Durdana Farid
Feminists have actually done so many misfavors to women in Pakistan, that it is actually a sorry state of affairs. I am going to jump straight to the point. Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, she made me proud when she won the Oscar even though I hadn’t seen her movie. Only the fact that she is a Pakistani Woman Filmmaker was enough for me to feel proud of her. I still haven’t watched her movie. She won an award again and I felt elated again. I haven’t watched that movie either. My point is, I am not privy to her artistic capabilities or her philanthropic abilities. I don’t know whether she only raises the social issues, or does she practically do anything to resolve them or not. I am kind of indifferent to her career and social standing.
And then, today I heard the emergency doctor’s friend request and Sharmeen’s tweets and the below facebook status.
First of all, her first line, If a male sends another female..another? What does that even mean? Its harassment and amount to rape? She had better claim that her account was hacked. I mean this is infuriating to the extent that she should be psychologically evaluated for this statement. Rape is NOT a joke. It is NOT like sending a friend request to a stranger. For someone who has been sexually molested or raped, this statement is not only pathetic but extremely offensive. I rarely get shocked but her first line shocked me, I could not believe that this woman works on women’s issues in Pakistan.
Moving on, How come these men don’t send these requests to fat females–? WHAT? She herself is discriminating against fat women, implying that they are too ugly to be harassed or too undesirable for anyone to send them a friend request. She cannot be serious?
Because they don’t like to harass fat females? Um, not to make a mockery of anything, but I think Sharmeen needs to understand sexuality a bit better. She has got to be extremely unaware and naïve to have passed this remark.
Your body is a temple and so is your facebook wall? I mean, has she really compared a woman’s body to the facebook wall? So touching the friend request button is like fondling a woman? Really? Sharmeen come on. This is so strange that I am thinking she has to be tipsy while she wrote that. Because not even an attention deprived, lonely old woman would say such a thing.
If any male sends a friend request it means he is simply taking advantage of your body? Well sharmeen, there are women who have not even put pictures of their hands on their bodies, I mean facebook walls and they STILL get friend requests. So in this scenario you are suggesting that these men are imagining a body oh wait, they are imagining a thin body behind that facebook wall and then they are retrospectively raping it. ?? well.. it really doest sound right does it Sharmeen?
I have not said a single sentence in a man’s favor here, nor will I justify men. That is not the point of this article. I merely want to highlight that what you have done is extremely damaging. Not only for your own image but for the image of all liberal women who hold a position of power and success in our male dominated hypocritical society. Its things like this that actually make women suffer as much as anything else.
I have a teenage daughter and she read this status, and she said, “Mom, did she really write this?” Even she thinks that an Oscar winner would never say something so outrightly ridiculous. Women in your stature are actually a source of inspiration to women and young girls. And you actually can damage many minds by being so silly. How do you not see what you have done here.
- You have trivialized the impact of Rape.
- You have reduced a womans’ body to a facebook wall
- You have discriminated against women who are overweight
- You have generalized all men and hence tried to instigate hatred towards all men.
- You have made a man lose his job over just a friend request.
With power comes great responsibility.
