It’s 2019 and we’re still breeding sexism in Pakistan

Sexism is clearly a widespread human rights issue in Pakistan, which is badly affecting a vast number of women in our country. It is widely believed that gender equality is important and essential for building comprehensive, peaceful, liberal, and diverse societies.

Pakistan is a country where female population outweighs the male. According to some renowned journalists, Ghazi Salahuddin said in one of his sessions that sexist jokes had increased in recent years because women in Pakistan have started matching and overtaking men in professional lives.

He further added, “Be it in examinations or jobs at multinational companies, it is women who are ahead of men, and that makes the latter insecure so much so that they vent their frustration through sexist jokes.”

“Men are the masters of women’s destiny in a country where they have been denied all the decision-making power; cultural norms and a patriarchal mind-set are the primary factors derailing women from progressing in society”- Daily Times

There is no denying that status of a women in education, health, politics and their participation in labor market is also disappointing. Mr Salahuddin criticized TV channels for dropping their standards to fit the audience rather than educating them about sexism. He talked about an incident where he praised his wife by saying ‘my claim to fame’, to which his colleagues took it as a joke.

According to Mr Salahuddin, we need to increase our intellect level by reading and be compatible with the world outside Pakistan, or else we will stay in our small bubble of cracking sexist jokes when the rest of the world would be far ahead of us.

Whatsapp Family Groups are to be blamed for spreading sexist jokes and for breeding sexism especially by men in it. We need to publicize women-centric literature more like men-centric literature, be it the poets talk of women as objects or literary blimp.

In opinion of Editor, Hamna Zubair; instead of wasting our time on questions like ‘Where do these sexists jokes come from?’ or ‘How can we get rid of these jokes?’, we should give a thought on existence of these sexist jokes and breeding sexism here in Pakistan.

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Why blame the government