Shaheen Sardar Ali describes the inter-relationship of religion, class, law and society as forming multiple layers of identity for a Muslim woman within an Islamic framework (Sardar Ali, 2000:89). Culture, customs, religion and law define the space available for self-definition and are strands woven into the formation of identity. Within this framework there are two levels at which gender identity is experienced and defined – the public arena of political discourse and the personal everyday existence. Gender and the position of women become politicised where religious, cultural, ethnic and national identity are under pressure. A woman’s actions, her self-affirmation and desire for change must be negotiated within these boundaries.
When General Zia introduced a process of Islamisation in Pakistan, gender relations and the position of women became highly politicised. A key platform of these reforms affecting women became the oft repeated slogan ‘chadar aur chardiwari’, (the veil and the home – literally four walls) emphasising the veiling of women and their confinement within the home. Ideal woman and ideal society go hand in hand. Women’s personal lives were immediately impacted. Their identity as ‘good Muslim women’ was under threat if they failed to live within these boundary markers. Because these definitions were linked with religion, women who dared to articulate their gender identity differently were at once cast into conflict with state, society, religion and family.
The women most affected by this challenge to self-articulations of gender were those who came from the urban upper and upper middle classes. Through their involvement with the independence movement, and therefore political powerbrokers, they had been able to reconstruct aspects of their identity and their role in society. The State, seeking legitimisation through religion, was now marginalising and silencing their voice.
The self-definition of gender for a majority of other women has been described differently. Mukhtar Mai, a poor woman who was raped to settle male disputes, said it constructed in the way women belonged to the men of their families, objects whom men have the right to do with whatever they want (Mai, 2006:68).
The extent of this disconnect between women from different classes cannot be underestimated when considering the struggle for change in gender relations. Women from different backgrounds have had different issues of concern that have not been addressed and, it could be argued, activists have been unable to connect with them. Farida Shaheed, in an enlightening self-criticism of activists and their strategies in Paksitan contends that “women’s activism came to resemble a negative mirror image of the discourse it opposed” (Shaheed, 1998). Hina Jilani argues that the focus on legislative change was a necessary one in order to provide tools for fighting the injustices of gender inequality, often expressed in violence against women, in the courts (Jilani, 2006). This concentration on strategies and structures for public political intervention has resulted in a de-linking of the political and the personal.
Maybe it is time to include women’s personal stories more fully if we want to negotiate change in gender relations.
Untying Hard Knots 