When Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Wednesday said that violence against women is not only restricted to Pakistan’s rural areas but it is also increasing in the cities, he was absolutely correct. Violence against women is a ubiquitous reality in Pakistan, cutting across not only region but also socioeconomic class. It is a manifestation of the most toxic form of patriarchy prevalent in Pakistan, which has rendered women into mere objects, only there to serve and please their male relations. What cannot be more telling of this than the cultural practice of even drawing sympathy for women referring by to them as someone’s mother, wife, sister, or daughter. The fact of the matter is that the individuality of women has been stolen from them under the guise of cultural or religious sanction. Hence, Bilawal Bhutto was on point when he said that a justice system that punishes perpetrators of violence instead of finding “cultural, religious or moral rationales” is the way forward.
The most basic reason that men in Pakistan are able to perpetrate violence against women with impunity is because women in Pakistan have been systematically disempowered and left helpless. This disempowerment is achieved through a number of ways. First, women are themselves made into self-surveilling bodies of the patriarchal system. Normalisation of practices that make women meek and submissive is done at a very early age.
