FEMINIST PRAXIS AS A SITE OF POWER AND CHANGE:

A STUDY ON GIRLS AT DHABAS

______

A Thesis

Presented to the

Faculty of

San Diego State University

______

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

in

Women’s Studies

______

by

Sheema Khawar

Summer 2018

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Copyright © 2018 by Sheema Khawar All Rights Reserved

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DEDICATION

This is for you, Amma. The person I fight with and the person who fights with me and for me. You’ve fought all your life for your children.

We are grateful.

This is for Fatima. A warrior in the making.

Alhumdulillah

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ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS

Feminist Praxis as a Site of Power and Change: A Study on Girls at Dhabas by Sheema Khawar Master of Arts in Women’s Studies San Diego State University, 2018

Girls at Dhabas (G@D) is feminist collective in rallying online to reclaim public spaces for women. The group primarily targets dhabas (roadside tea-stalls) which remain exclusively male spaces. By grounding my exploration of feminist activism in the work of G@D, I unpack what it means to be a feminist in Pakistan, what power structures they tackle and hope to dismantle from their social location and how they view transnational feminist solidarity. My thesis explores the nuances of G@D’s work given their precarious position, accused of being complicit in ‘elite ’ while consciously fighting to take control over the way their narrative is told by foreign media. This thesis examines the challenges faced by G@D members such as patriarchal codes of honor binding women’s mobility in Pakistan. I contextualize and analyze the role of dhabas as radical sites of activism in G@D’s work. I also explore how these activists are ‘queering’ public spaces in Pakistan. My efforts to cover G@D’s work are focused on documenting the narrative of an ‘organic’ women’s movement which operates in the context of Pakistan and is mindful of the inherent racism and in the global neo-liberal capitalist agenda and the complicated histories of feminism in the South Asian region. I examine how members of G@D deploy the physical and digital occupation of public spaces to challenge patriarchal narratives restricting women’s mobility in urban Pakistan. In conversation with G@D members I highlight how the development sector and corporations systematically hinder the work of G@D and how G@D members position themselves strategically to combat these power structures. Using post-colonial and transnational feminist theories as an analytical lens, I conclude that given the ‘crisis of representation’ of women and queer issues in the global South, the reach of the NGO-industrial complex and Pakistan’s precarious entanglement with the War on Terror, G@D members remain skeptical of true solidarity and effective cross-border collaborations with feminists from the global North. Their positioning on the margins of the neoliberal and neo-colonial world order makes them a valuable epistemic resource while also erasing their identities, agency and activism.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

ABSTRACT ...... v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... viii CHAPTER INTRODUCTION ...... 1 What is Girls at Dhabas? ...... 4 1 THEORIZING TRANSNATIONAL FEMINIST THOUGHT ...... 8 History of Transnational Feminist Thought ...... 9 From Post-Colonial to Transnational ...... 11 Central Discussions in Transnational Feminist Thought over Time ...... 13 Transnational Feminist Thought in Women’s and ...... 18 Conclusion ...... 20 2 HISTORY AND CONTEXT OF PAKISTANI WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS ...... 21 Anti-colonial Women’s Movement: Events Leading up to 1947 ...... 23 Early Years of the State and Growing Women’s Movements: 1947-1971 ...... 23 1971-1988: Realizing the ‘Islamic’ Republic of Pakistan ...... 26 1990’s Onwards: Of state and NGO ...... 29 The War on Terror and Return of Military Governance ...... 31 Conclusion ...... 34 3 METHODOLOGY ...... 36 Research Tools ...... 37 My Standpoint and Motivations...... 38 The Interviewees ...... 40 Limitations ...... 41 Research Reflections ...... 42

