Critic Magazine Exclusive: Women and their 'Modern Rights'

By Farhan Noor, Editor Critic Magazine ...

There is a women-rights crisis in Pakistan; from abusive chauvinists and cultural adulterations of religion to slow, outdated, useless judicial process and legal system—the plight is endless. Fortunately, there are people who genuinely care. Unfortunately, there are also people who apparently do but factually don't—and these are the people/NGO's funded by foreign donor agencies having ratified U.N.'s CEDAW. Their operations in Pakistan will only serve to replace one kind of evil with another, and worse. Any person who believes prostitution and abortion is a woman's right, is not a woman's friend. We could disclose their identities, but wont. You can see for yourself who these people are. These are the people who talk about “safe sex” practices in “Red-Light zones” and consider semi-nude parading of their kind in the name of “fashion”, “arts”, and “culture” as “liberating”, “empowering”, and “modernizing”. Our stance is in return simple: shutdown the 500,000 and growing brothels in Pakistan, ban sale of pornography in DVD shops, censor sexual-objectification prevalent in advertising, and make Education easily accessible and viable option for all girls in Pakistan. Then, and they only, the beginning of renaissance can truly begin.

THINK ABOUT IT: QUESTIONS TO PONDER UPON

Q1. Who is qualified enough to declare a certain thing to be a woman's right, and on what basis? Is it Religion (God)? Is it Science? Is it the U.N.?Or is it the cooperation of all three? In case of latter, who do you think should have the veto-power? Why?
Pakistan ratified the U.N proposed Bill of Rights for women called as the Convention for Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) on 12 March 1996. This Charter calls for women empowerment, gender equality and an end to gender discrimination by advocating for decriminalization of prostitution (Article 6 & Article 11-1c), legalization of abortion (Article 12) and homosexuality (Article 5a), “liberation” of womenfolk from responsibilities of motherhood (Article 11-2c), and the discouragement of single-sex schools (Article 10c). Scientific studies and empirical evidence however suggest that each proposed woman's right is in fact a human rights abuse. Even all the major religions hold strong reservations against the propositions. Yet, 90 countries from all around the world are its signatories, whereas most interestingly, America, regarded as the champion country for democracy and human rights, and the one who actually helped prepare the Charter in the first place, have refused to ratify it and constitutionalize it in their country!

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Q2.What future do you see for women in a decade from now keeping in view the fact how CEDAW is regarded world over as the reference guide for female gender rights?

DECRIMINALIZATION OF PROSTITUTION
Article 6: States Parties shall take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to suppress all forms of traffic in women and exploitation of prostitution of women.
NOTE: Does this mean that CEDAW seeks to suppress the “exploitation of prostitution” but not the prostitution itself?
Article 11-1(c): The right to free choice of profession and employment , the right to promotion, job security and all benefits and conditions of service and the right to receive vocational training and retraining, including apprenticeships, advanced vocational training and recurrent training
NOTE: Prostitution is regarded as a form of labor in many countries. By saying that a woman has the right to “free choice of profession and employment”, any country can legalize prostitution based on this Article.
LEGALIZATION OF ABORTION
Article 12: States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of health care in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, access to health care services, including those related to family planning .
NOTE: On May 14, 1998, the CEDAW Committee criticized Mexico for “the lack of access for women in all States to easy and swift abortion ” and recommended “that all states of Mexico should review their legislation so that, where necessary, women are granted access to rapid and easy abortion ;” on January 28, 2002, the Committee urged Uruguay to “to amend its legislation on pregnancy termination;” and as recently as January 14, 2005, the Committee pressured Paraguay to decriminalize abortion .
LEGALIZATION OF HOMOSEXUALITY:
Article 5(a): To modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women
NOTE: January 27, 1999, the CEDAW Committee told Kyrgyzstan it “recommends that lesbianism be reconceptualized as a sexual orientation and that penalties for its practice be abolished.” (Kyrgyzstan, 27/01/99, U.N. doc. A/54/38, par. 128.)
REDFINING MOTHERHOOD
Article 11-2(c): To encourage the provision of the necessary supporting social services to enable parents to combine family obligations with work responsibilities and participation in public life, in particular through promoting the establishment and development of a network of child-care facilities
NOTE: Why is there so much stress on the establishment and development of “networks” of child-care facilities but to “liberate” womenfolk from the responsibilities of motherhood?

Q3. What is it to be a woman who a man can never be? Or is she also about excelling in businesses and bringing food to the table? In other words: what is the feminine niche? How is she, in terms of roles and responsibilities, any different from man, difference that makes any woman, a woman? Or is she also all about working in factories and earning bread and butter for the family, like man?

