The country was shaken by the shocking video of a woman walking with unimaginable dignity toward her death. Seven bullets pierced her body, while the man beside her was struck by nine on the orders of a local jirga in Balochistan. The horrific footage went viral across the country, sparking outrage on social media and a national outcry demanding that the perpetrators be arrested and brought to justice.
In an attempt to deflect public anger, the chief minister of Balochistan issued a statement claiming that the couple had not married by choice but were instead involved in an ‘illicit’ relationship. This was a calculated effort to justify the killings in public eyes, shield the tribal leadership involved in this heinous crime and pacify public outrage.
In a further attempt to legitimise the crime, the victim's mother was brought forward to endorse the murder of her own daughter publicly. She said the killing of her daughter was consistent with Baloch tribal tradition. The mother might have given this statement under durance or to save her sons, or she is in connivance because of her own internalised patriarchy and notions of ‘honour’. However, it is meaningless to find out what the reason was behind this murder, as nothing justifies people taking the law into their own hands and killing people like this in the name of ‘honour’.
This is not the first time such brutality has occurred. In 2008, five Baloch women were buried alive in the name of ‘honurr’. Instead of condemnation, Senator Israr Ullah Zehri defended the act, declaring it a Baloch tradition that he supported. Although six to seven individuals were initially arrested, no one was ever prosecuted. The case was quietly buried – just like the women.
Pakistan has become a killing field for women, where patriarchal violence is systemically normalised. At the heart of these incidents lies a deeply entrenched patriarchal mindset that views women not as autonomous individuals but as men’s property, carriers of family ‘honour’, subject to male control. Concepts like izzat (honour) and shame were constructed to legitimise gender-based violence as a means to maintain and reinforce male control over women’s bodies and lives. Therefore, these incidents of gender-based violence are not isolated or random acts but the manifestation of a deeply rooted structural system of patriarchy.
The questions frequently posed to gender rights activists after these heinous crimes are committed: Why is gender-based violence on the rise in Pakistan? Why do local communities often support acts of gender-based violence? What needs to be done to end gender based violence?
While there are multiple intersecting factors, cultural norms, women’s dependent status, legal impunity and lack of support structure and political will are behind the rising trend in gender based violence. One of the most critical yet overlooked explanations lies in the crisis of masculinity. Traditional gender roles have long assigned men the position of breadwinners, heads of households and enforcers of authority. This model of hegemonic masculinity rests on dominance, economic provision, and control over women, children and the domestic sphere.
However, with escalating poverty, deepening socioeconomic inequality and mass unemployment, this model of masculinity is collapsing. As men increasingly find themselves unable to fulfil their socially prescribed roles, they experience a profound sense of emasculation and failure. This emotional and psychological turmoil often breeds frustration, shame and alienation. In this context, the female body becomes the battlefield on which these frustrations are acted out. Whether through domestic abuse, harassment or honour-based killings, violence becomes a tool for reasserting control in a world where control is otherwise slipping away.
To the question regarding the community support for gender based violence, the answer lies in understanding the political economy and material base of patriarchy. Men across class, ethnic and regional divides are the direct beneficiaries of the unpaid domestic labour of women. This labour is not limited to household chores; it encompasses a wide range of physical, emotional, and reproductive work. Women cook, clean, raise children, care for the elderly, manage household relations and provide sexual services to their husbands. All of this labour sustains not only the family unit but also the larger social and economic order.
This structural arrangement grants men material, emotional and social privileges. It ensures that the burden of social reproduction remains hidden and unacknowledged. In return, men enjoy a system that enables their participation in public life without the burden of domestic responsibility. The preservation of this unequal system becomes a collective interest, leading many men to fiercely guard the hierarchical gender order that privileges them.
As a result, local communities, often dominated by men, respond to transgressions of gender norms with hostility. When women and, in some cases, men challenge this order by asserting their right to choose partners, or reject imposed gender roles, they are seen not as individuals exercising freedom, but as threats to the established social contract. They are confronted through acts of violence, including honour killings, forced marriages and social ostracisation as tools of collective punishment.
These acts of violence against women are not accidental, cultural or anecdotal; these are structural issues that demand structural solutions. Therefore, any serious effort to end gender-based violence must be intersectional and transformative.
Ending gender-based violence will require the criminalisation not only of the acts of violence themselves but also of the ideologies that normalise and rationalise them. It must include economic empowerment of women, gender-sensitising the criminal justice system, radical reimagining of gender roles and dismantling the structural underpinnings of patriarchy – economic dependence, cultural glorification of male authority and the moral policing of female sexuality.
As long as the material base of patriarchy remains intact, violence against women will continue to serve as a tool of control – punishing those who resist, rebel or seek to renegotiate the terms of their subordination.
The writer is a human rights activist and ex-director Gender Studies, QAU. She can be reached at: drfarzanabari@gmail.com
