It is no secret what women in our country feel unsafe, sexually assaulted and abused. Women in the country are often mistreated and especially after the protests, motorway incident and Aurat March, they are not willing to tolerate being objectified, criticised for every move or on every of our beings from our looks, to our dressing to what we do to what we don’t do to what we say to what we study to what we eat to what we are and are not capable of.
Recently, there was a post made on twitter by columnist Ansar Abbasi, where he saw an opportunity to sexualise a woman who was taking part in a fitness exercise to show how that specific exercise can and should be done, and his supporters backed him up on sharing these views, despite the programme focusing on exercising, which reveals the mindset of society.
As a young woman myself I’ve noticed as well how the media has changed so much for us, bringing countless situations to light, exposing rape culture and addressing all these issues. What we can do and are somewhat currently doing is using this platform to our complete advantage, raising awareness about normalising women existing.
The Federal Minister for Science & Technology, Fawad Chaudhry, condemned Mr. Abbasi’s comments, expressing his confusion at how women exercising was being sexualised and an act of objectification.
On a positive note, barring this discussion on twitter, we have also recently seen a riseof women in fitness, doing exercises such as crossfit, kickboxing, boxing, weight-lifting, Jiujitsu, yoga, acroyoga, aerial yoga and self defense!
Even if the numbers aren’t as big but they are there, we go to work regardless if our jobs are in a high end office or in a corporate company or in other designated roles depending on the socio-economic status. We need to see ourselves as what we really are, capable, hardworking extraordinary beings that don’t let any obstacles stand in our way, and that is what invokes fear in those constantly shaming and critiquing women.
The first step is redefining your relationship with yourself, thus giving yourself the confidence to achieve your goals, ignoring hateful comments on social media that make one think otherwise.
The fact that Ansar Abbasi received many angry comments because of his post means that more and more people are slowly becoming aware of what is right and wrong, it is a slow process but progress is progress. Just as Dawn stated, ‘2020 is the year of solutions’.
Support your fellow queens as they take the steps in fighting the patriarchy so much so that our future children won’t even need to learn what the word patriarchy means.