Q4. One hotly contested topic in the issue of women's rights is the right to a social life and practical intermingling of genders. Urban Feminists have a point when they call for women to partake in the socio-economic and political life of a society. There is no doubt whatsoever in anybody's mind that women have as much right as any man to be a part of any decision-making process; that is not an issue. What else is not an issue is their right to hold offices of importance in private or public sector. The real issue is the formulation of some kind of mechanics or code of conduct whereby men and women can interact and intermingle with each other without having to compromise on social values. For what we have seen in western “permissive” societies where gender-intermingling is allowed and has no boundaries, in universities, at workplaces, in markets, at public recreational centers, or even in religious spaces, certain devastating kinds of socio-economic ills have sprung up, most notably: teenage pregnancies, rape, and sexual harassment. Cultural critics refer to the phenomenon as the “rape-culture”. It is therefore no surprise that every 2.5 minutes a woman is raped in U.S. and every 8.6 minutes in U.K; that almost 40-60% of women are sexually harassed at their workplaces; that 83% of girls in grade 8-11 were sexually harassed at schools in 2002; and that 82% of the total 422,197 births under the age of 20 in 2004 were from non-marital relationships. Unfortunately, while the intentions and the attempt to socialize women were good, the results however have been bad. This makes it clearly obvious for a need to develop some sort of a system in which women can socialize without the fear of being hurt.

What sort a system in terms of social etiquettes, moral codes, and more importantly civil & criminal laws can you imagine which will enable and facilitate the intermingling of genders in the most practical and beneficial way? What can a man do from his side, and woman from her side, while the Government on their side to facilitate such kind of a system?

Q5. Advertising is singularly cited as the main reason for the degradation and dehumanization of the female gender. Pro-feminist cultural critics such as Robert Jensen and Sut Jhally accuse mass media and advertising of promoting the “objectification of women” to help sell goods and services. Naomi Wolf believes that even seemingly innocent and harmless depiction of womenfolk in advertising or plain physical attractiveness is in itself problematic. John Stoltenberg goes so far as to condemn any sexual fantasy that involves mere visualization of woman as wrongly objectifying. It seems, for postmodernist feminist theorists, the roots of evil lies in the “gaze”. When readers of magazines are turning pages and come across an advertisement involving a “sexy model”, they stop, and gaze at it, before moving on. They even turn their magazines sideways and look at it from every angle. The same is true for viewers flipping TV channels and only pausing if a sexually-charged commercial or a program is on air. Even everyday pedestrians turn their heads around and gaze at women walking past them till the very last minute possible, and so do car-drivers and their favorite billboards. Taxi-drivers and rickshaw-walas also keep photos of their favorite actresses and models in their pockets while other members of the lower-stratum buy cheap filmy newspapers majoring in colorful pictorial content! What more, our youth also seek the same pleasures while browsing pornographic websites on the internet and buying x-rated videos besides watching countless hours of Cable TV. Everywhere you go, sexual imageries of women are on casual offer for consumption. These imageries continue to bottle up in the minds of men and when they cannot find a legal outlet for it (by getting married) they either hire prostitutes or rape girls, molest, assault, tease, or in the least, fantasize about it. Furthermore, even educated and professional women at multinational organizations are not spared from physical and emotional sexual harassment on daily basis. Little is wonder why the female gender is now regarded as the “sex-class” because of all the uncalled-for emphasis on female face and body, and their dressing, be it in: advertising or fashion industries, modeling houses, in music videos run on MTV, entertainment shows on Cable TV, pageantries, and so on. Even female athletes are subjected to wear less and less of clothing, which is tighter, shorter, and glamorous i.e. “sexy”. While Jeane Kilbourne believes sexual objectification leads to violence, Dr. Eileen L. Zuberiggen, chair of the American Psychologist Association, and Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, states: “We have ample evidence to conclude that sexualization has negative impacts in a variety of domains, including cognitive functioning, physical and mental health, and healthy sexual development.” The solution, according to Wendy Shalit, author of ‘A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue' (1999) is to return to pre-sexual revolution standards of sexual morality. Do you agree? If so, then what pre-sexual revolution standards of sexual morality, relevant to our own culture and economics, should be re-adopted?

REPORT OF THE APA TASK FORCE ON THE SEXUALIZATION OF GIRLS
(Available Online at www.apa.org/pi/wpo/sexualization.html)

Dr. Eileen L. Zurbriggen, chair of the APA Task Force and associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in a statement. “We have ample evidence to conclude that sexualization has negative effects in a variety of domains, including cognitive functioning, physical and mental health, and healthy sexual development.”

