The topic of sexual harassment and rape are being widely discussed all over the world in wake of Hollywood’s Me Too movement along with the brutal rape and murder of seven-year-old Zainab in Pakistan.
Mehwish Hayat who is not one to shy away from voicing her thoughts took to social media to share her views on how harassment and misconduct is not defined by how a woman dresses.
In an Instagram post, Hayat shared a clip from her film Actor in Law in which she and her co-star Fahad Mustafa are wearing burqas but are still attracting unwanted attention. She then elaborated on her point in the caption which read, “There is a misconception that the way a woman dresses is what attracts abuse. This is something we dealt with in my film Actor in Law when a woman wearing a “burkha” also attracted vilification… The way that a woman dresses has no bearing on the way she is treated. This is simply down to the mentality of some of the misogynistic elements in our society.”
Unfortunately, a lot of the viewers did not quite get the message that Mehwish was trying to give. A lot of them began to post hate comments and started giving religion lessons.
This is not the first time that Mehwish has been vocal about sexual harassment and misconduct. In an earlier post she showed her support for the Times Up campaign by posting a photograph wearing an all-black outfit with the caption, “It is time for women of the world to stand up for their rights. Today, I wear black in solidarity with my industry colleagues in the US and push this message to the women of my own homeland, Pakistan. We are no less than men by virtue of our gender. Harassment of any form is totally unacceptable and we will not tolerate it.”
