This week the social media firing squad lined up and opened fire on two female celebrities – Sadaf Kanwal and Ayeza Khan – for saying or agreeing to say what was considered problematic and tone deaf.

Sadaf Kanwal, on an Eid Show with her husband Shahroze Sabzwari, waxed not-so-eloquent on what she believed was the way to be a perfect wife. As expected, the memes followed in abundance until, again as expected, hubby Shahroze thought it wise to come to her defense and therefore shoot himself in the foot. Apart from clarifying what Sadaf had said, he innocently questioned the host: “don’t you think liberalism has become an excuse for vulgarity?” While the ‘liberal’ firing squad then turned all guns towards him, those in the ‘conservative’ gallery applauded his unapologetic stance on what is commonly considered a woman’s place in life. As far as his apparent mission goes, it was achieved.

In an altogether different instance, a new TV show titled Laapata premiered on Wednesday and six minutes into the first episode, ‘TikToker Princess Geeti’, played by Ayeza Khan, uses her social media power of having “more than a lakh followers” to get out of a payment. She goes to the area’s little general store to pick up a few items but upon finding out that she already owes the shop PKR 6500, she threatens to go live on social media and tell her followers that the shopkeeper is harassing her. Obviously flustered and shocked, he waivers her debt in order to make her delete the video. Case in point: she falsely accuses the shopkeeper of harassment.

Within hours of the episode airing, this particular clip went viral, accusing Ayeza Khan of perpetuating and trivializing a very serious issue. Some people blamed the writer for writing the scene and others blasted the channel but most of the onus fell on Ayeza Khan, who despite her actual 10 million following on Instagram, didn’t think of using her voice more responsibly.

In continuation of tone deaf occurrences this week, celebrated writer Khalil ur Rehman Qamar, who’s always very vocal about his condemnation of feminism, tweeted, and I’ll loosely translate: ‘Why is it that whenever the vulgar agenda of feminists begins to die down, a poor girl like Noor Mukkadam dies and a criminal like Zahir Jaffer emerges?” I don’t think one has the proper words to express the disgust one feels at this statement and the way Mr Qamar used the gruesome murder of an innocent 27-year-old girl to reinforce his equally disturbing views.

Let’s go back to Sadaf Kanwal then.

The show, called Humaray Mehman, hosted by one Fizza Shoaib, follows a worn-out format whereby guests are invited to lunch or dinner (a sponsored exercise, of course) and general table talk occurs in the form of an interview. This particular episode featured Sadaf Kanwal and her husband Shahroze Sabzwari and also every politically-incorrect line of questioning you can imagine. Short of asking them about their sex life, the host asked whether Sadaf was forced to eat because she was so ‘sukhi’, what was her relationship with her ‘sasoo-maa’, did she ever kind of suffer depression – “Sadaf kabhi depression mein aati hain aap?”. And then she asked Shahroze what his friends said when he married again and by the way, how did he divide his daughter’s custody with his ex-wife. The host then proceeded to the million-dollar question (actually all her questions were priceless): What kind of wife are you…aap kay rules kya hain? Sadaf then said everything that blew up.

The problem wasn’t that she felt that men are ranked higher and she could never be an equal or the fact that she wanted to serve, feed and care after her husband. The problem was not in the role she chose to define for herself, because feminism would give a woman the right to choose; the problem was in her tone, that suggested that this is how every woman should feel and no woman should expect her husband to reciprocate. “Mujhe Sherry ka pata hona chahiye; Sherry ko mera nahin pata hona chahiye.”

Moving over to Ayeza Khan in Laapata, the objectionable scene did help build Geeti’s personality, which is shown to be exploitative, manipulative and corrupt, but it was totally unnecessary. The character proceeded to do enough reckless things (including running away with her boyfriend and then secretly returning) that this specific scene was not required. Given the sensitivity of Me Too movement these days, a scene reinforcing that girls can lie about being sexually harassed was extremely irresponsible. That said, one would accuse the writer of tone-deafness before targeting Ayeza Khan, who at the end of the day was playing a part.

What part does she, or any other celebrity play with the influence they have? That’s a discussion for another day.

The problem wasn’t that she wanted to serve, feed and care after her husband. The problem was not in the role she chose to define for herself, because feminism would give a woman the right to choose; the problem was in her tone, that suggested that this is how every woman should feel and no woman should expect her husband to reciprocate.