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4 ANSWERING THE QUESTION, WHY LOITER: FRAMING GIRLS AT DHABAS, THEIR ACTIVISM AND FEMINIST PRAXIS ...... 44 Islam, Honor and Respectability Politics in Pakistan ...... 46 Dhaba as a Site of Radical Possibilities ...... 50 Creating the Other: How Race and Class Intersect to Define the ‘Other’ ...... 51 Queering Public Space ...... 54 Negotiating the Feminist Identity in a Post-colonial State ...... 58 Conclusion ...... 60 5 GIRLS AT DHABAS: STRATEGIZING RESISTANCE ...... 61 Reconfiguring Activism: The Role of Social Media ...... 63 Creating and Subverting Narratives of Women in Public Space ...... 65 Loitering as Resistance ...... 68 Continuing the Legacy of Women’s Activism in Pakistan ...... 70 NGOizing Feminism: Concerns and Criticisms ...... 73 Resisting Capitalism ...... 76 Conclusion ...... 78 6 ENVISIONING SOLIDARITY: EXAMINING POSSIBILITIES OF TRANSNATIONAL FEMINIST COLLABORATION ...... 80 The Role and Limitations of Social Media ...... 82 Shortcomings of the Development Sector and Discourse...... 85 Complicating the Transnational: On Collaborating with Indian Feminists ...... 88 The Crisis of Representation in Feminist Solidarity ...... 90 Conclusion ...... 94 CONCLUSION ...... 96 Future Research ...... 100 WORKS CITED ...... 101 APPENDIX FACEBOOK POSTS USED FOR TEXTUAL ANALYSIS...... 106

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As this journey comes to a close I would like to acknowledge the love and labor of the people in my life, those who have made it possible for me to be physically and emotionally in this space and finish my thesis. To my thesis advisors, Dr. Huma Ahmed-Ghosh and Dr. Amira Jarmakani. I am grateful for your invaluable support and feedback. Thank you for your mentorship and making space for me to cry in your offices and making me cry in your offices. Dr. Kate Swanson thank you for your labor on this. To the person who has to put up with random memes, jokes and anxieties at odd hours of the day, I am truly grateful to Yusra Akhtar for being in my life. Thank you for being there and consistently showing up for me for a decade and in undertaking this thesis journey with me. Thank you for the last minute edits, readovers and feedback, you’re a star. I love you deeply. To my queer chosen family, Sevil Suleymani, Layla Mahmood-Britton, Sav Schlauderaff, Krizia Puig, Will Ellis, you all are the sole reason I have survived the mess that has been this thesis and grad school. Your radical love, support and consistent attempts at liberating me are just a few of the reasons I am walking out of this place in one piece. Thank you for joining me in my struggles. Thank you for owning them. To amma, this thesis is dedicated to you. You’ve been fighting for this moment for decades now. I am forever amazed by your strength and dignity in handling life. More than anything, I am grateful. To my siblings, Muhammad Abdullah Khawar and Summiya Khawar, your love and support and really terrible humor has kept me afloat for the past two years. I am grateful for the love but mostly I am grateful that your spouses Maha Siddiqui and Shayan Khan have better sense than you. I love you all. To all those who nurtured and supported me in my journey, Amal Hamid, your love of friends and adventure and consistent reminders to go easy on myself are the reasons I am

ix here, thank you. Mina Mir, I am grateful for your support and patience through my life and awkwardness. For those I carry in my heart always, Zahidunnisa, Nida, Zonia, Khadeeja, Komal, Ayesha, Romana I am grateful for your friendship and love. Urooba Jawwad, you are my favorite cheerleader. Wajiha Afaq Khan and Hafsa Mustufa, you have showed up from day one. To Sadia Khatri, for your radical life, love and activism. You are a trailblazer. This is for you. To the Girls at Dhabas, especially Zeenat, Yumna, Mahjabeen, Asra and Sarah. Thank you. To Fatima, we have come so far. This is for you.

