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Nida Usman Chaudhary is a Pakistani lawyer and the founder of Women in Law Initiative Pakistan, with a focus on gender equality in the justice sector, gender-based violence and child rights.

In issue # 34 The Internationalist editor Tanya Singh sits down to discuss Usman Chaudhary’s report ‘Contradictions and Ambiguities of Feminism in Pakistan: Exploring the Fourth Wave’ (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Pakistan, 2020). 

In this discussion, Usman Chaudhary reflects on the enduring fourth wave of feminism in Pakistan, its ramifications for the Aurat March (Women’s March), and the integration of non-binary identities and non-traditional expressions of sexuality within the feminist movement.

Tanya: How do you see the fourth wave of feminism in Pakistan as being different from previous forms of activism in the country? And how can feminist movements in Pakistan better address differences in class, religion, sect, sexual orientation, and organizational affiliation?

Nida: The new, contemporary iteration of feminism, colloquially referred to as the ‘fourth wave of feminism’ departs in significant ways from the earlier articulations of activism from the 1950s to the 1990s which were focused on challenging the public, socio-legal sphere, that is, the State. The current fourth wave however, marked a tectonic shift in the feminist landscape in Pakistan and inaugurated an entirely new phase in feminist struggles by challenging and deconstructing the hallowed private sphere of the family, community and society.
 
Breaking from the feminists of the past, Aurat March (Women’s March) introduced a critical juncture for feminist struggles around bodily rights and sexual autonomy. They were saying what their grandmothers could not dare to think and their mothers could not dare to speak even though feminists belonging to previous eras were well aware that it is in control of the body and sexuality that patriarchy is produced and reproduced through the normalized heterosexual family. Apart from seeking bodily autonomy, the young feminists also contested the gendered division of labour which lies at the heart of the patriarchal project and employed humour as a strategy to mock real-life situations. This brought out the lived experiences of discrimination, body policing and violence through curt, punchy one-liners that hit patriarchy in the most intimate ground, i.e. the home and family where it is nurtured and constantly reproduced.
 
As Neelum Hussain said, not only did the Aurat March foreground the personal as political, it challenged patriarchal authority thresholds by turning language on its head, joking and laughing while doing so. By reclaiming public spaces and inserting the personal into the heart of the political, the new wave feminists dissolved the false dichotomies of the public/private, productive/reproductive and personal/political spheres.
 
The new movement sought recognition of women’s invisible labour and demanded that women’s unpaid labour and care work should be seen as equal to other types of work. Unpaid housework and care work could have an economic value; today it gets redefined as the ‘labour of love’ even as capitalism continues to exploit it for its benefit.
 
Thus, while previous articulations of feminism focused on social welfare, development and legal reform agendas, the fourth wave of feminism questions the neo-liberal economic paradigm accompanied by the hyper-nationalist statist one; in reality, the nationalist state is often a party to such agendas by creating conducive conditions for capital through the suppression of labour rights. The fourth wave envisions a complete material and ideological change in state and society, wherein patriarchies – as they appear in feudal, capital, global, national and local forms – are contested and resisted to the core.
 
While it is true that there emerged tensions and differences across the intersectionality in terms of class, religion, sect, generation, sexual orientation and organizational affiliation among the feminists, it nevertheless did succeed in establishing that women did not constitute a homogenized oppressed group in relation to men. Beyond being women, they belong to a class, race, religion, ethnicity, sect and nation etc, and while there are tensions and differences, the fourth wave of feminism in Pakistan is much more attuned to difference, diversity and the importance of inclusion than its previous articulations. As Zoya Rehman says the ‘Aurat March publicly indicates the willingness of feminists across Pakistan to build larger coalitions that can work on a shared understanding of sexual rights for all gendered Pakistanis.’ If they are willing to work on a shared understanding of sexual rights, they can also perhaps continue to engage with each other to understand the different perspectives of those involved in other diverging issues as well. There needs to be a greater effort to reach out to the subordinate classes, especially in rural areas. The issues differ for different classes and rural women face greater violence for their participation in such activities. Dialogue across the social class spectrum can yield fruitful results for every side. Similar dialogues can take place with non-binary people who espouse alternative sexualities to increase inclusion, equality, recognition and respect. People from different geographical areas and belonging to diverse religious communities need to meet and exchange ideas, fears, triumphs and aspirations. This can increase solidarity and inclusion and also overcome the isolation that activists are liable to feel.

Tanya: Yes, and your report talks about how non-binary identities and non-traditional expressions of sexuality are becoming more mainstream within the feminist movement in Pakistan. How do you think these ideas can continue to be integrated into the movement? And what challenges might arise from this?

Nida: The level of participation and diversity in Aurat Marches, particularly, in the year 2019 and since has been unprecedented and has included peasant women, home-based workers, teachers, women health workers, factory labourers, artists, academics, writers, poets and performing artists and transgender persons. This inclusion and a ‘safe space’ to express themselves and share the ideas that were created, gave a sense of greater inclusion to diverse participants. Even though in the last decade and increasingly more so in the last 3-4 years there have been many more transgender persons present within feminist street activism and there has been visible solidarity with them, activists have pointed out that this is a move towards ‘inclusion’ rather a move towards a shared agenda/goal setting/ or leadership. They consider that some of this may have to do with the transgender movement being relatively new and some of it has to do with the reluctance of feminist groups to own the agenda or consider it more mainstream.
 
While the ‘inclusion’ of sexual minorities in terms of their presence exists and there is now more space in the movement to address their concerns, there is not yet the kind of ‘equality’ as envisaged by the Manifesto and the Charter of Demands. One of the most looming challenges is that the increased backlash towards the marches may put the LGBTQIA+ people first to face the risk of invisibilization, or worse, violence and even death. Perhaps, a deeper analysis is required for a better understanding of sexuality and sexual orientation for them to become a part of mainstream feminism.

