March 8 this year was the hundredth International Women's Day. Thanks to this Day Women are more aware, more confident, active, more outspoken. But its impact has varied from place to place. For instance, one cannot say the women of Saudi Arabia are any better than their great-great-great-great grandmothers were a hundred years ago. There has been only a token awakening.
It is the place that determines the scale of achievements and, in my opinion, there is no better place for women than this city. This place, even before there was a city here, had a female friendly ethos. Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) had the entire coast of Sindh charted, and when admiral Nearcus reached the place which is now Karachi he recorded that the place was called Moronto Baro which means the land of a woman (chieftainess).
When it came to naming a new road built in the time of Benazir's second government, the authorities chose a female name. Though there is no local record in legend or myth of the Kolachi tribe, the authorities invented it and called the road Mai Kolachi Road. A Kohli tribe does exist and like all firsherfolk tribes of our region it is matriarchal.
In the invented legend of Mai Kolachi she is shown to be a firebrand and that trait of course is typical of women in matriarchal society. The social set up of seafaring fisherfolk tends to be matriarchal for practical reasons. The men are out to sea for days on end, even months. The household is managed by women, who fish in the coastal waters for food, settle disputes, arrange marriages and govern their society. You have got to see a Makrani mama when she is angry; no man can sustain the tongue lashing and, growing up under her command, they dread the power of her fists which she does not hesitate to use. In short, these Karachi women are fearless and take no lip from the menfolk.
After 1947, the influx of refugees to Karachi gave a modern flip to the already existing female friendliness of the city. It is called the Middle Class in which the women are educated, aware, skilled in a number of professions and leaders in all types of activity for the empowerment of their sisters in their own class and the other two classes as well.
Karachi women lead the way. The best example of this is the number of females working in franchised eateries such as MacDonald, KFC and Nando's. Here they have to wear trouser suits. They come from places like Orangi Town and Liaquatabad. The mulla may not approve of their western outfit but neither they nor their families have any objection. They gave the lead and now nearly all promotional sale persons that you see introducing new brands of cosmetics, spices, biscuits, teas etc are women likewise dressed in western outfits.
There is no doubt that in every new field in which women work today anywhere in the country, the pioneering women came from Karachi. Two exclusively male domains journalism and business were broken into by Karachi women. Professions thought to be socially unacceptable were made respectable in Karachi, they include nursing popularised by the Aga Khan Hospital and fashion modelling.
Industrialisation which began in Karachi saw the birth of female industrial workers particularly in the garment industry as well as cotton spinning mills. Social workers rightly focus on sexual harassment rampant in this section of the industrial workforce. However it is heartening to note that their effort has yielded the only piece of legislation exclusively for women, which is the Protection Against Harassment Act 2010.
It is cynical to point out the late date of the Act; the notable feature is that it is a battle won. Karachi cannot take credit for the success but without the pressure groups of the city forcing menfolk in parliament to pull up their socks, this Act would still be gathering dust.
Women are hasty to blame men for everything that is a hurdle in the way of female progress, but this criticism is not justified. Women ought to blame themselves when they submit to male inequity. As for Karachi menfolk, I do not think they are among the guilty. Suppression of women is a tribal and feudal attitude, while Karachi is neither, considering even the fisherfolk tribes are hardly male chauvinistic.
It is with the support of their menfolk that Karachi women have progressed by and large. The middle-class ethos of the city is so strong it has washed out even feudal and tribal attitudes when such people settle in the city. A proof is the number of Pathan women who work in the garment industry. Another proof is Sindhi women from the interior who work, although neither their husbands nor they themselves ever admit it to their families living the feudal set up in the interior for fear of the stigma of karo kari. But to survive in Karachi both men and women must work, and they do, even if they have to pretend otherwise.
Women earning their own wages has brought about an important change in the old social order. Karachi's working class women no longer tolerate an idle husband who wants to live off money earned by their wives and daughters even. In Korangi Two-and-a-half (Korangi dhai) there are NGO lawyers who help working women get a divorce. Being divorced is no longer a stigma.
The burqa and hijab one sees adopted now in greater proportion to the recent past in the city, has led to the conclusion that Karachi society is become overly conservative if not fanatically religious. Few see the burqa and hijab as a means of emancipating women. For example those Pathan women mentioned above all wear the burqa when setting out to work. The hijab gives to many women a sense of security in the workplace.
If burqa and hijab can help women's empowerment atleast in these special cases it is a good thing. It is not right to judge these costumes in black and white, that is, as if they only serve to push women back into the claustrophobic four walls of the house and generate fanaticism.
Unfortunately, women activists tend to look at issues in black and white. Hence the hundredth Woman's Day which ought to have been a joyous celebration turned out, with the exception of a few entertainment programmes, to be a maudlin Day of complaints, demands and demonstrations. More the pity.
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