Misogynistic political rhetoric
PML-N leader and federal minister Rana Tanveer is quite rightly being lambasted over his offensive speech on the floor of the National Assembly this week, where he was critical of former first lady Bushra Bibi’s background and retold a crass and unverifiable anecdote about former prime minister Imran Khan and his father. Even if we are to ignore the mostly offensive speech and focus on the objective facts Tanveer relayed, two wrongs do not make a right. Instead of drawing comparisons to a police raid on Maryam Nawaz and her husband’s hotel room during the PTI’s time in power, he could have pointed out that both were wrong and reeked of revenge politics. But then, despite Maryam’s prominence, this is still the party of Khawaja Asif, who called PTI’s Shireen Mazari and Firdous Ashiq Awan offensive names, apologised, then did it again a few months later. Incidentally, Asif was cackling away when Tanveer made his remarks.
Meanwhile, PTI’s former K-P minister Taimur Jhagra was also accused of making a sexist remark about Maryam on social media. Although Jhagra and PTI supporters claimed he was just mocking her math skills, several people claimed he was making an innuendo-laden ‘statistical joke’. But PTI leaders need to get off their high horses, for theirs is the party of Shahbaz Gill and Ali Amin Gandapur, whose language about Maryam and other female members of opposition parties has been so offensive that washing their mouths with soap would only dirty the soap. Even Imran has made crass remarks about Maryam, along with several victim-blaming comments about sexual assault and harassment, usually following them up with claims of being misquoted instead of offering unqualified apologies.
There is enough about Maryam, Bushra and the other women in politics that is fair game, including their policy positions, business dealings and peddling of disinformation or misinformation. But civil discourse, it seems, is beyond all of our political leadership.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 31st, 2023.
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