Refuge of Womanhood

Why is there no wrinkle on your forehead?

Nor a question on your lips

Why did you nod and walk away?

Why have you gone to sleep?

There is a man out there who ridiculed a woman

by using words that even an illiterate would know are wrong

in a company that is higher than all

and what is sadder is that men around actually laughed at the jest

Why aren't you mad enough?

That man has no shame still, on what he had done

for the reasons known to his psyche, he insists on denying it all

Why do men think women are stupid?

Do I look stupid to you when I demand respect, 

not greater than anyone

just basic respect that you would grant a fellow man?

Do I look stupid to you when I have a frown on my forehead

and an objection on my lips

for what you have done?

Do I look stupid to you when I say that I am a human being

That I demand the social security

and voice?

What have I said that is so shocking?

Why are you mad?

Th dilemma is that, that man is a representative of our grass root level psyche

and as he sat on a t.v show blamed the woman he had previously insulted,of "taking refuge in her womanhood."

A laugh escaped my lips

What refuge?

What safety?

We live in a country where a constitutionally redundant committee has the power and audacity to propose legalization of beating women.

Say MASHA'ALLAH

We live in a country where a young teacher was killed for exercising her right to refuse to marriage with a man twice her age.

We live in a country where an honorable Senator from JUI-F had nerve and frankly, permission enough to not only verbally abuse a woman but also attempt to physically attack her as well on television

We live here among rapists and arsonists and murderers who walk freely because who cares about a few dead/abused/crippled/burnt women?

So I ask you, oh-so-honorable Khawaja Asif, what refuge of womanhood?

Is there any left?

I drowned in despair when I saw the Muslim men of Lahore protest against the only piece of legislation that treats their mothers, sister, wives and daughters like human being with rights.

 That finally after nearly 70 years of being a country, Pakistan had realized that women aren't cattle.

Being a woman

I feel like a Muslim stuck in America after 9/11

Because whatever safety and hopes of safety my juvenile self had assumed/hoped for evaporated when I heard that 14 men of a jirga who strangled, raped and murdered a woman are likely to be set free.

Where is the refuge of womanhood when 7 women in Pakistan die daily through some form of abuse?

The problem is not the the problem

the problem is why aren't we mad enough?

why is it okay?

As I sit through a nikkah ceremony of a friend and see her uncle unthinkingly cross out the paragraphs that Islam provides for woman rights, I realize one thing

We, women of Pakistan, can all have a doctorate in a million subjects

and be richer than all men alive

But we will always be kept to be treated like we are stupid

Why do you send your daughter to school when you will always think of her as a being one less than your son?

With this, I rest my case.

Mr Khawaja Asif sir, there is no refuge whatsoever in womanhood

I feel threatened mentally physically and psychologically living in the environment created by your most precious and righteous men.