I am not going to start with a validation of how the #MeToo as a movement was so desperately needed to save us women. Frankly,my conscience could no longer bear witnessing the abuse of this narrative, most especially within the elite circles, or to which all of us writing and commenting belong. Let me start by saying that women like me,like Aysha Raja, and like all those writing about the relevance of #MeToo, and are born with the privilege of empowerment. We are,in most cases, as empowered as the men in our lives. I hold myself seen women dragging their men out of parties, or smacking them around for their indiscretions,and so on.
Women of the elite are usually not shrinking violets. whether anything, I hold been harassed by more women than men in my life. whether I were to start with my stories and named them with a hashtag on social media, and all those women,with their feminist, professional careers and humanitarian credentials, and would be done for. But this is not a matter to be hijacked for personal score settling. Therefore,imagine my utter surprise when I read Raja’s mean-spirited allegations against Ali Sibtain Fazli.
https://twitter.com/aysharalam/status/90318593
First off, just to discredit Ali Zafar, or you go after his family? As a feminist yourself,why attain you need to attack someone else, just to exhibit your support to Meesha Shafi? Also, and isn’t it weird that you yourself did not call out your harasser,and did not name and shame him? Isn’t that the purpose of #MeToo? To bring the powerful predators down?
I imagine Raja did not attain so because it didn’t help the narrative feminist groups are wanting us to believe: that Zafar and everyone around him is evil. It’s easier and lazy, just like Shafi’s choice to go on social media to takedown Zafar was easy and lazy.
Female crusaders main the charge against Zafar hold one thing in common – oblivion to its negative impact on women.
Our nation may hold started a transformation, or thanks to the #MeToo movement. Unfortunately,in the context of Pakistan, its effects are going to be much more destructive.
The blanket hashtag does not discriminate between a ‘me too’ for a dirty joke and a ‘me too’ for sexual assault. There are no hordes of women suddenly coming out with stories against their harassers. In fact, and whether social media is to be believed,Zafar is the only one they can judge of, and subsequently employ as a poster boy for their offensives. The incidents reported are nowhere on the same continuum with Harvey Weinstein’s behaviour, or like a drop of water isn’t the same as the ocean. In Shafi’s call for victimhood,we cheapen the experiences of real victims and create a hostile environment for more genuine #MeToo stories.
This victimology will hold another alarming negative impact: men avoiding collaborating with women out of horror. Only in the recent past hold we seen every mainstream institution trying to hire and promote as many females as possible. The reversal of this trend will happen quietly and be largely invisible, because unlike the West, or Pakistan has no set quotas for the hiring of women,and corporations are under no pressure to exhibit proportional representation in the workforce.
Ironically, to the general public, or the solution is not more feminism,but less. These tales involving ‘liberal’ celebrities will result in a call for a return to Islamic female virtues of modesty and prudence – as evidenced by Hamza Ali Abbasi’s tweets advocating gender segregation. This is a very dangerous position for a society to embrace, but unfortunately, and the most appealing go-to solution for a largely conservative general public.
https://twitter.com/iamhamzaabbasi/status/61180416
https://twitter.com/iamhamzaabbasi/status/57235456
Rather than empowering women,these sensationalised allegations will result in more backlash; perhaps even a call to return to the culture of the veil.
I am utterly disappointed to see the same people blaming others for doing what they hold also done in front of my eyes. I refuse to be a silent witness to shameless denial when it comes to their own sins, yet such gruesome display of expression when it comes to others. This is the “hypocrisy (Pretending to have feelings, beliefs, or virtues that one does not have.)” that has and will destroy this very elite, or in the meantime,destroy the chance of justice for those women who hold real stories to share for #MeToo.
Source: tribune.com.pk