it might get us into more trouble.

This reminds me of an old character named Rozi from a play by Moin Akhtar. After dressing himself up as a woman, he experienced the harsh realities of a life of a woman and was turned into something to be stared at! Thinking of that character, I really feel sometimes that every man should experience once in his lifetime what it is to be a woman. Because only this is when he will understand how it feels to be thrown into the cruel world of stares — a far cry from his invisible ‘normal’ world.

And more importantly, being women, we must understand that if we don’t speak out for ourselves men will continue harassing us. The idea of ‘ignoring’ the situation may save us temporarily, but with that silence we will have to live with this harassment forever.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 18^th, 2016.