Filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who has won two Oscars and an Emmy, said a Karachi hospital doctor harassed her sister on Facebook, but was called several names for it.
The day started with a “14-year-old girl paraded naked in DI Khan”. Now, all of Pakistan is going to go up in flames, I said to myself. Men and women would condemn the barbarity of this incident, there would be a deluge of reactions.
Instead, there was a deafening silence about it. All the keyboard warriors of Pakistan were busy with another subject of outrage — a toxic debate targeting the Oscar and Emmy-winning Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy.
She was called several names: a b@#$*, a c*&#*, traitor, elitist, arrogant, opportunist, irresponsible, drama queen.
Sharmeen’s fault? She had chosen to express her anger against a doctor who had behaved inappropriately toward her sister. After examining and treating her sister in the ER department of one of the biggest hospitals in Karachi, the doctor sent her a friendship request on Facebook and commented on her private pictures.
It is true that the average Pakistani woman experiences unwanted attention on a daily basis. Physical groping, lewd comments, lingering stares assault her the moment she steps out of her safe place (and sometimes there too). The only way she manages to keep her sanity intact is to ignore, an advice she receives from her well-wishers.
Sharmeen, on the other hand, decided not to ignore. The unwanted/unsolicited attention hit a raw nerve and she lashed out.
Now, you would think that a woman who has won two Oscars, an Emmy, and made countless documentary films on the good, the bad, and the ugly stories of Pakistan would receive support, right? Instead, she has been meted with exactly the opposite of support — hate, name-calling, shaming, doubting her allegations, dragging the whole family’s name through the mud.
Even as many acknowledged that the doctor was unethical, unprofessional, creepy, sleazy, and a stalker, it was Sharmeen who was the target of attack and public fury. The doctor was suspended and an ethics committee was formed to investigate the incident. The hospital did indirectly inform the public that the said doctor was already under investigation for harassing fellow female doctors, staff, and patients.
But surprisingly, Sharmeen was accused of being arrogant by many men and women on social media. An FB request is not harassment, they said, even though the doctor is an identified harasser!
What Sharmeen endured is the same treatment that is meted out to other vocal Pakistani women who refuse to maintain the expected “dignified silence” — be it Sabeen Mahmud, Mukhtaran Mai, Qandeel Baloch, or Malala Yousafzai. Now Sharmeen was their latest target.
I decided to speak up on the issue and wrote this on FB.
I was soon inundated with remarks like: “use your brain”, “poor man was the father of four”, “she used her family name”, “she boasted of her family’s influence”, “she gets paid to malign Pakistan”, “typical elite”, “she has ruined choices for women who are actually harassed”, and my favorite, “She is SOC, a public figure, she should have chosen her words wisely”!
In a country where ‘ghairat‘ is a badge of honor, family feuds continue for generations over who said what to their women; where brothers and fathers will go to any extreme if someone harasses the women in their families. But Sharmeen did not choose to be dignified and silent.
After keeping quiet initially, this is what Sharmeen had to say:
My biggest disappointment was the women of Pakistan! I have no expectations from the men anyway. They come from a place of deep patriarchal mindset. In Pakistan, a woman of power, influence, success, and a voice challenging that mindset will always be a threat (Although a few good men did support SOC and understood where she was coming from. Hats off to them). It was the women who took great pains in showing their disdain for Sharmeen’s outburst. A majority of them said that her only option was to ignore. They asked why she used her power/family name/influence to ensure that a sexual predator pays for his misconduct.
My question to all of them is: Wouldn’t you do the same if it was your loved one? Why in hell would you choose to ignore a predator? Why have a single definition for harassment when it is meted out in so many ways? Is it never enough for a female to say I felt harassed and it becomes harassment?
A friend said: “Patriarchy has no gender”. A lot of these educated Pakistani women would rather take the side of a predator and offer him the benefit of the doubt than stand with Sharmeen. They resent her because they regard her to be a feminist, a woman of privilege, recognised the world over for highlighting violence against women in Pakistan.
Hadia Khan is a Karachi-based designer and knows Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy.