Mondays are rough but Tahira Abdullah just made ours better.
On Samaa TV’s News Beat, host barrister Ehtesham Amir-ud-din was joined by Qamar, Abdullah and journalist Owais Touheed. As the show was about gender equality, of course the F-word everyone is scared of came up. Not Abdullah though.
A clip doing the rounds on social media shows the human rights activist owning Khalil ur Rehman Qamar and other sexists on the real definition of feminism.
Tahira Abdullah explains feminism to Khalil aur Rehman Qamar.
Oh lord she’s merciless. pic.twitter.com/lLUBOYzJCO— Tooba Syed ☭ طوبیٰ (@Tooba_Sd) January 19, 2020
Talking about what the movement really stands for, she shared, “Feminism is not the name of an organisation but a revolutionary view; it’s understanding and believing that women, too, are human beings. You want to talk about equality, rights, who’s a good woman or a bad woman, who’s a loyal woman, who’s worthy of respect but my respect and my dignity is not in the hands of any man to give or take.”
“I am born from the same woman a man is born from and when I come into this world, I bring my rights with me, just like I’m born with a body, soul, brain and heart, they are a part of my existence.”
She added, “And those rights are protected by the Constitution of Pakistan. No one is going to give me my rights nor do I have to ask. Why should we ask men for them? We were born with them!”
When the host reiterated that she was saying that women are not asking men for their rights, she replied, “Why should we have to ask? We were born bearing these rights. We don’t need to beg for them whether we’re a daughter, a mother, a wife or nothing at all. Just by virtue of being a woman, we deserve to be treated like a human being. We don’t need men to define standards of conduct for us or categorise who’s a good woman or a bad woman. This is what we call mansplaining these days.”
Clearly not listening to what Abdullah had said previously, Qamar hit back: “When you get out on the streets with these placards, you are asking men for rights. You don’t know what your rights are, you want to take rights away from men for yourself and that’s not going to happen. I hate the fact that [feminists] talk about men with such disdain, I’m the biggest feminist of Pakistan!”
Also calling out the double standards on loyalty perpetuated by men like Qamar, Abdullah explained, “Women by nature are supposed to be faithful and if they can’t be, they’re bad women. Men by nature are supposedly not faithful and if they cheat, well, it’s who they are.”
We’re sure women everywhere could relate when she said, “We’re in the 21st century and we’re tired of being judged…Men will tell us who we are or what we should be like? We are against this commodification and objectification and we are tired.”
