The 'F' Word

“But seriously, don’t you think the MeToo movement is just a bit over the top?” says a 31-year-old Pakistani man with his feet up on the coffee table, flipping through the TV channels as his wife stands over the stove in the kitchen, cooking dinner.  

“Well maybe- ” begins his mother only to be interrupted by his father: “Of course.  That is the problem with today’s generation.  They’re just complaining all the time and turning small things into big issues.”

“Things have changed you know, I could see women crying about equal rights before but we’ve pretty much achieved equality now,” the 31-year-old man continues.  “Honey can you hurry up with the food, I’m starving!”

Isn’t it delightful when you’re in the middle of a situation so saturated in irony it’s almost unbelievable that you haven’t slipped and broken a collarbone yet?

It may be a difference of opinion but you know what, I don’t think equality of the sexes has been achieved – not in the workplace, or the household, or in the public sphere, and definitely not in men’s (and many women’s) minds.

Some things have changed since the 1920s – more women have full-time jobs now more than ever.

Some things, on the other hand, have not changed since the 1920s and women continue to do the bulk of household chores.  (Especially in South Asian families, but to make you feel better, even in England women do 60% more housework than men.)

I find it especially infuriating when Pakistani men my age make statements such as “equality has already been achieved so what’s all the fuss about?” (Although getting emotional does not help, it is very hard to keep your emotions in check when talking about things that affect you every day.  It is much easier to make offhand, objective and often wholly inaccurate statements about events and things that do not impact you personally.)

The problem with privilege is,

A. You don’t realise you have it,

B. You would rather believe it doesn’t exist because no matter what we say, very few people want to change the status quo when they are the ones on the throne. 

So instead of having to actually move my butt and do the laundry and cook an equal number or say even 1/3rd of the meals at home, I’m just going to lie back on the bed and tell you, “just relax, it’s really not that bad for women”. 

Things may be changing around the world but if you have lived in Pakistan you really have to hang on to your blinders to ignore the deeply patriarchal society we live in.  From the way our fathers interrupt our mothers in a conversation, to their unshakable belief that the “woman must hold her tongue when the man gets angry”, to our own mothers teaching us to “compromise” and “women have to be the ones to sacrifice to make a marriage work”, to the brothers mistaking their sisters for their personal butlers, to the men being allowed out later than their female counterparts to women having to stay inside the car and drink their tea while men spread their legs further apart in the public sphere that has invisible signs all over telling women where to go, what to wear, when to speak.

We are so far from equality that statements like this make me sputter half-legible words – picture a cartoon saucepan with its lid being propelled to the roof on a jet of angry hot steam.  And followed by the anger is the despair – chauvinism is deeply entrenched.  Four years in a liberal university in Pakistan or a scholarship programme in America may be enough to get guys to start drinking and shrugging off archaic notions like ‘organised religion’, but it is definitely not a cure for chauvinism.   It is an incredible sense of entitlement that men possess, a nonchalant oblivion of the million little tasks that women have to do (refilling spice bottles, cleaning the microwave, remembering to buy soap before it runs out, remembering all the birthdays, calling all the relatives) and if reminded, a casual shrug at best – “so what?” doesn’t need to be spelled out.  It flashes in neon colours above their heads in response to our unending list of things to do.

I mean, don’t get me wrong.  I do think things are changing for the better, and yes, men my age are better husbands and more equitable parents than the men in the 1920s but we have a long, long way to go.  And I understand that as much as we want to roll our eyes when young men are applauded for doing 1/5th of what we as women do (changed the baby’s diaper, took the trash out, made dinner once a week, made the bed once a month, successfully buttered a slice of toast ... someone bring out the gold plated certificates of achievement!), it is important to acknowledge small steps and celebrate them.  Kind of like when a child draws his first wonky stick figure, or when an acrophobic manages to step out onto a balcony for the first time.  Positive reinforcement is a psychological process that yields results.  So perhaps a “thank you for doing the dishes, honey” might help.  Nobody has to know about the tiny little obsessive elf inside your brain wearing a frilly apron and muttering where are the thank you’s for when I do the dishes and the stove and the toilets and ...)

What doesn’t help is reaffirming your stereotypes by listening to anti-feminist podcasts and stroking each other’s egos and delusions about men having it tough these days.  That’s like sympathising with a tyrant king’s loss of excessive power.  Justice and equality isn’t fun for the people on top because it obviously means they’ll have to come down a few steps.

It isn’t particularly helpful to engage in half-joking banter about “we’ve achieved equality” or trying to dismiss a massive, multi-faceted feminist movement because some cases of sexual harassment appear unjust, or reducing the entire female sex to your personal experience of “my boss is horrible and she’s a woman so you know what that means”.

Also, please stop thinking of feminism as a generic homogenous movement of men-hating females.  I haven’t read much literature on it as a socio-political movement but if somebody asks me if I’m a feminist (usually accompanied by a jovial, half-sarcastic nudge), I say uh obviously.

Because reduced to a sentence, feminism is about equal rights for women and men. 

I want to bring up my children – regardless of their gender – to be hardworking, empathetic, strong and kind.  I want my son to not just know how to do household chores but to realise he is supposed to do them as much as his sister or wife or cousin, and I want my daughter to know that she is smart and strong and that her opinions matter as much as anyone else’s.  

I want the men of our generation to set good examples for their children because more than anything – a good book, a mum’s gentle reminder, an education from Stanford, a strong girlfriend – children will learn from their dads.  What their father does when he comes home from work, how he talks to his wife, how he listens (or doesn’t listen) to her, whether he treats her with love, respect, compassion and (often most forgotten) gratitude.

Why should we aim for anything less?