Incidents of domestic abuse are on the rise and every day, the newspapers are rife with reports about how women are being used and abused by their spouses or male members of their family. And if we thought these incidents were confined to the lower classes, just the other day, there was a news report about talk show host Ayesha Jehanzeb being abused and beaten by her husband in public. She lodged an FIR against him, and he was taken into custody by the police.
While the other side of the story has yet to come to light, nothing could excuse abuse in any form. It hearkened to the incident involving singer and actor Mohsin Abbas who too was accused by his wife of domestic abuse and there have been various other cases like Ayaz Ameer’s son beating his wife to death with a dumbbell when she demanded clarification about the funds he had been extorting from her under some pretext or the other.
A play, Mrs. and Mr. Shameem, produced for Zee Zindagi, starring Saba Qamar and Noaman Ejaz, also highlights the issue of domestic abuse and how toxic masculinity in this society is equated with maltreating and abusing your spouse. Being macho means making your wife’s life a living hell and subjecting her to all forms of abuse, including physical, emotional, financial and psychological maltreatment. Plays like Mrs. and Mr. Shameem are deemed to be too bold for local television in this country because it exposes a lot of truths about our society that people would rather brush under the carpet or turn a blind eye to.
Amongst the educated and relatively affluent females, financial abuse appears to have become commonplace. Apparently, successful and educated females, in a desperate bid to keep their marriages working; allow themselves to be exploited and are then forced to stay quiet to maintain the façade of a happy union
Soaps aired before prime time have also become rife with scenes where it is quite common for men to physically abuse women; in fact, they take it one step further and actually blame women as the main perpetrators. Viewers at this hour obviously derive some sort of sadistic pleasure out of men beating up women, abusing them and remarrying without an ounce of remorse. The play “Hasrat” that concluded recently, shows veteran actor Rubina Ashraf as a wheelchair-bound mother-in-law who makes her daughter-in-law’s life miserable and then pushes her son to marry her caretaker, who is very conveniently killed off in the end after a lot of unnecessary drama and histrionics which the viewers at this hour lap up eagerly.
But is this reflected in real life? Amongst the educated and relatively affluent females, financial abuse appears to have become commonplace. Apparently, successful and educated females, in a desperate bid to keep their marriages working; allow themselves to be exploited and are then forced to stay quiet to maintain the façade of a happy union. This is particularly true in the age of social media. After all, that is what social media is all about: capturing that perfect ten seconds in the day and flaunting it for all the world to see. Is the idea to make people jealous? Or are you so insecure that this false display of affection and adoration is a desperate tactic to give the impression of a stable union? Or maybe both!
Cynics would term the Ayesha Jehanzeb episode a publicity stunt because there is a general assumption that women associated in any form with showbiz are of questionable character or are always seeking different ways to generate buzz around them and retain attention. Although the small screen is a relatively more intimate medium and generally, young boys and girls who join this profession mostly come from educated and reputable families, but this profession is not deemed to be very “honourable” or “respectable.” When I use the term honourable, the term “honour killings” comes to mind where women, who (supposedly) bring dishonour to the family, are callously and ruthlessly silenced. This could be marrying of their own volition or marrying outside the caste but definitely, the mullah brigade in this society has been pivotal in spreading misogyny and hatred for the fairer sex. As the term states, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has nothing remotely Islamic about it, whether you look at policies, governance, equal rights, education or health, to name a few.
The Honourable Chief Minister of Punjab, Maryam Nawaz, being a woman herself, is especially requested to personally supervise and monitor cases of domestic abuse and ensure that working women are not subjected to any sort of harassment by their better (or, in this case, worse) halves or by any male colleagues. This society should be made safe for women, and women rather than being treated like second-class citizens should feel safe, secure and protected in this (so-called) Islamic Republic of Pakistan, or this should be treated as a secular state otherwise where religion and politics should be regarded as two separate entities.