New Delhi: It didn’t take long for former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to rile women across the country. And he managed to do it in his homecoming speech in Lahore, after four years of self-imposed exile in the UK. Taking potshots at Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, he suggested that women supporting his party were more “decent” than those from other parties who danced to music publicly at political gatherings.
But since the speech on the weekend, women’s organisations like Aurat March have called out the three-time PM and Pakistan’s political leaders for perpetuating blatant misogyny for votes. Women influencers and activists have been venting their frustration on YouTube and X, while Pakistani national daily Dawn ran an editorial on this culture of putting women down.
“Misogyny is deeply rooted in our society, to the extent that every time a public figure talks about women, it almost always results in a problematic statement,” wrote Absa Komal for Dawn.
What angered many women was the support Sharif received for his comments, proving that such views are mainstream.
“Women are standing quietly in the rally. No one is dancing to the tunes of drum beats here,” he had said addressing the large crowd in Lahore’s Minar-e-Pakistan. And the crowds cheered him on.
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Not a new practice
Politics and misogyny go hand in hand in Pakistan and often end in violence. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007, faced heavy backlash when she spoke of equality in Islam. Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head when she spoke up for girls’ education.
General Pervez Musharraf made insulting statements regarding rape survivors and Imran Khan blamed the rise in sexual violence on women wearing “very few clothes” because men are not “robots”. And senior PML-N leader Khawaja Asif once referred to a female PTI member as a “tractor trolley”.
Pakistani activist Mehrub Awan told ThePrint that “all nation states are a gendered project, Pakistan being no exception.”
“Nawaz Sharif’s comments are part of a series of efforts to paint PTI’s female voters as ‘morally depraved’ —a practice that PML-N has perfected over the years in its demonisation of Benazir Bhutto,” said Awan.
She is referring to PMLN’s repeated targeting of Bhutto in the 1990s. Both Benazir Bhutto and her mother were unwarranted targets of PMLN’s smear campaign.
In a way, Nawaz Sharif’s latest comments are history repeating itself.
“Naach gaanay ka shauq rakhnay se aurat ya kisi bhi insaan ke zaati kirdaar pe sawaal uthana intehayi ghatiya harkat hai [The love of music and dance does not warrant the questioning of any woman or man’s character],” Aurat March Karachi posted on X.
Media outlet Propergaanda, however, was not so subtle. “It’s heartwarming to see a man who clearly missed the memo about treating women as equal human beings,” it wrote in an Instagram post.
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Misogyny in Pakistani politics
PML-N leaders have been habitual offenders when it comes to sexism, according to the Dawn editorial. Rival PTI party member Maleeka Ali Bokhari agrees with this.
“Vilification of women is deep-rooted in PMLN,” she posted on X. “Of course, he believes that only his daughter, Maryam has the entitlement & right to do politics & should be treated with respect.”
Others like Shehzad Shaikh, host of the podcast, The Pakistan Experience called Sharif out for pretending to take the moral high ground by refusing to insult his political opponents but instead passing comments against women.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)