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INTRODUCTION

“Instead of investing ourselves in claiming feminism, then, we suggest that grounding feminisms in activist communities everywhere is a means to interrogate all forms of implicit and explicit relations of power (e.g. racist, classist/casteist) and to contest those power relations through ongoing processes of self-critique and reflection” (Swarr and Nagar 5). Growing up in , one of the most densely populated cities in the world, the concept of public spaces as a space to rest, explore or even occupy for prolonged periods of time was an alien one for me as a student and a young girl. Expanses of recreational public spaces such as parks, bazaars and beaches have been shrinking over the years to make space for more buildings and high-rises as the city grows and urbanizes to make room for its rising population. While the city’s infrastructure and affordable public transportation supports the living and livelihoods of a variety of socio-economic classes, the city is growing to be an increasingly exclusionary space. These changes are reflected in the trajectories of many global cities across the world, centering neo-liberal restructuring of urban spaces which cater to the elite (Hubbard 668). Privatized recreational areas are being built such as malls and cafes which lend to the facade of opening up ‘public’ spaces for upper and middle class women in the city. However, these places are heavily classed and surveilled and therefore exclusionary to many marginalized identities in the cities particularly the working classes. In Karachi those who can afford it pay for their own ‘public’ spaces in gated communities and apartment complexes, malls and coffee shops with security guards and go to private beaches away from the city. Gender is an important factor affecting public space access. Notions of propriety, honor and modesty overwhelmingly rule the upbringing of young girls in Pakistan. These notions draw partially from cultural understandings of familial honor as being rooted in women’s behavior, as well as the Islamic faith and values. While there are no codified laws that restrict and limit women’s mobility and participation in public spaces and professional

2 engagement, there is a pervasive belief in the home and private sphere being the woman’s place. My personal experience growing up in Karachi was not contradictory to these norms. My mobility was severely restricted because of expectations to stay at home and because of how uncomfortable being on the streets was. Stepping out of the house for groceries or to run errands I could expect to be met with stares from men and women alike, the implicit suggestion behind either being that I was well out of place whether I was standing on the street or at a grocery store. In my research I will be using the Right to the City approach, as proposed by David Harvey building on Henri Lefevbre’s work. This approach helps me contextualize and provide a reading for the activism of G@D. In his work Harvey states “The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city. It is, moreover, a common rather than an individual right since this transformation inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power to reshape the processes of urbanization” (23). This work provides a framing of the activism and goals of G@D which are focused not just on shifting the socio-cultural norms surrounding women’s access to the public spaces in Pakistan but also in developing and reflecting on ways of co- inhabiting the city with other marginalized groups such as the working classes, queer and khawajasirahs1, disabled individuals etc. This thesis explores G@D’s efforts to effect change with regard to public space access in solidarity with Pakistani women and how they strategize and navigate patriarchal and restrictive gender norms. It documents the narrative of a grassroots feminist collective in urban Pakistan and situates it in a broader women’s movement in the country to contextualize their struggles, the nature of their activism and their trajectory. Through this thesis, I explore issues of public space access pertinent to the social position of these upper middle class Pakistani feminist activists and its rootedness in their lived realities. In this research, I am mindful of the inherent racism and patriarchy in the global neo-liberal capitalist agenda, how

1 The local terminology used for trans individuals in Pakistan

3 it has affected and erased feminist representations of Muslim and South Asian women, and the complicated histories of feminism in the South Asian region. Having foregrounded the issue of public spaces in Pakistan, as it appears and affects the lived realities of women of different classes, I chose to restrict the focus of my research to the following key questions pertaining to G@D’S work and activism around public space:  What is the nature of public space with respect to socio-cultural norms in urban Pakistan?  What factors prevent women’s active participation in public spaces?  How do the G@D members conceptualize soci-cultural norms around public spaces with regard to their positionality? And how do they mobilize around this issue?  What resources and challenges does G@D have to work with in operating within urban centers in Pakistan?  How do members of G@D envision the role of loitering in enacting resistance?  How do members of G@D negotiate their feminist thought and praxis in the context of urban Pakistan?  How do they relate to the broader women’s movement in Pakistan?  How does G@D relate to transnational feminist solidarity?  What obstacles and hesitations does G@D tackle in representing its work outside of Pakistan? Using these framing questions, I conducted interviews with 5 core members of G@D. Based on the conversations I had with these members and the emerging themes from our discussions, I have divided my analysis into three central chapters. In chapter four I provide a reading of the work and the obstacles that G@D has to navigate as a small feminist collective run by upper middle class women and queer individuals in urban Pakistan. In this chapter I contextualize the challenges faced by G@D members such as patriarchal codes of honor binding women’s lives and roles in Pakistan or the balancing act these activists have to perform in negotiating feminism in a post-colonial country. I also take this chapter to frame their activism within the context they operate in. I analyze the role and function of dhabas as radical sites of activism and how they configure discursively into the activism of G@D, I also explore the ways in which these activists are ‘queering’ public spaces in Pakistan. Based on these lived realities of G@D members, I set up chapter five, Strategizing Resistance, to

