Public spaces for women in Pakistan

What makes a city feel like home ? Is it the shop around the corner where you’ve been going since you were a child? Is it the crowded and extravagantly lit city center that makes a mundane day seem more exciting? Or, is it the people we meet and the connections we make along the way? Perhaps, every individual will have their own answer to this question. However, the underlying tenet, regardless of what experience ties an individual to a city, must be the ability to HAVE experiences and make connections to your city in the first place. This last part is perhaps what most of us, particularly women, are unable to do in our urban lives in Pakistan. In October 2015, I left Lahore and went to London for my masters. It was the first time I was about to live anywhere other than Lahore. The scene at the airport was quintessentially Pakistani as it was quite emotional. As the youngest, and may I add, phenomenally bratty child, leaving the nest seemed impossibly hard for me. I was waving goodbye to the gang of relatives who had come to drop me off until I could barely see their silhouettes. However, something didn’t quite add up. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief and hidden joy, which made the experience quite bittersweet. My brain kept playing flashbacks of the historic scene from DDLJ, where the patriarch grants permission to Simran to go live her life.

As a privileged Pakistani who did not have to face a majority of the hardships faced by my fellow countrymen, this was quite puzzling. What was the reason behind this relief?

Just after the end of the first week, the answer became visibly clear. Despite having immense love for my city, I couldn’t help but admit that my relationship with Lahore was partial and quite shallow. I believe this experience is shared by hundreds of thousands of Pakistani women. Although we love our cities, we are hardly ever allowed to explore or experience our cities on our own. From the moment we hit puberty, or perhaps even earlier, every trip outside the house is monitored. Every visit to the grocery store, to friend’s/relative’s houses, or even to the neighborhood park, comes with multiple contingencies. These range from dress codes, to the time of the day, all the way down to who our company is.

As chaperoning increases, the ability to walk the streets, enjoy a rainy day or eat samosas in public, decreases immensely.

The sad truth was that I didn’t really know Lahore, not beyond my home, school, and family. In the time I spent in London, I found indescribable joy in the ordinary spaces of the city. By the end of the first month, the lady in the cafe around the corner had memorized my daily order. The shop assistants at Tesco became regular acquaintances. Even the street musicians became my daily entertainment on the way to school. None of them stared at me or asked what I was doing out so late. Nor did anyone give me lectures on how respectable girls don’t walk openly in streets. I shared the tubes and buses with a plethora of diverse Londoners from all around the world. All from wildly different walks of life.

I wasn’t constantly afraid that a random aunty would spot me on a casual lunch with my classmates. Many of whom were male (Astagfirullah!).

I wasn’t bothered about which relative or neighbour was keeping tabs on when I would reach home. I do distinctly remember a Pakistani security guard at my student accommodation doubting my whereabouts. Interestingly, I was slaving away at the library during exams till midnight. He was convinced that I couldn’t be out so late studying. I wonder why the stack of books I was carrying wasn’t convincing enough for him. After a year and a half, I feel I know London much more than I ever knew Lahore in over two decades. I know every single street. Certain that a bad day is reversible by a quick cup of coffee in the park. Hopeful that the usual oddball on the tube will randomly start break-dancing without reason, making a stressful day better. And most of all, I know that a sunny day in London means that public spaces will be overflowing with ecstatic people. All soaking up the sun in about a million different ways. These everyday experiences, set in public life and spaces, results in the relationship one develops with their city. And, ultimately becomes the reason for calling a city home. I constantly felt guilty at how little I missed Lahore, and how much I resisted coming back. I felt guilty about breaking my parent’s hearts when I made excuses every time they wanted me to visit. But, I knew that life would change drastically once I returned.

Despite my love for my city, I almost dreaded going back to the lack of mobility and freedom.

I felt so strongly about this issue that I dedicated my master’s thesis to women and public space in Pakistan. In particular, I focused on the cultural underpinnings for lacking freedom, which renders us unable to explore the city on our own. During my research, I conducted a survey of 300 Pakistani girls. 85% of respondents said that they had almost never loitered in their cities without an explicit purpose. Nor had they ever traveled the city on foot. Almost a 100% cited lack of permission from fathers and brothers as the primary reason. For my friends from other parts of the world, even those from other underdeveloped countries, these findings were quite shocking. Our cities depend on public spaces for their mental and physical relief. Literature throughout the ages has emphasized the benefits of public parks, walkable streets, open squares, waterfronts and various other spaces where strangers can come together and share the common goods available to us all. Public spaces act as equalizers; as sites of exchange and as a break from the monotonous cycles of life. Despite the various levels of segregation in society, citizens come together in their pursuit to happiness. They come together to enjoy food, music, or even a stroll in the park. The question then becomes:

What is missing from our current urban equation is that our public spaces lack the dynamism and diversity, which various other cities have?

Moreover, even where such spaces do exist, why is participation still questionable and restricted? The answer squarely lies in the constant moral policing, which has become ingrained in the socio-cultural fabric of society. It has toxic consequences for our public spaces. The decades of state sponsored public religiosity, along with legislation restricting the public visibility and mobility of various groups, particularly women, and the spatial segregation of classes within cities, has produced a fractured geography of public space in Pakistan. This intolerance and cultural conservatism affect various groups and cuts across gender, class, and minority identities. Public space and freedom are inextricably linked, and without one the other cannot thrive. If you ask the average Pakistani woman, she will tell you that her access to public spaces in the city is limited. Especially without a male chaperone. She will tell you that she does not often walk to the market to fetch groceries. She does not take a stroll in the park upon her will. Nor does she roam in public spaces without an explicit purpose. She will also tell you that she is constantly cognizant of her dressing, afraid of who might approach her. Her experience of public spaces will be rampant with stories of stares, glares, harassment, and the occasional self-righteous aunty telling her that nice girls don’t linger in public, particularly wearing ‘that’. In order for us to move to a situation where open public spaces can exist for all sections of society – men, women and young people from all classes and sections of society – we need to adopt openness towards difference and more acceptance of diverse lifestyles and opinions.

The constant moral policing that plagues our society has become hazardous for our public spaces.

More than a physical, built, or economic question, the concept of public space rests upon various cultural perceptions. The fundamental logic behind any shared space must be that we believe in each other’s freedom and right to be present in that space. This perception is currently missing from the shared imagination of our contemporary urban population, where intolerance, heightened religiosity in public matters, and a constant moral conservatism looms large over our collective lives. Also read: Why are we labelled feminazis or stupid liberals simply because we care?

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *