Moral march

People who cower at the sight of women marching for their rights will just have to avert their gaze, much like some of the posters at last year’s Aurat March protests suggested. The Lahore High Court has reiterated that “under the law and Constitution of the country, the Aurat March cannot be stopped.” Although the honourable judge did instruct participants to “refrain from hate speech and immorality”, these can be difficult to define in the context of the cause, and generally speaking, were misapplied to marchers even last year. After all, we live in a country where menstruation is so taboo that women still get odd looks for buying feminine hygiene products. Meanwhile, the fact that discussions on sexual subjects are still taboo in a country with one of the highest birth rates in the world is just laughable.

As for morality, just because something is a part of our culture does not make it ‘moral’, or honour killing would still be legal. Unsurprisingly, some of the most vociferous opposition to the Aurat March and other women’s liberation movements comes from political groups that opposed the enhancement of criminal penalties for honour killing. It’s never a good look to be on the same side of the cause as those supporting murder. Unfortunately, our desire to marry off our daughters to wife beaters from ‘good families’ has led us to a place where people were even offended by signs with simple messages such as ‘divorced and happy’. Apparently, it is offensive for women who survive and escape from mental and physical abuse to lead happy single lives.

It is, however, true that in some cases, marchers did cross into crass territory with some of their signage, but it was more a case of fighting fire with fire. Much of the obscene behaviour that men direct at women online and in real life these days still goes unpunished because of legal lacunas or societal issues. One example is of how women end up being criticised for complaining about receiving unsolicited obscene pictures, while the senders escape unpunished. If the easily-offended tried to correct these disturbing aspects of our culture, maybe women would not need to march.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 5^th, 2020.

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