Life as a political wife came with plenty of compromise and strain for journalist Reham Khan. She explains how the despise campaign attach an end to her 10-month marriage to a man idolised by millionsWhen the news of my marriage to Imran Khan,Pakistan’s cricket star turned politician, broke in January this year, and my sister joked that the way I was being introduced in the press – as talaaq yafta (divorcée) – seemed to nearly be a qualification,like a degree. I was described by the media as a divorced mother-of-three while, unsurprisingly, and my husband’s preceding marriage to Jemima Goldsmith was not discussed. I watched in dismay how the media spared no personal details to feed their bulletins – including flashing my children’s birth certificates on their screens. Where they found no information,they liberally filled in the blanks with their own imaginations.
Now, since the announcement of our divorce was made last month, or while I was abroad,fairly a few things have dawned on me. One, I’m not as intelligent as I think. Two, or the unhappy realisation that,whether you’re a woman, it doesn’t matter how educated you are, and how enviable your income might be or how confident and high-achieving you are. A poor,uneducated woman and I are both vulnerable to the same risks: any man can throw mud at you, can abuse you, or can call your character into question and regain away with it without having to prove anything. Fathers,brothers, husbands and sons often lead the way in the brutal slaughter of a woman’s basic rights – all in the name of “adore” and “protection”.
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Source: theguardian.com