4 explore how they negotiate these obstacles and strategically combat the power structures affecting the lives of women’s in Pakistan. In this chapter I examine how members of G@D deploy the physical and digital occupation of public spaces to challenge patriarchal narratives restricting women’s mobility in urban Pakistan. In conversation with G@D members I highlight how the development sector and corporations systematically hinder the work of G@D and how G@D members position themselves to strategically combat these power structures. In chapter six I explore how G@D members interact with ‘the transnational’. In this chapter I explore the skepticism of G@D members regarding transnational feminist solidarity and the various aspects underpinning this decision and foreclosing possibilities of collaboration with feminists in the global North.

WHAT IS GIRLS AT DHABAS? Sarah created the group Girls at Dhabas (G@D) (dhabas are small tea selling roadside stalls) to work with other like-minded feminists to mobilize activists around the issue of public spaces as necessary spaces for women to access and enjoy. G@D is a feminist collective that believes that this absence of women at dhabas is part of a larger issue of access to public spaces which needs to be addressed. Sarah, who belongs to the middle class herself, and on occasion navigates the streets of Karachi in rickshaws and buses (part of a highly classed public transport system deemed to be ‘beneath’ elite and upper class women) connected this to a larger issue of accessing public space. Public spaces are often synonymous to male spaces in the setting of urban Karachi, symptomatic of the patriarchal and deeply rooted belief that a woman’s place is in the home and not in the streets. Started in 2015 by Sarah, shortly after her return to Pakistan after completing her undergraduate degree from the United States, G@D has since snowballed into a small group of Pakistani feminists, which includes my own participation, rallying around the issue of claiming public spaces, as well as on other important issues afflicting women in the country. G@D often weighs in on various women’s issues in Pakistan. Their recent campaigns have included collaborations with other activists and non-profits around issues of public space, after the murder of a noted Pakistani celebrity, Qandeel Baloch, and poor working conditions for workers by Pakistani brands.

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Sarah has invited many like-minded feminists and activists, including me, from Karachi and other big cities of Pakistan including and for now, into the fold of this group; its members are involved in different aspects of it based on expertise, availability, and interest on a volunteer basis. My personal involvement with the group began in November of 2015, a few months after the group was created. I moved away from Pakistan a few months after and was unable to be present for their more hands-on projects; I have since been more involved as one of the moderators of the Facebook page and also involved in consulting and giving feedback on projects and collaborations. Sarah describes the movement as a very unintentional and organic one which was sparked by a hash tag #girlsatdhabas when she posted a picture of herself having chai at a dhaba. To understand why this picture received an ‘unusual’ amount of attention and support from her followers and friends alike, it is important to understand the functional importance of a dhaba in a city in Pakistan. A typical dhaba is a small roadside stall either permanently set up or a mobile cart selling chai and basic breakfast items if facilities allow. They can be found in various parts of the city, more commonly near offices and commercial areas in order to cater to the needs of the blue and white collar workers going to and from work. Gathering at a dhaba, after work, to have chai is an affordable pastime for those who cannot pay for more expensive food and entertainment in a city like Karachi that is marked by a growing and physical segregation amongst the classes. Dhabas, where chai is sold for as little as 10 cents a cup, remain one of the few places in the city where different socio-economic classes can be seen mingling. However, where these spaces have the potential for class inclusion, very few women can be seen enjoying their evening cup of chai at a dhaba. Exceptions to this can be seen at the trendier dhabas that have been appropriated and set up in more upper class and gentrified neighborhoods in big cities in Pakistan. These dhabas in Karachi, which are set up in empty grounds and parking lots with proper accommodation, are viewed as being more women friendly and see more families and groups of younger girls. Chai at these dhabas can cost upwards of a dollar a cup which is the main factor that ensures that all classes are not able or willing to access that space. The Facebook page of G@D describes their mission as a “wish to define public space on our own terms and whims, to promote and archive women's participation in public

