Patriarchy is specifically violent towards fearless women

Nosheen Ali stresses that we need to assess Qandeel Baloch outside of morality framework

KARACHI: Social media starlet Qandeel Baloch, who was recently murdered by her brother in the name of so-called honour, did not demand gender equality. All she demanded was a right to exist.

Sociologist Nosheen Ali shared these views at a panel discussion on honour killings at The Second Floor, titled ‘Bold Women, Bad Women: How to talk about Qandeel Baloch’, on Wednesday. “Patriarchy is violent against women,” she said. “But it is particularly violent against fearless women. If you say Qandeel crossed the line, what was Malala [Yousafzai’s] crime? What was Perween [Rahman’s] crime?”



According to her, there are people who say that Baloch ‘crossed the line’ so she is a rebel and there are those is say that because of crossing the line she is a deviant and a sinner. “[This] is a limiting framework of morality that divides into good and bad,” she said. “We do not get a chance to ask questions like: what is this line? Who created it? Why? How is it created? How is it enforced and who does this line benefit? When we ask these questions, we move from a framework of morality to a framework of patriarchy.” She criticised how there are people who are saying that slain social activist Sabeen Mahmud was a great woman while Baloch was a woman with questionable character and hence the murders should not be connected.

According to Ali, it is this framework of patriarchy on which is based the system that dehumanises women and eventually allows violence against them. She questioned what exactly this fear is that does not allow women to get equal status as men.

“We need to address the heteronormative, patriarchal complex that is the home,” she said while talking about how to address the issue of honour killings. She discussed in detail how the woman is viewed as in the home. “She is a guest in her parents’ home,” she said. “When girls get married, their parents become farigh [free of burden]. What exactly do they become farigh of?”

Talking about the general moral policing of women, she talked about how women are assumed to be ‘guilty until proven innocent’. “Laal dhabba nazar ae ga toh sahih hai varna nahin [A woman is innocent only if the red stain is seen on her sheets],” she said. “Women don’t always have to be Qandeel Baloch to be declared guilty in our culture.” According to her, these patriarchal norms are the criminalisation of love, sexuality and of the very fact of being a woman. “It is this violent dehumanisation of woman that is central to the patriarchal family, of which the honour killing is the final manifestation.”



Ali pointed out how woman is a swear word for men. “Saari gaaliyaan orat or orat k jism se related hain [All our swear words revolve around women and their bodies].” According to her, it is this dehumanisation that needs to be addressed before we can be able to address the annihilation of the woman.

Another speaker, Dawn Images head and media representative Hamna Zubair, talked about the role of media in the representation of women and how the hero is always the woman who sits quietly and bears with everything and the bad woman is the one who is a career woman, a divorcee or a flirtatious college student. She pointed out that Baloch was not the only woman who was branded ‘bold’ – there were Meera, Veena Malik and Mathira, too, but they were not killed. “What set them apart? Why are they alive today and Qandeel is not? Because she did not abide by those unspoken rules that are applied to [this] certain subset of women: Don’t overstep your class boundaries. Don’t start talking about your own power, influence or how you can change things. She was blurring those boundaries.”

The third speaker, law and policy maker Abira Ashfaq, talked about the Qisas and Diyat Act of 1997 and the proposed anti-honour killing bill. She explained how the former law allows the ‘vali’ [guardian] of a murdered person to forgive or pardon a murderer, making it a compoundable offence. The anti-honour killing bill, on the other hand, proposes that all honour crimes should be made non-compoundable offences, rendering the guardians unable to pardon or settle the cases for land or money. However, she raised a question and asked the audience to ponder over it: shouldn’t all murders be non-compoundable? Talking about oppression of women, she pointed out how special treatment is meted out to fathers and grandfathers – the patriarchs – under section 306 of the Pakistan Penal Code.