Cognitive and Emotional Consequences: Cognitively, self-objectification has been repeatedly shown to detract from the ability to concentrate and focus one's attention, thus leading to impaired performance on mental activities such as mathematical computations or logical reasoning (Frederickson, Roberts, Noll, Quinn, & Twenge, 1998; Gapinski, Brownell, & LaFrance, 2003; Hebl, King, & Lin, 2004). In other words, thinking about the body and comparing it to sexualized cultural ideals disrupted mental capacity.

In the emotional domain, sexualization and objectification undermine confidence in and comfort with one's own body, leading to a host of negative emotional consequences, such as shame, anxiety, and even self-disgust. The association between self-objectification and anxiety about appearance and feelings of shame has been found in adolescent girls (12–13-year-olds) (Slater & Tiggemann, 2002) as well as in adult women.

Mental and Physical Health: Research links sexualization with three of the most common mental health problems of girls and women: eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression or depressed mood (Abramson & Valene, 1991; Durkin & Paxton, 2002; Harrison, 2000; Hofschire & Greenberg, 2001; Mills, Polivy, Herman, & Tiggemann, 2002; Stice, Schupak-Neuberg, Shaw, & Stein, 1994;Thomsen,Weber, & Brown, 2002; Ward, 2004). Research also links exposure to sexualized female ideals with lower self-esteem, negative mood, and depressive symptoms among adolescent girls and women

Experts tell us that children who have been molested often live with depression, eating disorders and low self-esteem, all of which, negatively impact the quality of their lives. Guess what? A team of psychologists recently reported that exposing prepubescent girls to a media culture that teaches them to be prematurely sexual is also strongly associated with depression, eating disorders and low self-esteem. Rosa Brooks, in the Los Angeles Times, wrote that capitalism is “busy serving our children up to pedophiles on corporate platters.”

Sexuality: Frequent exposure to narrow ideals of attractiveness is associated with unrealistic and/or negative expectations concerning sexuality. Negative effects (e.g., shame) that emerge during adolescence may lead to sexual problems in adulthood (Brotto, Heiman, & Tolman, in press).

Attitudes and Beliefs: Girls and young women who more frequently consume or engage with mainstream media content offer stronger endorsement of sexual stereotypes that depict women as sexual objects (Ward, 2002;Ward & Rivadeneyra, 1999; Zurbriggen & Morgan, 2006). They also place appearance and physical attractiveness at the center of women's value.

Impact on Others and on Society: More general societal effects may include an increase in sexism; fewer girls pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); increased rates of sexual harassment and sexual violence; and an increased demand for child pornography.

Q6. It is said that women are actually embarrassed and ashamed of their own gender and this gender-equality mantra is really an attempt to become man-like more than anything else. American singer Madonna and the opening lyrics to her song ‘What it Feels Like for a Girl' seems to agree. She says: “ Girls can wear jeans, and cut their hair short, wear shirts and boots, ‘cause its okay to be a boy. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, ‘cause you think being a girl is degrading .” We know that when a man dons a dupatta, or a frock, a mini-skirt, a sari, or wear jewelry, he is labeled a Hijra , but when women wear t-shirts and jeans, they are instead called ‘modern'. Further, we also never find any man staying back at home, doing household chores, and looking after the children, without being called a ‘bum'. On the contrary, women who take on professional careers, side by side with men, are instead hailed as ‘empowered'. Again, whereas men will never act emotional and sensitive, or caring, like women, in fear of being called ‘sissy', women will nevertheless seek to become all macho and muscular, as depicted in movies these days (Charlie's Angels for instance). Is it true that women despise womanhood and are loosing their femininity by trying to look, feel, and act like men? Why not?

Differences or Discrimination? Is Truth Sexist?

According to Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Center, Cambridge University, there are big differences between the male and female brain which he explained in his book ‘The Essential Difference: Men, Women, and the Extreme Male Brain. Baron-Cohen shows that this distinction arises from biology, not culture. Below are a few findings noteworthy of discussion:

Cell Numbers: Men have 4% more brain cells than women, and about 100gms more of brain tissue.

Cellular Connections: Even though a man seems to have more brain cells, it is reported that women have more dendritic connections between brain cells.

Corpus Collosum Size: It is reported that a woman's brain has a larger corpus collosum, which means women can transfer data between the right and left hemisphere faster than men. Men tend to be more left brained, while women have greater access to both sides.

