Breaking out of stereotyping

Stuck in yet another traffic jam, the likes of which can only be found in Lahore during a midday rush, the car inched forward at a snail’s pace and finally tired of my phone, glanced out of the window and saw something which turned out to be the highlight of my day.

Two girls were riding a motorbike. I silently cheered both the girls. Yes! I thought. Now there’s something I wish I could see every day. I was not the only one whose attention had been caught by these girls. A rickshaw-driver kept turning and laughing. Pedestrians and other drivers of vehicles would pause and occasionally exchange amused glances. Women, after all, sit snugly in cars, sometimes behind a steering wheel and usually on the passenger seat. Women are usually the passengers on a motorbike. Not drivers.

Gradually, however, trends are changing and for the better. I am sure, after all, that everyone has heard of Zenith Irfan, the young Pakistani girl who defied gender expectations by travelling across Pakistan on her motorbike.

Women cannot act as unfettered as the men in our society and this fact is not known to us all. The list of matters in which a woman is not accorded the same level of freedom as a man is, honestly, endless.

Smoking cigarettes, for example, is seen as a coarse and dirty business best left to the men; a female smoker is seen as behaving in a most ‘unladylike’ fashion. There has to be something wrong about her moral make-up if she does so. Similarly, it is frowned upon if a woman swears as much as a man, or if she speaks too bluntly.

Why is it that we will give a young girl a Barbie doll to play with and we will give a young boy a similar plastic figurine but we will not call it a ‘doll’, no, that is an insipid word that belongs to the feminine world, we will call it an ‘action figure’.

How are both girls and boys being treated differently at this point, you may ask? Let us compare both types of toys. Action figures are generally figurines of fictional characters and the common type which come to mind are super heroes from the Marvel and DC Comics universe. Let us take Superman, for example. Superman’s physique is enviable, agreed. Even in the movies, Hollywood picks the most attractive of men to play the character (just look at Henry Cavill). Yet, despite this, Superman is not seen as sexually objectifying men. This is because his entire character is not centered around his looks. He is defined by his superpowers and his backstory, by his role as the good guy who fights against bad guys and who is included in complex and interesting narratives.

Barbie, on the other hand, is only beautiful. Barbie is tall, with a model figure which the best of us can’t hope to achieve. Barbie’s favorite hobbies include shopping, grooming herself and, well, just being pretty. Ultimately, then, what are we teaching our sons and daughters? That a woman is defined only by her looks and a man, on the other hand, is a full-fledged human being with many more traits and characteristics than just good looks? I agree that both comic universes have certain strong female characters as well but I rarely see a Pakistani parent rushing to buy their daughter a Wonder Woman action figure, the toy stores in the ‘girls’ section’ are lined wall-to-wall with Barbie dolls.

While the tirade against gender stereotyping and its harmful impact on girls is undoubtedly endless, one must stop and, at this point, draw the reader’s attention to another important point.

A patriarchal society such as the one found in Pakistan will no doubt have adverse effects on women. This has been discussed, debated and explored in depth and I hope that this issue is highlighted even more so in the future. Yet, what is important to keep in mind is the fact that a patriarchal system will always have adverse effects on men as well. Yes, men suffer from gender stereotyping, too.

In a male-dominated society, men are seen as being in a position of power and the notion of a man being seen as ‘weak’ or vulnerable is incomprehensible.

How many times have you heard the phrase, ‘Larkay nahi rothay (Boys don’t cry)’? A girl is at full liberty to break down, wail and beat her chest but a boy must maintain a stony strength at the worst of times. We are denying our boys the right to be human, the right to be emotionally vulnerable.

Parents exercise a great deal of leniency when their daughters choose which career to pursue in the future daughters may decide to choose a career which does not happen to be especially lucrative. A girl is not expected to be financially independent; she can just rely on her husband in the future for finances, right? A boy, on the other hand, is handed the burden of being the sole bread-winner of his family.

A girl who happens to be a little masculine is affectionately called ‘tom-boy’. She’s seen as being ‘kinda cool’ and ‘interesting.’ However, God forbid that a boy happens to be a little feminine he is called ‘a khusra’. Men are not conditioned to be secure in their sexuality. They are taught that, at the slightest provocation, they might be seen as being less than masculine.

A girl’s honor is strongly linked to her virtue; a boy’s honor is strongly linked to his conformity with his assigned gender role.

Males are seen as always wielding power to the point that male rapes are rarely highlighted and a rape where the woman is the perpetrator and the man is a victim is usually a subject of ridicule, rather than treated as a serious matter. This is because males, after all, are expected to always be strong and never be vulnerable enough to be a victim.

Kurt Cobain’s take on this matter is pretty interesting: “I knew I was different. I thought that I might be gay or something because I couldn’t identify with any of the guys at all. None of them liked art or music. They just wanted to fight and get laid. It was many years ago but it gave me this real hatred for the average American macho male.”

Yes, we must get rid of the notion that a man must be ‘macho’ in order to qualify as a man and that a woman must be demure and pretty in order to qualify as a woman. Roles are not black and white, we are complex creatures and we deserve more than to be compartmentalized by societal gender expectations—we deserve the freedom to claim our true selves in order to move ahead towards a better future.