International Women’s Day & Pakistan

International Women’s Day is celebrated every year on March 8 to express solidarity with women and strive for a gender equal world, which is free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination and is diverse, equitable, and inclusive. This year, the theme is #BreaktheBias emphasising on ‘gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow.’

In an era of emancipation, awareness and information technology, women have come a long way from suppression, but a lot still needs to be achieved to grant them inclusiveness. The genesis of international women’s day lies in the early 1900s which was marked as the period of turmoil with the advent of the industrial revolution. This era marked the rise of radical ideologies. In the year 1908, a total of 15,000 women organised a rally in New York, U.S to demand better pay, shorter work hours and voting rights.

Although the women in the U.S planted the seeds for women’s equality in 1908, yet the idea of International women’s day was championed by a woman activist named Clara Zetkin at the International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen on March 8. Over one hundred women from seventeen countries gathered there and agreed unanimously to the proposal tabled by Clara Zetkin.

The progenitor of the women’s rights movement, Clara Zetkin, initiated the idea that every year in each country there should be a celebration dedicated to the struggles of women. Since then, the National Women’s Day across the United States was observed on February 28 with the first being celebrated in 1975. It was also honoured in countries like Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland.

The significance of the International Women’s Day is that it endorses the need to empower women in every aspect of life, be it in the household or in the public domain to remove the yokes of brutality, abuse and suppression. This day is celebrated to advocate for gender parity and increase awareness regarding women’s equality.

Pakistan too celebrates the International Women’s Day with fervour, but its women, despite striving hard to achieve inclusiveness, are still a long way from it. The feudal society continues to prevail in most region that discourages women from acquiring education, working outside the boundaries of home and even puts obstacles in their path to stop them from exercising their rights of casting their votes during the elections.

Younger activists like the Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai, who raised her voice through social media for women’s right to acquire education, was nearly silenced through a gruesome assassination attempt. A badly injured Malala had to seek refuge in the UK to continue her fight for women’s rights.

It took seven and a half decades for a woman to become a judge or a General in the Pakistan Army. It is only now that women are allowed to become fighter pilots or to join their male counterparts in combat while serving in the armed forces. A 22-year-old woman, Maham Shiraz, is turning heads as she competes against men in off-road rally racing in Pakistan.

The jury is still out to declare whether in Pakistan the concept of Aurat March is Islamic or not. The Aurat March (Women’s March) is an annually held social/ political demonstration, organized in various cities of Pakistan including Lahore, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Karachi, Islamabad and Peshawar, to observe International Women’s Day. The first Aurat March was held on 8 March 2018 in Karachi.

It is a fallacy that Islam demands women to offer unconditional submission to men, as claimed by some men, who appear to be oblivious of the basic tenets of Islam. The Holy Quran, in various injunctions and Surah An-Nisa, has clearly declared and guaranteed the rights of women, so who are we to deny it? As a religion, Islam recognizes women’s status in society. The first business agreement was between our Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and Hazrat Khadija (RUH) where Prophet (PBUH) was the employee and Hazrat Khadija the employer. She was also the first person in whom the Prophet (PBUH) confided in after prophethood was conferred upon him. Thus, the role of women in Islamic society has been clearly defined. Hence, those who consider Aurat March un-Islamic, are uninformed fundamentalists whose logic is fallacious.

Definitions of being a perfect husband, a good and loyal wife, and obedient children, were determined by early Muslim thinkers and the same are reinforced in almost all Muslim-majority countries, to maintain social and moral order. In other words, denying women their status and right to freedom of expression is deeply rooted in the dark ages, the days of ignorance before Islam, when female babies were buried alive at birth.

It is not only Pakistan, where women are denied their basic rights of freedom and are subjected to gender bias, abuse and brutality, in the Occident too, women had to suffer immensely. Women in the UK and USA had to organize the suffragette’s movement to establish the rights of women to vote and stop being disenfranchised. In 1903, leaders like Emmeline Pankhurst had to come to the forefront by engaging in direct action and civil disobedience to secure their rights. Eminent academics like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire influenced French society before the French Revolution to gain freedom for workers from the shackles of deprivation.

Pakistani women were also inspired by these intellectuals and two powerful women, salon hostess Sophie de Condorcet and political theorist Germaine de Staël. The Pakistani social activists for women’s rights are leading the march for Pakistan to become a beacon of Islamic enlightenment, where men’s monopoly over the interpretation of religion is effectively defied and women’s rightful place in society is recognised.

Currently, the International Women’s Day 2022 is being celebrated in Pakistan with several special programs conducted to pay tribute to those women who made their mark. Numerous seminars, exhibitions, functions, campaigns, and programs are being conducted by the government, non-government institutes, charities, and NGOs to eliminate discrimination among genders and emphasize women’s empowerment and gender equality.

The writer is a former Group Captain PAF and an author