Women March 2022: Forward not backward

Aurat March is coming, and so is the never-ending process of trolling and vitriol against it. It has been discussed innumerable times what Aurat March does not stand for. We have kept saying it does not stand for misandry or wreckage of family life, or of our (non-misogynist) cultural values. What we find more interesting is the lack of public discussion for what it does stand for. The wrong publicity it gets for a few placards overweighs the constant themes it tries to highlight, because its demands do not make juicy news. Let us then discuss what it stands for.

Aurat March primarily stands for an equal world for all genders. Misogyny works in all kinds of ways in our society. There is a very dark and visible face of misogyny which we all know and detest, though we have accepted its perpetual existence as a necessary evil in society. We can see how women and other genders are treated, with catcalling a very common phenomenon. Likewise, workplace harassment is rampant in our society. From a very early age, we train our girls to avoid places which are potentially harmful for them. They are ingrained with the idea that this society is sick and all that we can do is protect ourselves from it. What we fail to understand is that society is made of us, and if it is sick then it is time for introspection and taking responsibility for making it right as well.

Slowly and gradually, we make the minds of girls, along with others, that being harassed is a woman’s fault. So, whenever a woman is harassed, she internalises the guilt, she questions her own actions – what was she wearing, was she laughing too much, was she being too friendly? It takes a whole lot of time for her to get out of her guilt and realise that being harassed has nothing to do with her, it is the culprit who stands answerable not the victim.

When she does get out of this phase society makes it almost impossible for her to seek justice. Her first fight starts at home. And if she is lucky enough, and her dear ones understand her, then the other hurdle is courage to face the world, to ask for justice. This is probably the most difficult part of the whole affair. This is because society victim-shames her and her family. A family must go through the ordeal of proving her innocence and justifying her presence in a place where she was harassed. They are accused of poor upbringing. One can only get amazed at these questions being posed, for instance, to a father whose daughter was cold-bloodedly murdered and there is no doubt about the crime of the culprit. If her father is asked about her character in court, then this is surely a sorry state of affairs.

But her struggle does not end here. The main tactic this system uses is to delay the process. The interminable bureaucratic process of filing the complaint and getting it heard (let alone getting justice) breaks the courage of many victims. And even if she perseveres in this tedious process, she may never get justice. Our society enables the powerful and wealthy. A powerful culprit can get early release from jail after stabbing a woman 23 times.

The victim should count herself lucky when she eventually gets legal justice. But the price of this justice is too high to discourage many victims. Justice for her always remains to her disadvantage in a society which is based on gender inequality. This filthy face of misogyny is one evil among others which, I believe, Aurat March is determined to fight. It is also an answer to those who ask why women march.

There is an invisible misogyny as well; a face we are rarely in a position to register. Patriarchy is part of our everyday life. A woman’s tedious life, the entire set of microaggressions she goes through, is completely invisible to us. From being discriminated at home to being policed for her choice of clothing, to being considered an unintelligent creature, to being subjected to unequal pay, her entire position in society is framed by a patriarchal worldview which portrays her as an emotional, sensitive, weak, unintelligent creature who is not fit for public life, and needs constant surveillance and protection. It is due to this reason that people hate Aurat March, since it involves women claiming the streets and marching for their rights. A woman whose ‘rightful’ place is her home must not take to the streets; her modesty does not allow it.

Most of us who are part of this unequal society are brought up by society to take this inequality as a law of nature. But when we ask women to name instances when they have felt discriminated against, it is visible as daylight that these injustices shape the very existence of women in society. Take the plight of a woman who works as domestic help or a daily wage labourer, she must work long hours for meagre pay. A female student who travels in public transport or a woman who works in an organisation or one who occupies streets unaccompanied by a man, have innumerable experiences of discriminations. Women have developed mechanisms of tolerating those aggressions, secret codes of sensing these aggressions.

Likewise, her domestic life is also wrought with these discriminations. When a woman steps into public life and works outside home, she is burdened with the double pressure of outside work and domestic work. A man’s job ends when he enters home, but a woman’s job starts all over again when she reaches home. Above all, her domestic work is not even considered work. In such a situation, she is either forced to leave the job or to exhaust herself physically and emotionally. These may sound like trivial issues, but they highlight the constant pressure a woman feels in society because of her gender.

Another gendered discrimination which is completely invisible to us is the plight of the daily life of the trans-community which is completely invisible in our society. We pretend they don’t exist, and it is due to this pretense that we are completely unaware of their daily toils. It is only recently that their identity has been recognised on official documents. One can only imagine the hardships an individual has to endure who is not even recognised as a citizen by a state. Though remarkable, it is only a small victory; the ground realities are very dismal. The trans-community is discriminated against everywhere so much so that the means available to them to make ends meet are paltry and laborious. It is as if their gender is their crime, and they are eternally punished for that.

This invisible misogyny in its myriad forms is not only rampant but pernicious as well, representative of a deeply ingrained gender bias. But Aurat March, in my opinion, does not have a myopic view of misogyny. It understands that women belonging to different classes, ethnicity, and religion are discriminated against in different ways. It understands that a daily wage working woman has no social security and is most vulnerable to the excesses of this patriarchal system. It understands that the troubles of a woman who belongs to a religious minority are very different from one who is from a majoritarian background. It takes into consideration the unequal opportunities of health and education a rural woman is given in comparison to an urban woman. I think it is this intersectional struggle against misogyny, patriarchy, and class that Aurat March stands for. And it nicely puts into perspective its struggle for an equal world.

The writer teaches philosophy at a public-sector university.

Originally published in The News