By: sadaf khan

sadaf khan — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:37:36 +0000

please send me a essay of college life

By: Shaheryar Ali

Shaheryar Ali — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:49:07 +0000

Though i would generally agree, with the premise that Pakistan’s media has brought the misogyny to a new height. i would rather disagree with the representation of this premise in the article in form of Awan-Tariq exchange on the media. The problem with it is that it takes a rather “moral” stand on the issue, in the philosophical sense of the word ie “ethics”.
Its precisely a certain kind of “morality” which is the cause of the issue under discussion. When “male defined view” of woman’s sexuality is under critique i rather find it ironic that we read lines like “This was as ugly as heerra mandi lineage—”. This unfortunately again a “male oriented or Patriarchal view of reproductive relations” and its certainly not helping the crusade against misogyny. In Lahore, there is the artist Iqbal Hussain who rather celebrates his Heera Mandi lineage by doing so he is reclaiming what has been discarded by the patriarchal society and this is liberating. The more contemporary feminism, the third wave feminism actually favors the “reclaiming” approach. In this approach words like Bitch and Slut and Cunt are adopted as symbols of pride rather than degradation, in text we see books like “Bitch: In praise of difficult women”. That was a rather passing remark not alluding to the conversation two ladies had on TV. The passing of political judgment on bases of the sexist? [though its rather controversial weather two women can be sexist to each other, or a black man calling other black man a nigger is racist, or a guy guy calling other gay guy faggot is offensive ] remark is not a very good strategy if we keep the premise in mind. Weather Tariq’s remarks were “fair” should have not been part of this article because , Tariq is sitting in parliament not as a equal human being but as a reserved seat nomination, a political bribe by male politicians to fill in “women rights column of their election manifesto”. Its question of political importance and if we read many reports of the women parliamentarians , it shows they are not representing Pakistani women but are in parliament due to being related to in one way or other to male politicians and elites. Most of them lack any grassroot political experience, and that is true for Tariq as well. Awan on the other hand joined PPP before the general election, contested a general seat on a PPP ticket in upper Punjab defeated , a towering figure of Musharraf’s regime, who was speaker of the previous national assembly.
Tariq was nominated by PML-Q, her seat in parliament exist totally due to will of her party but she was the first person to make “Forward Group” as Musharraf was defeated in General elections. Her political conduct cant be called “fairer” as compared to Awan’s, whose change of political party was validated by people of her constituency and she is a grass root political worker.
I think this scenario was not a very typical one to highlight this very important issue. Raza Rumi otherwise is superb writer and despite the critique reading this article was a sheer pleasure.

By: Aasem

Aasem — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:45:35 +0000

That was truly brilliant, Raza Bhai. Maza Aa gaya.

Comments on: Media misogyny

By: sadaf khan

By: Shaheryar Ali

By: Aasem