Beyond Gender
Earlier this month, two extraordinary women were in the news:
Fahmida Riaz, the poet, whose death was mourned by many and SP Suhai Aziz
Talpur, whose triumph was celebrated by proud Pakistanis when she was at the
forefront of the operation against the terrorists who attacked the Chinese
Consulate in Karachi.
While many feminists may celebrate them, they represent a far more
complex space that cannot be contained in a traditional gender discourse.
Fahmida Riaz said in an interview with fellow poet, Amar Sindhu “I
am not an exceptionally politically over-charged poet. Perhaps the only
exception is that I am a woman.” She has
translated into Urdu Rumi’s Masnavi, the poetic works of Shah Latif Bhittai and
Shaikh Ayaz, written about a range of political and social issues. However, her
public perception is imprinted with her 1978 publication Badan
Dareeda in which she shared her sensual
awakening. She says she did not set out to shock but merely expressed as she
always has “the relationship between the
life and works of a writer”
Are we saying SP Suhai
Aziz’s leadership in the Chinese Consulate operation was impressive because the threat was
quickly and efficiently contained, or are we impressed that she achieved this
despite being a woman? Her determined no nonsense manner reflects her belief
that “jobs are not gender specific”.
Her male colleagues and superiors
put faith in her abilities rather than her gender.
History is filled with remarkable women that fought for the rights
of women - Emmeline Pankhurst’s
suffragette movement, Germaine Greer’s
Obstacle Race, and Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique to name a few.
However, there is also a large number of women whose motivation to
achieve their goals had little to do
with their gender such as Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat to a white
man on a city bus in USA, or Hypatia in 4 C
Egypt and Lubna in 10 C Andalusia who were respected
teachers of mathematics and philosophy.
A substantial list of women inventors and scientists is finally
surfacing : Lisa Meitner’s discovery of nuclear fission in the 19C , Marie
Curie’s theory of radioactivity, Actress Hedy Lamarr’s work in wireless
communications which made the cellphone
technology and digital communications of today possible. Stephanie Kwolek’s
invention of Kevlar used for bulletproof
vests of soldiers and law enforcement
officers all over the world. Well into the 20C, it was still found necessary to
create the Girl Geek movement which grew out of
the realization that there were many geeky nerdy women who were as
obsessed about technology as men.
Women warriors have existed in almost every age and in every
nation. Some were formed into women’s
armies such as the Greek era Amazons of Anatolia,
the Amazons of Libya, the African Dahomey
Amazons of the 17-19C , the 500 strong Turkish women archers and the 500 Abyssinian swordswomen employed by Ghiyasuddin
Khilji, and the 18C women’s army of Rani Velu Nachiyar.
Individual female warriors –
Boudicca, Joan of Arc, Razia Sultana, Rani of Jhansi, Chand Bibi, Khawlah bint
al-Azwar, and Sayyida al Hurra of Morocco, or the Vietnamese Lady Triệu, fought at the command of or side by
side with male warriors. Women also took part in wars as individuals such as the female Samurai, Nakano
Takeko, or Noor Inayat Khan, Indian spy for the British
in WWII.
It is not men who are threatened by
strong or independent women but “society”, which includes both men and women, that
wants to preserve the continuity of past social structures. As
the systems scientist Peter Senge says “People
don't resist change. They resist being changed.”
Durriya Kazi
November 26, 2018
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