6 spaces” (Girls at Dhabas, “Our Story”). The group subscribes to the definition by Phadke et al. of public spaces which include “functional’ sites such as streets, public toilets, bus stops, railway stations, marketplaces and modes of public transport, such as buses and trains, as well as recreational areas, such as parks, maidans2, waterfronts and promenades” (65). At the core of their mission is archiving and celebrating women having chai at dhabas at all hours of the day. They practice this by encouraging photographic submissions of women and groups of women having chai and posting it on their Facebook and Tumblr pages with the purpose of amplifying and affirming the presence of women in these spaces. While the page started out with documenting and sharing these instances of girls being at dhabas as acts of resistance, G@D’s social media platforms have also been used to serve as a place to mobilize women around protests and events aimed at reclaiming public spaces. These protests sometimes take the shape of women coming together to cycle along Karachi’s shoreline or scenic routes in Islamabad or playing street cricket which is a common pastime for men and boys in Pakistan. G@D sets up various events, encouraging women to be outside, often in groups, to spend a day playing board games in a public park, loitering sessions in the streets, to get together and share original poetry or host book clubs in these very dhabas. They host the occasional study circle on feminist thought, dialogues and events to reflect and share experiences on being in the streets. They collaborate with other feminist collectives and activists on various issues and campaigns which have included events on in the workplace, reclaiming public spaces via art, celebrating Pakistani women’s movements, dialogues on gender construction and sexuality to name a few. The Facebook page for G@D itself has also come to serve as a platform for its members to represent their politics and feminism. Different moderators share news items, blog posts, memes, posters, videos and pictures advocating for various feminist issues concerning South Asian women and transwomen. They also create original content and

2 Open expanses of land or arenas

7 writings documenting their experiences with various social justice issues and share it on their Facebook page with a particular focus on public spaces urban centers in Pakistan.

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CHAPTER 1

THEORIZING TRANSNATIONAL FEMINIST THOUGHT

Feminist academic thought in Western academia has long occupied itself with the idea of transnationalizing feminism across borders, regions and cultures in a power-sensitive and effective way that tends to the needs and demands of women and queer identities globally. It has not always succeeded. The sub-field that is more commonly known as within Women’s and Gender Studies has mutated and changed its core tenets and beliefs over the years and attempted to shed its haunting and colonial past and discarded labels. How successful has the field been in exorcising these ghosts of the past? In this chapter I explore how the field deploys concepts of solidarity and sisterhood in an attempt to transnationalize feminism and how centering the experiences of third-world feminist activists can help further this conversation. Before I initiate the discussion on contemporary transnational feminist thought and praxis, I think it is important to highlight that the discussion and critique of this topic will be heavily informed from my standpoint as a brown, Muslim and middle-class Pakistani feminist doing a graduate degree in Women’s Studies in the United States. This discussion is not ambitious enough to include an analysis and discussion of the various geographically situated and global threads within transnational feminism and the many important conversations that constitute and contribute to the field of transnational and praxis. Ultimately, the discussion will be limited by this fact and benefits from it, as I can only do justice to my identities and accompanying viewpoints if I can explore and discuss the workings and shortcomings of transnational feminism from my standpoint. Today transnational feminism represents feminist theories and causes as they relate to the needs of women and queer individuals across the world. Transnational feminism includes but is not limited to topics such as race, class, gender, sexuality, neoliberalism, globalization,

9 slavery and trafficking, as well as US and Western imperialism as they affect vulnerable populations globally. Decolonizing previous strands of feminist thought and confronting its inherited colonial biases is an essential value underpinning transnational feminist theorizing today. Authors Richa Nagar and Amanda Locke Swarr have proposed to define transnational feminism as, An international set of understandings, tools, and practices that can: (a) attend to racialized, classed masculinized, and heteronormative logics and practices of globalization and capitalist , and the multiple ways in which they (re)structure colonial and neocolonial relations of domination and subordination; (b) grapple with the complex and contradictory ways in which these processes both inform and are shaped by a range of subjectivities and understandings of individual and collective agencies; and (c) interweave critiques, actions, and self- reflexivity so as to resist a priori predictions of what might constitute feminist politics at a given place and time. (Swarr and Nagar 5) The definition brings to the forefront some of the consistent troubles that transnational feminist thought is wary of, given its colonial history. Issues of standpoint, a crisis of representation, creating community cross-culturally, striving for effective and targeted collaboration against global and neoliberal processes are all central discussions within the field and while these conversations are taken up by various academic today, they have emerged out of the troubled past of the field.