Language: For men, language is most often just in the dominant hemisphere (usually the left side), but a larger number of women seem to be able to use both sides for language. This gives them a distinct advantage. If a woman has a stroke in the left front side of the brain, she may still retain some language from the right front side. Men who have the same left sided damage are less likely to recover as fully.

Limbic size: Bonding/nesting instincts - current research has demonstrated that females, on average, have a larger deep limbic system than males. This gives females several advantages and disadvantages. Due to the larger deep limbic brain women are more in touch with their feelings, they are generally better able to express their feelings than men. They have an increased ability to bond and be connected to others (which is why women are the primary caretakers for children - there is no society on earth where men are primary caretakers for children). Females have a more acute sense of smell, which is likely to have developed from an evolutionary need for the mother to recognize her young. Having a larger deep limbic system leaves a female somewhat more susceptible to depression, especially at times of significant hormonal changes such as the onset of puberty, before menses, after the birth of a child and at menopause. Women attempt suicide three times more than men. Yet, men kill themselves three times more than women, in part, because they use more violent means of killing themselves (women tend to use overdoses with pills while men tend to either shoot or hang themselves) and men are generally less connected to others than are women. Disconnection from others increases the risk of completed suicides.

The results of the scientific research explain why men and women excel at different kinds of tasks. For example, men tend to do better with tasks requiring more localized processing, such as mathematics, while women do better at integrating and assimilating information which aids language skills. Doreen Kimura writes in Scientific American: “Men and women differ not only in their physical attributes and reproductive functions, but also in many other characteristics, including the way they solve intellectual problems” (2002). The author further states: “… from observations of both human and nonhumans that males are more aggressive than females; the young males engage in more rough-and-tumble play than females and that females are more nurturing. We also know that in general males are better at variety of spatial or navigational tasks.

The "father" of sociobiology, Edward O. Wilson, of Harvard University (Wilson, E.O. - "Sociobiology". Harvard University Press, 1992), said that human females tend to be higher than males in empathy, verbal skills, social skills and security-seeking, among other things, while men tend to be higher in independence, dominance, spatial and mathematical skills, rank-related aggression, and other characteristics. 

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THINK ABOUT IT: A Possible Way Forward?

Q7.YES or NO Questions

In this section you are required to either support or negate the following point of views. State your stance and arguments clearly.

• What if men (father, brother, husband, and son) were made legally responsible to look after ALL the economic needs of the woman (whether she is a mother, daughter, wife, or sister), and be accountable for it, would women still work in organizations and factories to earn a living? By the enactment of such a kind of law, the total labor force and unemployment in the country will massively decrease, and due to short labor supply, there will be significant increase in employee salaries. In case, if a woman is alone, and has no male relatives, the State will then provide her complete financial security, otherwise she can always work if she wants to. Sounds good?

• What if the most difficult and challenging task of creating model human beings, having excellent morals and character, who are talented and skilled, and productive for the society, is given to the mothers, instead of nurses at day-care centers? Of course, both the State and her male relatives will finance for her the best of education possible and provide her all the facilities and resources she would need to do her job successfully. Would you accept it?

• What if there was an option to take less of money without being asked to spend it on anything as opposed to take more money and be forced to spend it on different things? For instance, if there is an inheritance law which states that though men will get a bigger share in pie, they will have to spend it on their family, like: on education, on health, on food, in providing shelter, clothes, and so on; however, women, on the other hand, will get a smaller share, but they will NOT be required to spend it on anything (even on herself and can save it if she wants)—will you accept such a kind of law?

• What if in a bid to eliminate cases of physical and emotional sexual harassment of working women, and the costs associated with it, women are given an option to work separately from men, in departments of their own, with absolutely equal facilities and resources? This step also promises to make it increasingly difficult for husbands to cheat on their wives and wives to cheat on their husbands, thereby significantly reducing envy and suspicion between couples and subsequently, divorce rates. Will you vote in favor of such a kind of arrangement?

• What if in a bid to stop men from unnecessarily gazing at women and putting innocent women at unease and insecure in public spaces, men and women are both advised to first and foremost dress appropriately (cover their bodies such that a man's awrah--navel to the knees--is covered and a woman's bodily curves become obscure?) and secondly not to intermingle without necessity? Will you accept it?

• What if your sister or any other woman is looking to get married but finds that the market is saturated i.e. every man already has a wife, and the only options available are to marry someone who is already married (polygamy) or to live on as public property. Will you ask the legislators to legalize polygamy? (other option being to get it banned) ...