Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.- Albert Einstein
Rameen Syed Journalist
We as a nation have a general attitude of ignorance yet we feel this urge to criticize everything. Although thinking critically is good but criticism without prior information, research and awareness is nothing more than just a series of jibber jabber that offer no valuable counter narrative, in-fact from the minds where it originates, there are no narratives at all. But unfortunately, social media has empowered (and not enlightened mind you) general masses and has provided them a platform to express their half-baked groundless opinions.
Applying this scenario to the greatest wave of feminism in Pakistan, the reluctance to embrace the idea of women’s rights, individualism and liberty and ignorant attitude towards the secular ideas has resulted in the misinterpretation of the most sane objectives of ‘Aurat March’, starting from MERA JISM MERI MARZI of last year’s, to hanging dirty laundry out in the streets, an amazing campaign designed for this year’s march which again is being widely misunderstood due to illiteracy and reluctance to read or research about stuff that is new before forming an argument.
‘Airing dirty laundry’ is an idiom of English language which means ‘to talk about something publicly that should be kept private’. This idiom is often used by the people who disapprove people talking about their personal matters such as, if they are talking about anything bad that is happening to them in their house, if they are talking about domestic violence that they are subjected to or they highlight any kind of injustice and exploitation that they suffer from within their families. This year’s Aurat March is the time to discourage this very attitude of disapproval, it is time to hear the unheard stories of enslavement of women and condemn their subjugation. It’s time to give voice to the ones who have been silenced by the society until now, it is indeed time to air the dirty laundry in public!
Glimpse of Aurat March
This year, Aurat march has designed a tremendous symbolic campaign in which the organizers have invited women to take a piece of cloth, write about the specific event and the age in which they have suffered or had been subjected to oppression due to patriarchy and send it to them. The organizers will then ‘air the dirty laundry’ out in the streets in the way of the Aurat march as a symbol to encourage women to speak out loud about all the injustices and brutality they have faced resulting from patriarchy.
It is a great symbolism where dirty laundry symbolizes the oppression faced by women by their families, washing the laundry is a symbol of hiding it from others and remaining silent, not washing the laundry means one does not need to keep silent and hide the brutalities of patriarchy and airing it out means let everyone know the ugliness of scars that patriarchy has caused to them.
‘We are forced into silence about these stains. Our forced silence is said to be the most honorable thing. We feel this silence is a form of brutality exacted upon victims and survivors of patriarchy. We break this silence and bring all the brutality, quite sobs, muffled shrieks out in the open. Patriarchy can no longer silence us and hide behind that silence’, these are the strong and determined words of this year’s Aurat march manifesto and instead of giving half-baked foolish counter narratives on this motto, one needs to take a step back, open their minds a bit and try to absorb the gravity of the issues that women in our society face and learn the real essence of such campaigns.
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