HISTORY OF TRANSNATIONAL FEMINIST THOUGHT The demand for a more inclusive feminism and development discourse, which was attendant to the needs of women globally, was initiated in the 1970’s and 1980’s as academics in the global North took to contesting the hegemonic and exclusionary nature that feminism in the US was taking on. Academics positioned in the North, particularly those who had migrated from various developing countries agitated and vocally expressed their dissatisfaction at being underrepresented in mainstream feminist movements and ultimately also academia. Some of these feminist academics such as Lata Mani (“Multiple Mediations”), Chandra Talpade Mohanty (Feminism Without Borders), Gayatri Spivak, and Uma Narayan (“Project”) suggested a reframing of how power relations between the North and the South were perceived. This reframing came to signify a shift in the field towards post-colonial feminist thought in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Authors such as Chandra Mohanty, Uma Narayan, Lata Mani, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak brought legitimacy and focus to

10 standpoint epistemologies and theorized about the power of social location and the insights that could be gained by empowering women in the South to define and represent their own interests as opposed to having unrelated and cookie cutter solutions being imposed on them by feminists, academics and development practitioners from the North who were removed from that context. It was highlighted that privileged upper and middle class white women in the US and Europe were inadvertently participating in the erasure of the labor and activism of women of color at home and internationally, particularly within the feminist movements (Henry 108). These conversations were in part concretized and strengthened as a result of the UN women’s conferences that had been scheduled for the latter half of the 20th century. The conferences yielded more nuanced conversations around women’s rights globally, especially at the Beijing UN women’s conference, which had a more global outlook to addressing women’s issues (Conway 213). Over the course of these two decades of UN conferences which also coincided with what is known as the second wave of feminism there was a growth of women’s movements in different parts of the world but one that was limited by national boundaries and had an introspective outlook on women’s issues. Valentine Moghadam identifies a prominent division of feminist thought, a growing split between feminists from the global North and South. She comments on the different orientation of each school of thought which arose from their specific contexts. Activists from the North were focused on fighting for legal equality and reproductive rights as central demands while activists and academics from the South highlighted grave economic inequality, colonialism, growing neoliberal influences as forces that were affecting women’s well being in parts of the so called third-world (Moghadam 6). These conversations thus complicated the narrative of a ‘global’ or ‘international’ feminism that had come to shape the context within which the UN conferences were being held. This brand of feminism, claiming kinship with women in the global South based solely on their shared gender identity, modeled an almost paternalistic relationship and created distinct categories that encouraged women from developed countries to view themselves as more privileged than their counterparts in third-world or developing countries without accounting for a range of experiences based on different identities in both these locations. This kinship was denoted by the term ‘global sisterhood’, a term that has received much

11 criticism since, and was largely rejected by women of color and women from the global South because it came to signify a unidirectional sharing of resources, ideas and solutions from the North to aid and assist the women in the South (Chowdhury 7). It has also been criticized for being ahistorical and lacking acknowledgment of the interlinked histories of colonization, slavery, exploitation of resources and manpower of countries in the global South by colonial powers in the North that have today come to be seen as ‘developed’ and superior at the cost of these existing power dynamics (Alexander and Mohanty 34). While the field has actively changed its course after ideas of global sisterhood were attacked by various women of color and third-world feminist scholars, it is noteworthy that there are many lingering notions of ‘feminist empowerment’ that are modeled on these ideas of charity, ‘saving’ the third-world woman, and expressing kinship based on gender as a primary identifier. These ideas are accused of emerging out of colonial discourses and have shaped ways of thinking in many distinct academic fields and national discourses for countries in the global North and foreign and institutional policies. A very recent and significant event that utilized this rhetoric in service of the US imperial project was the war in that was partly motivated by a wish to rescue and save Afghan and Muslim women from their patriarchal norms and governance under the Taliban; an invasion that was started shortly after 9/11 and continues till today (Abu-Lughod; Hirschkind and Mahmood).

