• Momina speaking out against the Lux Style Awards for not nominating any women.
• Mustehsan wrote on her Instagram stories.
• “LSA holds value and respect of Pakistanis.

Pakistani women musicians are speaking out against the Lux Style Awards for not nominating any women in the music category this year. It all started when Meesha Shafi called out the organization on Instagram and tagged other female artists. Momina Mustehsan is the most recent person to say something. She thinks that systemic inequality needs to be fixed.

Mustehsan wrote on her Instagram stories on Wednesday, “LSA holds value and respect of Pakistanis for being the longest-running event giving nods to the arts and artists, despite Lux not being an arts/music/film/entertainment entity but rather a multinational company’s soap brand’s marketing event, which is a whole other conversation.”

The singer of “Beparwah” also said that Unilever and Lux might not have meant to “exclude an entire gender when recognizing an entire industry, leaving out female contributors even from the 80+ music works they did nominate in a random way.” She said, “That is exactly the problem: when we take responsibility for recognizing people, we owe it to be intentional, responsible, inclusive, and fair to all.”

Mustehsan went on to say that systemic inequalities, especially for women in the music industry, need to be fixed.

“By ignoring every woman who has ever made a contribution to music, we deny 110 million women the role models and inspiration they need to see and be. Coming from a female-focused company like Unilever Pakistan, which has made commendable efforts toward gender equality by having a strong female presence across their workforce and especially in executive positions, “it doesn’t sit right,” she wrote, demanding that the Lux Style Awards do better and not silence Pakistani women in music.

Maria Unera, Zeb Bangash, Rachel Viccaji, Natasha Noorani, and Risham Faiz Bhutta all posted Shafi’s Instagram story to let people know about the awards. Eva B, Rutaba Yaqub, Natasha Baig, and Nimra Rafiq all reposted the photo on their Instagram stories to show they agreed.

All of it started when Shafi called out the jury for showing how women can be taken by surprise and not get the credit they deserve. The Lux Style Awards have four categories for music nominations: song, singer, most streamed, and best live performance. This year, only male artists are nominated.

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