Tanya: You’ve mentioned how the media coverage of the Aurat March in Pakistan has been biased, sensationalising the movement. Do you think there is a need for media personnel training, especially when it includes reporting on a movement like the Aurat March?

Nida: One of the primary reasons that the Aurat March became so controversial has been due to its coverage in the press and on social media where the narrative has been spun around women claiming their agency and space in the public sphere but also over their private lives and bodies. This is because the media sensationalised the movement for ratings, even though, the Charter of Demands and Manifestos as well as the plethora of placards, demonstrations and displays at the March covered all kinds of issues from socio-political and economic violence and injustices to the more novel issues of dissolution of the public-private dichotomy, the demand for bodily autonomy and acceptance of sexual diversity, the desacralization of the private sphere, and the reclaiming of public space. The patriarchal media only highlighted the slogans and placards that focused on bodily autonomy and sexual diversity and seemingly deliberately obfuscated the agenda of total transformation reflected in the Manifesto and its demands. 

For a whole week after the Aurat March 2019, media talk shows and programs featured conservative and religious ideologues claiming that the demands would destroy the moral fabric of society. The dimensions of class, religion, sect, ethnicity, peasants, labour and workers, Kashmiris and Palestinians for whom rights were also sought, were overlooked.

Even though the charter of Aurat March is much wider than body autonomy, which constitutes a part of it, the media promoted the idea that it was all about the body, sexual rights and personal autonomy. This misrepresentation led to the accusation that this is a class phenomenon; only the middle and upper class want body autonomy and sexual rights and these are not the issues of labouring or peasant women.
 
Therefore, a deep and continuous dialogue is crucially and urgently needed with the media; they distorted their speech and represented the movement as obscene while overlooking and thereby obfuscating the massive agenda of social change at all levels of the social structure. There are sympathetic voices in the media that need to be engaged with. The marchers are even prepared to approach the hostile media for a better understanding of the meaning and purpose of the March but will the media reciprocate? 

Tanya: The Aurat March Charter of Demands and Manifesto focus on law, accountability, and justice, but why do you think there isn't more criticism of the State as a site of patriarchal oppression within the movement's practices?

Nida: Well, as one of the respondents in the report explained, feminists in the past were much more concerned with the State given the onslaught of discriminatory laws and erosion of space for women in the political sphere that they were facing at that time. In a way, the private sphere got pushed back on the agenda. However, feminists today are responding to the circumstances and sites of oppression that they find themselves most in and consider the root of violence and discrimination that eventually results in laws or policies so they are seeking to transform the very heart, the very core of patriarchy – the home, where the inequalities are produced and reproduced. That certainly does not mean that they don’t want to engage with the State or that they don’t already do that, but in terms of what comes across as more primary perhaps is their focus on challenging the false dichotomy of public/private spheres and women’s agency.
 
Another factor is that younger feminists are wholly disillusioned with the State as a point of engagement and do not think that legal reform alone would make any difference because they see the law itself as a patriarchal institution. They insist that this cannot be termed as disinterest in confronting the State as some level of engagement and challenging State measures, such as denial of No Objection Certificates (NOC) or security by the city administration for marches, often leads marchers to contest these measures in a court of law or defend themselves in cases filed against the march.

Tanya: You have previously highlighted the use of technology and social media to mobilize and reach more people. In your opinion, how do you see technology and digital platforms playing a role in the future of feminist movements in Pakistan?

Nida: The Internet has provided a platform which enables the voices of young feminists to be heard far and wide in a matter of seconds. It can help them organize across physical and geographical distances and provide global outreach and opportunities for shared learning. However, while online spaces have made a plethora of voices available through feminist commentary and activism, this often takes place at the expense of larger, more intersectional issues which is a challenge highlighted by Zoya Rehman. Secondly, internet access in Pakistan is very low (a little over 35%), and Pakistan has the highest gender digital divide in the world. Thousands of women are not online.
 
In addition to that, the Internet is also a site of violence, vitriol and abuse which women activists and marchers have to deal with along with criticisms of being an ‘elitist’ movement furthering a ‘Western agenda’ due to the predominance of English and urban classes in online spaces. Therefore the movement can come to be viewed as culturally irrelevant and inaccessible for working women or those from rural backgrounds.
 
To overcome such criticisms, and expand the outreach, there are efforts to create more content in Urdu and other regional languages, especially through podcasts and multi-lingual study circles. Additionally, technology could be harnessed to bridge the class divide and make the movement relevant across intersectionality. As Zoya Rehman said, class collaboration can be achieved through linkages with labour and peasant movements. For instance, we witnessed a  social media boycott campaign against a fashion brand with exploitative labour practices and routine structural violence against its workers.
 
Technology is nowadays also a useful tool and a site to engage with the State, particularly for addressing violent backlash, alerting authorities to any danger and seeking swift action from them given its public nature of engagement that can add pressure on authorities to act.
 
Going forward, technology can and will continue to play a central role in terms of communication and organization as well as for issuing official statements and verified posts and news from feminist collectives like Aurat March to debunk fake news and doctored images. Online spaces are increasingly viewed as political and public over which feminists are also asserting their claim to exist and exist safely. Therefore, despite its pitfalls and drawbacks, online feminism through social media activism characterizes the feminism of today and marks a major departure from previous iterations of feminist consciousness and will continue to play a central role in its advocacy as well as in addressing the backlash, fake news and other challenges.

The Internationalist Archive