Feminist fun

The Aurat March has just ended. It would need a separate article to discuss all that went on during the Aurat March.

I refer here to Nida Kirmani’s recent journal publication, ‘Can Fun be Feminist?’ for the South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, to focus on urbanisation and gender debate in this article.

Nida Kirmani conducted fieldwork in lower-middle class areas in Lyari. It is a multi-ethnic and compactly populated settlement in Karachi. In the past, it had become a ‘no- go area’ in the city due to conflict. However, the Kirmani contends (particularly in the post active phase of conflict) that neighbourhoods in Lyari are also “places of comfort, familiarity and fun” and are not only the “fearful spaces”. Therefore, it is important to understand how women and girls daily negotiate their existence in Lyari and not see the place through the prism of violence only.

In this context, a look into the way women enjoy and have fun in their daily lives provides a window to understand the marginalization in urban areas and gender in Karachi and elsewhere. By highlighting pursuit of enjoyment and fun, one can understand how women manoeuvre their way around the boundaries established by patriarchal order, even if it is not considered active “political resistance”.

Generally, women having fun, in particular in public places, is looked down upon as women are considered to only be in the public space with a defined purpose. So, general irreverent merrymaking is public could be viewed as a “political act” and “feminist”.

Kirmani through her participant observation in Lyari finds out that although women in the area may not actively describe it as merry-making, lots of girls and women are “loitering” in the narrow streets in front of their houses. They would chat, smoke hookahs and catch up on the neighbourhood gossip. They would also climb up rooftops during electricity outages. It would give them a break from their daily chores and provide some form of enjoyment.

One Sunday during her fieldwork, Kirmani went on a picnic with 25 of the young women students of a local vocational training centre in Lyari. They took a coach to Thatta outside Karachi to visit multiple tourist sites. There is a detailed discussion on how these young girls enjoyed their temporary freedom away from their homes to dress up and have good time. It was a freedom from the strict social norms imposed by home settings. They took selfies and sang songs and enjoyed themselves. They relished this freedom that this outing offered them and may carve this space for enjoyment in their future lives as well.

Women and girls in Lyari used the space to “find enjoyment, thus not openly challenging restrictions, but using spaces within the bounds of accepted social norms to their own advantage… there is an aspect of manoeuvring around gender restrictions rather than challenging them outright” such as the strategic use of the veil. Similarly, they anonymously used social media to “explore different sides of their identities and different types of relationships” outside their immediate surroundings.

Kirmani also describes her discussion with two young women about cycling. Both these young girls belonged to Lyari Girls Cafe, an NGO offering free classes to women in girls. They also organized bicycle rides on Sundays in Lyari. These two young girls who worked in this NGO started to cycle early morning on Sundays. In Pakistan, women cycling has a “symbolic value” and can be termed equivalent to them manifesting their agency and show their presence in public places. It can also be a means to enjoyment and “empowerment”.

While concluding, Kirmani cautions against “romanticizing” this fun and enjoyment in the lives of the poor and lower middle class women as they face some real restrictions on their mobility from their families and communities that reflected in the case studies discussed above.

A girl who worked at the departmental store in Clifton has left her job because of disapproval of her future in-laws. One of the cycling girls has resigned from the NGO, mostly likely due to the pressure of her family. Lyari Girls Cafe is facing a backlash after their video was put up in the media. Even the limited spaces that women and girls in Lyari carve out for themselves are under constant threat from the patriarchal structures.

We saw a public form of backlash against the Aurat March through the media even before it took place. On March 8 itself, the Islamabad Aurat March was attacked by right-wing forces in what is described by one of the organizers as a “coordinated” attack and unexplainable security lapse by the Islamabad administration. It shows the kind of insidious backlash women face when they occupy public places to demand their rights and protect their autonomy and freedom.

Kirmani’s overall argument about women and girls in Lyari can be summed up as the “the pursuit of fun and enjoyment are important means through which women and girls both confront and conform to prevailing gender norms. An analysis of these episodes highlights the multiple meanings enjoyment can hold for women and disturbs simplifying binaries of resistance and submission, violence and peace, to reflect the complex negotiations that characterise the rich texture of everyday life in marginalised and conflict-affected urban localities.

“It is through these types of everyday negotiations that gender orders are both reinforced and challenged.”

The writer is an Islamabad-based social scientist.