Many people erroneously believe that the parruney,
a long veil traditionally worn by Pashtun women that covers the face as
well as the entire body, can keep a woman from being harassed or
otherwise molested. This is untrue because men continue to gawk at
women, whistle at them, follow them, and even attempt to touch them
despite what the women wear. In fact, the purpose of the parruney is
far from that of protecting the woman: it is there solely to protect
the honor of the men of the woman’s family as well as to ensure that the
female is never identified by the public.
Harassment
of various forms, including sexual and physical, is one of the major
problems facing women today throughout Pakistan. But this problem has
worsened in the past decade. When I was growing up in Swat some thirteen
years ago, the way men treated women in public was generally better.
When women, with the parruney wrapped around their bodies, would
be walking in the street, the men would move to the side so that the
women could pass; it was almost as though the street belonged to women.
Men would lower their gaze, and they would stop talking if they were
talking while the women were passing by. While clearly gendered, these
are signs of respect according to the Pashtun culture. The generation
of the males did not matter; all seemed to be equally respectful towards
women in public.
When
I visited Swat two years ago, the same signs were gone. Not just the
younger generation but the older generation of men, too, has lost
respect for women in public spaces. Today, when men see women in the
streets or in another public space, they stare as much as they want to.
When women walk by a road, it is not unusual for a male driver to make
several U-turns so that he can get better glimpses of the women until
they are no longer visible to him. Speaking from experience, I cannot
help but add that young boys under the age of ten often feel compelled
to “protect” the women they are with from the gazes of the men; that
even our little ones realize what is happening is revealing of the
revolting attitudes towards women in public.
In turn, the women, of course, cannot
stare back or respond in any other way; they must ignore, or whatever
befalls her next is considered her fault. Society believes that when the
woman stares back, she is “asking for it”; she is seeking attention, is
enjoying the way she’s being treated, and in fact wants more of it.
That shopkeepers and some bystanders once in a while stand up for the
women being harassed is testimony to the level of harassment that occurs
in the society.
Ironically,
Pashtuns claim they respect women. Clearly, their understanding of
“respect” is different, then, because women themselves do not find it
respectful to be stared at, followed, groped, whistled at, and so on. A
man isn’t giving a woman respect when he makes his “respect” for her
contingent on how tightly the parruney is wrapped around her body or whether or not she is present in the public at all.
The parruney does
not serve to protect women, contrary to common perception. It serves to
ensure that the female is kept as hidden from and as unknown in the
public eye as possible. Women wear the parruney particularly in
areas where they or their husbands, fathers, brothers, or sons are
likely to be known and through whom they can be identified as their
female relatives. Not wearing the parruney, then, is an excellent tool of peghor,
or taunting, from the public for a woman: if she goes out and is
identified by any males, the males have the social right to taunt the
women’s husbands, fathers, or any other male family members by
suggesting that they “know” a female from their household. What is
interesting, then, is that the parruney essentially suggests that the society cannot respect a woman unless she is hidden in the parruney.
This is not respect—it is disrespect towards not just the women but
also to the men, to the society as a whole. Women must not be reduced
simply to what they must wear due to being identified by outsiders or
due to maintaining the “honor” of the men to whom they are related.
The public does not and should not belong to any one gender. In the 21st
century when women are universally contributing to improving their
conditions as well as their society’s, it is no longer a benefit to the
Pashtun society to keep more than half of its population—the
women—hidden from the public, whether in a parruney or not. While it is popularly claimed that the parruney is
beneficial to the woman in that it protects her from the harms of
society, this assumption itself points to flaws in the Pashtun society
and its understanding of women and men: that Pashtuns, the Pashtun
culture, cannot respect a woman unless she covered from head to toe in
her parruney;
it also shows that a man’s honor depends on the public decorum of the
women of his household, thereby removing all sense of agency, power, and
individuality from the women and essentially reducing them to property
of the men of their household. Privatizing the female body as males’
property leads to certain unexpected and unwanted consequences that then
become impossible to eradicate even as the need to move forward becomes
more apparent.
While
every woman has the right to decide for herself how she should dress
and carry herself anywhere, one of the many obstacles that Pashtun women
continue to face in demanding full respect from the society is the parruney. The Pashtun society insists it affords the woman respect to wear the parruney
when actually it does nothing to prevent sexual, physical, or other
forms of harassment, in public or otherwise. A Pashtun woman wears the parruney not
to get respect, in fact, but to not be known by the public that she is
the wife, mother, daughter, sister, or another female relative of the
men of her household. No matter how thick or thin or long or short or
simple or extravagant the parruney gets, it cannot and does not
help in giving the woman any respect or protection from any kind of
harassment. She has to either stay at home and never leave the house to
avoid being harassed, or stand up and fight for her right to equal space
in public to assert her existence and deny that she is someone’s
private property—the latter option of which might not be welcomed by the
society or her family initially. If Pashtun men want to respect women,
they should listen to the voices of Pashtun women themselves complaining
about different types of harassment in public “despite” the parruney and work to giving them respect the way the women themselves demand it.
Originally published at Pashtun Women Viewpoint
:'( harsh reality.
ReplyDeletebut but in villages it is the same old system of respect with few exceptions of bad wolves . city of Quetta is mix. u have gud people n bad ppl but the ratio of gud is higher. this is what I have observed till now.
cheers .
imran kakar.
Pa khair, Imran gwala!
DeleteThank you for your response :) I'm very happy to hear that!
Khushala osai!
Well to sum up, its all about "Bhurqa", Nice, I came to know such facts for the first time, otherwise I thought this is some kinda forced thing for womens to wear this.
ReplyDeleteBut do you wear this in Moroco or US?
Thank you for your comment, Hizbullah!
DeleteSo, the parruney isn't worn in Morocco or the U.S. or anywhere else outside of Pakistan or Afghanistan as far as I know. Other forms of face-covering, however, such as the niqab or burqa *are* worn outside of those countries, including in Morocco and the U.S. I neither wear the parruney nor the burqa/niqab and do not expect or plan to wear them ever in my life except in cases where I've absolutely no choice.
In our charsadda the situation is also the same, youngster give more respect to women and girls than the their elders, specially to those girls who are going to schools colleges etc, and give a big respect to those who wear niqab/ burqa etc because the realize that these women want to get respect and respect herself by their-selves.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment, Kamran!
DeleteSo, women who don't wear the parruney don't want to be respected? Why is the paruney the only way to get respect? (On the contrary, though, in reality, just because you're wearing a parruney doesn't mean you'll get respect. Harassment doesn't get stopped or even curbed by wearing the parruney. I'd know because I'm a woman, I wear the parrueny when in Swat, and I know what happens in my surroundings "despite" my parruney.)
Thanks, everyone for your insight!
Dear qrratugai,
ReplyDeleteI think Pashtun women should think the usage of paruney not for tradition or custom but to obey the orders of Islam, I am agree with you that Men should be thought how to treat women whether they are covered or not, Pashtun men also have some responsibility in two ways, 1. They should not stare to strange women in streets and think if this is her sister, mother, etc how should be treated (Culture)
2. Islam teach us that we should lower our gaze if see women passing by.
Tariq Sapi
Thanks for your comment, Tariq! Much appreciated!
DeleteYou said: "I think Pashtun women should think the usage of paruney not for tradition or custom but to obey the orders of Islam,..." but Islam doesn't ask women to wear the parruney or cover their faces. So what's Islam gotta do with it?
Thanks again!