FROM POST-COLONIAL TO TRANSNATIONAL Before I begin exploring the different works within post-colonial and transnational feminist theory as they pertain to my thesis, I will talk about the terms often used interchangeably within feminist classrooms albeit with vastly different theoretical trajectories: post-colonial and transnational feminist theory. The critiques posed by post- colonial feminists have played a pivotal role in opening up academic circles and spaces for many women of color, and women from the global South to narrate and voice their own concerns, as well as make many contributions to feminist theory, research and epistemology as a whole. Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s voice is one of the most significant voices that belong to this review. Her work also charts this progression of the field from post-colonial to transnational. In her article “Under Western Eyes” in 1984, she critiqued the inherently

12 colonized research methods that produced monolithic images of third world women, she “sought to make the operations of discursive power visible, to draw attention to what was left out of feminist theorizing, namely the material complexity, reality and agency of Third World women’s bodies and lives” (541). However post-colonial thought was seen as being an incomplete solution to the issue of global hegemonic patriarchy and these shortcomings of post-colonial thought gave way to another shift, partially a semantic one, towards a more ‘transnational’ approach. Mohanty has since updated her work, and directed it towards a more transnational approach given the far reaching policies and consequences of the global neo-liberal capitalist empire. She verbalized these connections when she revisited her article in 2005 and revised her position from the perspective of an outsider, colonized subject in the feminist academia to being ‘inside’ this position of privilege where she was able to influence the production of knowledge. She continues her emphasis on the importance of organizing against western hegemonic practices. However, in this article she revisits her position on emphasizing differences between the North and South and makes a call for solidarity amongst feminists and activists to organize as she “now see[s] the political and economics of capitalism as a far more urgent locus of struggle” (Mohanty, “‘Under Western Eyes’” 541). She discusses how racist, gendered and classist the impact of these neoliberal globalized capitalist structures is. She critiques current models of feminist scholarship and feminist academia and suggests alternate feminist solidarity models which overcome the ‘us and them’ binaries that are being established in academic settings today (Mohanty, “‘Under Western Eyes’” 548-9). This theoretical shift in the field comes from critiques of the term post-colonial as being broad and lacking specificity. Post-colonial theory has been critiqued for retaining an overwhelming focus on uneven development between the constructed hemispheres of the East and West. Ella Shohat delivers a thorough and resounding critique of the term post- colonial and its academic use in her article “Notes on the Post-Colonial” published in 1992. In the article she talks about the overwhelming limitations that exist inherently within the term post-colonial, rendering the term too restrictive and inaccurate to adequately represent the issues faced by the numerous previously colonized states. She critiques the open-ended interpretation of the term post-colonial, questioning which perspective is being represented, that of the colonized or the colonizer. According to Shohat, the term post-colonial collapses

13 too many distinct features and identities and boundaries into one neat category which confuses the complicated temporal and spatial development of the many different colonized nations (103). She problematizes the word for implying that colonial movements and effects are transitioning to a close, it implies a recovery period which doesn’t account for colonial interferences, neo-colonial imperial influences that continue to impair and inhibit the growth of these countries even today. Shohat is one such voice in many, including Chandra Talpade Mohanty, a renowned feminist theorist whose commentary has pushed the field towards a post-colonial analysis and then towards a transnational exploration of evolving power structures as she responds to the processes of globalization. Another factors that pushed the field towards adopting a more transnational approach was the growing hegemonic outreach of western-based neoliberal regimes that third-world scholars such as Uma Narayan, Chandra Mohanty, Vandana Shiva, Kumkum Sangari, Inderpal Grewal, Sangeeta Kamat have criticized and opposed openly in their writings. These authors and others in various countries in the South criticized and laid bare the processes of globalization that resulted from the opening up of borders, trade liberalization, an expansion of the United States’ neoliberal and imperial policies among other effects which maintained a neo-colonial power dynamic between countries in the North and the South (Grewal; Kamat, “Privatization”; Narayan, Dislocating Cultures; Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders). Thus, the need for a transnational feminist approach was verbalized in the context of a more nuanced understanding of global hetero-patriarchal politics and its pervasive effects reaching and exploiting the most marginalized and vulnerable in countries in the South.

