INJUSTICE ANYWHERE, IS A THREAT TO JUSTICE EVERYWHERE

women

Blamed for being attacked, viewed with suspicion or told to hush up, many women who experience sexual assault in Pakistan face the same fate. According to the UN Women Globally, an estimated 736 million women – almost one in three – have been subjected to intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life (30 per cent of women aged 15 and older).

Amidst everything, a leading television channel aired a play by the name of ‘Dunk’, which aimed to highlight the grave issue of sexual harassment and how it affects individuals and society. It is a relevant topic considering the situation around, unfortunately, the playwright and producer mishandled this important issue from start to finish.

The story revolves around a female university student accusing her male professor of sexual harassment. Logically, it seemed that this was an attempt to begin a conversation on sexual harassment which seems to be missing from the media, especially the entertainment side. However, it became evident that this was going to create more confusion about sexual harassment than address this issue and create awareness.

The twist in the tale was that the female student had falsely accused the professor; how it affected his family and caused his death by suicide. The fact that this story was based on an actual event makes it even more interesting. Wouldn’t you think? But as tragic as this case is, it is strange that the playwrights would focus on the sexual harassment issues against men which do occur but are peripheral issues to the core issue of sexual harassment against women.

The rate of violent crimes against women is quite high globally, the situation in Pakistan is no different, the rate of crime against women and girls is alarming, most of which remains undetected. Therefore, it is quite incomprehensible to create content like ‘Dunk’ which touches the issue with a focus on cases that are lower than those against women. It seemed like a blatant process to make women the villain and to side with the men. Such a plot adds to the misogyny and victim-blaming already prevalent in society.

Tasneem Ahmar, Director Uks Research, Resource, and Publication Centre on Women and Media, held an important webinar recently to discuss the drama and the media’s role in highlighting crimes against women in general. Ahmar has been working on training the media and monitoring the evolution of content to be able to report and depict the reality of crimes against women in Pakistan for decades.

Commenting on the show, Tasneem expressed that she was not sure what the point of this drama was; as it was not helping to generate awareness about the serious problem of sexual harassment, especially women. On the other hand, the popularity of the drama ‘Mera Pass Tum Ho’ – a sexist, misogynist play – was record-breaking. Ahmar thought that it is surprising why people don’t speak up against such content, however adding that there is a lot of content being produced that is refreshing. “This is why Uks created the group ‘Hopscotch’ to discuss various plays and how their impact on society,” shares Ahmar.

Hopscotch studies the depiction of women in TV dramas in Pakistani media and highlight misogyny in society and downplaying the seriousness of crimes against women in society. The drama ‘Dunk’ was the main focus of a discussion hosted under Hopscotch’s banner. While Ahmar invited the team of the show – the writer, the director, and the cast – to be part of the webinar so that they could shed light on why this story was so important to highlight, the team did not attend the webinar.

The webinar participants came from diverse backgrounds including personalities like Khawar Mumtaz, a renowned women’s rights activist, author, former Chairperson of the National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW), Asha Bedar, a Consultant Clinical Psychologist, researcher, trainer, and human rights activist, Bee Gul, screenwriter and director and journalists; Omair Alavi and Shazia Hasan.

“I haven’t seen the whole drama, maybe because I didn’t find it interesting,” said Khawar Mumtaz. “But the little I had seen of it was enough to reveal it was not focussing on the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace or anywhere.”

On a similar note, Tasneem questioned, “Do they have to make a play to undermine the issue of sexual harassment at the workplace and educational institution? So where 95 per cent of the population of women are being harassed and 5 per cent men who face sexual harassment, was there a need to make a play to undermine the population that goes through this harassment?”

The content creators and channels are not just making such content but that there is an audience which watches this and likes it, Bee Gul highlighted, “There is a section of women in the society who have the same misogynist ideas and they agree with these dramas and the stories shown. Housewives and others women like these dramas. So we need to understand that there is an audience. These dramas are highly popular.”

Omair Alavi, the sole male on the panel, commented that the problem is that the same productions houses have to make numerous dramas a year with the same team of writers and producers. If a story or theme is popular in one drama, they are constantly asked to create similar content.

Asha Bedar found the drama extremely problematic and raised a valid point, “It was problematic from the beginning. This play was not on sexual harassment but false accusations. If many dramas had been made on rape, murder, and sexual harassment, it would have been alright that a drama had to be made to focus on an issue of false accusations made by women – which seemed to be the crux of the matter. This looks like an agenda; the sympathy goes with the men in the play and how they were affected by the evil woman Amal. It does not help women who have gone through such trauma like this in real life.”

“We need to understand that TV is part of this society – the team, director, writers, and audience,” explained Bee Gul. “The reflection that we see in the drama is the reflection of society – we see misogyny and violence against women are not taken seriously. Society is more focused on victim-blaming in heinous crimes like rape and murder and that is what we see projected in dramas. TV is part of our life, an extension of our society, of ourselves.”

Bee Gul added that it is an agenda if you look at the dramas. “A political and systematic process to emphasise that a woman’s issues and resolutions, including safety, are within boundaries and they don’t have to leave the house or they will face issues like sexual harassment. The domestic roles of women have been reinforced.”

Ahmar intervened, “A drama should focus on what better change they can bring in the society or issue and to make people think twice about issues like sexual harassment. This drama at hand was based on the harassment against a man, these issues need to be focussed on but in a better way without promoting misogyny and victim-blaming. The drama should focus on the issues faced by the person who faces it and the emotions of the girl going through harassment.”

It is the responsibility of the media but as Omair Alavi said writers and actors are not taking a stand when offered such roles. “And then they speak up against the issue on social media and think they have done their part. These people should take a stand when they come across these roles,” he shared.

However, Bee Gul elucidated that it would be a good step to take to try and curb such content, “This is not an easy thing to do. Not everyone can leave their jobs and it is not easy to take a stand – maybe I can, a few others can but not everyone can afford to do this.”

All the participants agreed that dramas reflect society but the writers, producers, and other creators have a chance to use this platform to spread awareness about an issue and bring a change through their work. Dramas like such are not helping to do either of these and instead adding to the existing misogyny in society.