Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar's attempt at reversing the roles and showing us a cheating woman furthers the difference in treatment meted out to cheating men and women. Cheating men are taken back by their wives, whereas cheating women end up killing their husbands through grief-induced heart attacks. In ten years, you would think we would have learnt to make use of the massive capacity television has to inspire real change in critical thinking and attitudes. But instead we choose to regurgitate the same tired tropes in the same unimaginative ways.
I'm almost tempted to congratulate the Shiza-Fiza twin switcheroo fiasco for thinking outside the box, even if it was in an entirely opposite (and bizarre) direction.
Outside of media too, our conversations remain the same. We see this most clearly in how celebrity break ups are dissected. The idea that women as beautiful as Beyonce, Kate Middleton or Syra Yusuf can be cheated on by their spouses is shocking to us, because how can conventionally attractive women deal with something like infidelity? It reiterates the idea that only a particular kind of woman gets to earn the sympathy and support of the public; she must be beautiful and virtuous and all things that good women are supposed to be. Think Asghari from 'Miraat-ul-Uroos'. It's no wonder that the novel was part of the Pakistani curriculum for so long.
When I was watching 'Shehr-e-Zaat', and when I came across that ending, I remember talking to my mother about why anyone would ever take back a cheating partner. Her response was that sometimes, given the situation, that's the best option available. I didn't entirely understand or agree with her point back then, but now I see what she meant, through a slightly different lens. Our society raises girls on the idea that compromise has been sewn into their DNA, and a good marriage is an intact one. Attitudes towards divorce have not majorly shifted, and a man's infidelity is seen as a workable thing.
'Give it time, things will get better'. '
'At least he didn't leave you for her, count your blessings'.
'Islam mein chaar shaadiyan allowed hoti hain!' (Islam permits having four wives simultaneously.)
But what if it isn't workable? What if the sight of your husband makes your skin crawl, and you are scared to leave the house out of fear of running into The Other Woman? Or you get prescribed sleeping pills because you haven't been able to sleep for the past five days? Is it still fair to expect a woman to go through it all, to compromise and forgive, because to be a woman is to be compassionate?
But then you flip the roles and you see the double standards clear as day. Women who are even suspected of infidelity or just mere association with another man, are vilified and abused. This is used as a plot device in every other drama serial, where in order to discredit the female protagonist, people will cast aspersions at her character, insinuating infidelity, and then the husband will fly into a rage and leave her, only to come back after he has been thoroughly convinced that he was fed lies. Because it is too much to ask for a man to come to that logical conclusion himself, or to grant his partner the decency of a rebuttal.
In fact, to go back to Mahira Khan again, her most beloved drama thus far, 'Humsafar' perpetuated this trope as well. Mahira's character is framed in a compromising position, causing her husband to believe that his wife, who up till this point had been nothing but loving and caring, has indeed been cheating on him. He then proceeds to kick his wife, who has literally been screaming that she's pregnant, without so much as speaking to her once in private (or confirming if she's pregnant??) and after the length of the drama, they eventually reunite due to their daughter's illness. The ridiculousness of a wife being kicked out on mere allegations remains firmly in my head.
This isn't to say that women don't ever cheat. It's just that they never seem to get the easy forgiveness that cheating men avail. Moreover, women who take back cheating partners have to deal with the mistrust that follows, which is always dismissed as them just being 'suspicious' or a 'shakki aurat'.
Instead of telling people that it's okay to respect your boundaries and walk out if you feel disrespected, we tell them to be the 'bigger person' instead and turn the other cheek, which can end up doing more harm than good. Sometimes, it's okay to walk away. I'm waiting for the day we get a drama showing that.