Looking over three decades of women's activism you see some impressive achievements. Without them, as one pioneer recently stated, there would have been no mainstreaming of women's issues, such as violence in all its forms, democracy, health care, discrimination, harassment, rape, honour killing.
Another activist said the biggest achievement was raising awareness about anti-women laws, such as General Zia's Hudood Ordinance 1981, and to bring a lot of issues, such as rape and incest, out in the open. But activism means action for change, and so far society continues without a dent to Pakistan's male-dominated and female-repressive culture.
In the last eight years the federal parliament has passed more pro-women laws than at any other time in Pakistan's history. These laws deal with gender-based violence of different kinds, including rape, sexual harassment, handing over females as compensation for murder, acid attacks, forced marriage, etc. But the impact of legislation is nil. Crimes against women continue unabated, in fact a 2011 report shows an increase in the number of honour killings over the previous year. A new issue, the kidnapping of non-Muslim women and their forced conversion and marriage must be added to the list of anti-women issues.
Why is it that this massive amount of good work by women activists does not add up to actual improvement in the lot of women? It is a patent excuse to blame the obscurantist forces for resisting change. But such forces are simply one type of men. Tell me how many men actually do something to change the fate of Pakistani women? Among those who do nothing are the majority of men from all walks of life. The supporters of such forces get the bad press while they sit in parliament, executive suites, stand to teach school, college and university students, arrange unhappy marriages of their daughters, accept females as compensation and so on and so forth.
Until men protest there will never be any change in the plight of women, it will continue, laws or no laws. This brings me to my efforts to make women activist whom I know, to try to not see themselves as good and the males as bad, mullah included. I have tired to urge them to form pressure groups to tackle all male anti-women opinions. They can effectively bring change in male opinion if they are able to use the same "weapon" that the mullah uses. If they lean on, as they still do despite three decades, on human rights and other modern global laws and rights protecting women, they will not succeed. But who listens?
Another reason why there has been no real progress is because women's activism is an entirely urban phenomenon, limited to just a handful of cities and towns. It is assumed that the rural woman is helpless and it is the duty of her city sister to voice her woes. In thirty years of women's activism and research not a single report has been prepared about how the rural woman thinks. You will be surprised to discover they are not a mindless herd. In villages of Sindh it is women who actually resolved problems confronting the homestead. So many issues, such as fishing rights have active support of village women. In a Badin village it is they who managed to get rid of 25 years of military coercion, preventing fisherfolk free access to the sea. They travelled all the way to Islamabad and got their rights from General Musharraf. Activism or action for change is only half effective if only the urban population works to better the lot of Pakistani women. They should exploit the potential of village women.
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