Our typical Pakistani patriarchal society has always been very diplomatic and conservative when it comes to daughters, even women most of the times show misogynistic trauts when it comes to women. We are very much aware of this statement, If not everyday then you must have heard about this statement once in your lifetime that, ‘daughters are not burden’ but who even started this in the first place? Who said they ever burdened anyone by their existence? Who are we to deny that they are not burden when we did not decide or had the power to declare such a stupid statement. Whenever i see someone proudly agreeing with the statement that “daughters are not burden” it doesn’t make me happy but sick if something.
Are we really proud of fathers who don’t consider their daughters burden because they think very highly of them? Who will start and change the narrative if not us? The sentiments of gender bias are so deeply rooted that people have to literally search for reasons to justify that having a girl child is good for them. One of the reasons a daughter is seen as a burden in Pakistani household is that she grows up, so does the mounted worry in the minds of her parents, of the impending social and familial duty, that’ll break their backs in terms of finance. Mothers and grandmothers in some households start setting aside money to buy jewellery for the girl; planning and saving up for a daughter’s marriage is a much-nuanced job than we credit it to be.
We all will be responsible if we do not try and change thus mindset once and for all, eradicate the thought that daughters ever were burden, daughters are beautiful and they run the world! Empower each other to make a society so strong that no one will ever think of daughters as a burden let alone question their births.