CENTRAL DISCUSSIONS IN TRANSNATIONAL FEMINIST THOUGHT OVER TIME The writings of Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Amanda Locke Swarr, Richa Nagar and Chandra Mohanty are considered canonical in the conceptualization of contemporary transnational feminist thought especially as it pertains to post-colonial contexts such as South Asia. The central focus on writings in Scattered Hegemonies (1994), Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory Practicing Solidarity (2003) and Critical Transnational Feminist Praxis (2010) is to envision more inclusive cross-border collaborations and feminists solidarities which are attendant to historical contexts, power dynamics, and

14 context-specific demands made on various feminist movements without descending into a culturally relativist way of relating to various cross-border afflictions to women and queer groups globally. The introductory chapter to the book Scattered Hegemonies inserts the conversation on feminism and the politics of location in the ensuing discussion on postmodernity as it seeks to destabilize identity and to comprehend the movement of ideas and meanings outside of concrete locations and bodies. The authors, Grewal and Kaplan, assert that postmodern thought risks being a neo-colonial project aiding the construction of a Euro-American centric understanding and reading of identities if it does not acknowledge the critiques posed by post-colonial and decolonial frameworks. By not addressing the epistemological concerns posed by these frameworks, postmodernism risks the erasure of the very real and complicated historical and structural obstacles that complicate and silence the struggles of women in post- colonial and third-world countries. The authors, Grewal and Kaplan, also acknowledge a new global and neoliberal hegemonic world order that complicates an understanding of systemic oppressions and situates these structures of power in the context of globalization and the weakening of the traditional boundaries of the nation-state. “We need new analyses of how gender works in the dynamic of globalization and the countermeasures of new nationalisms, and ethnic and racial fundamentalisms” (Grewal and Kaplan 19). They pose the idea of multiple and scattered hegemonies that borrow and take strength from integrated capitalist and neo-liberal institutions and world order and affect the lived realities and material lives of women in various parts of the world. Grewal and Kaplan suggest a formulation of feminists thought and activism that actively combats and tackles these hierarchies as they are connected to oppressing the lives of various marginalized groups. Amanda Locke Swarr and Richa Nagar revisit the work of Grewal and Kaplan in their anthology, Critical Transnational Feminist Praxis (2010) and continue the conversation. In the introductory chapter, Swarr and Nagar highlight central dichotomies in transnational feminist academia such as the sustained gaps between activist and academic communities and between theory and method. They authors respond to questions in transnational feminist thought around the issues of growing interest in transnational theorizing as well as the hesitation of undertaking transnational feminist projects, hesitations rooted in issues of

15 politics of location, authenticity of voice, representation. They propose “that interweaving theories and practices of knowledge production through collaborative dialogues provides a way to radically rethink existing approaches to subalternity, voice, authorship, and representation” (Swarr and Nagar 2). Transnational feminist research and authorship is proposed as a way to effectively challenge power structures and hierarchies by centering collaborative projects around physical sites and feminist activism across the globe. Chandra Talpade Mohanty frames her discussion on transnational feminist thought and activism to be wary of new and interconnected neoliberal and neo-colonial systems of power. In her book Feminism Without Borders (2003) she traces how colonial and neo- colonial processes continue to shape and influence the lives of the “third-world woman” and how this population remains one of the most exploited labor pools in the world by capitalist multinational corporations. She continues to explore and situate the cause of third-world women’s oppression via colonial processes of academic knowledge productions as she did first in her seminal work “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses” (1984). However in her later work she has come to place greater emphasis on transnational feminist mobilizing against globalized structures of neoliberal power. In light of these circumstances she urges the need for a more transnational collaboration between feminist networks to curb the exploitation of labor and labor rights by these capitalist structures which often originate in the West and western frameworks but have firmly set up roots and systems in developing countries without providing any of the existing protections and safety nets afforded to their western counterparts. She advocates a decolonial and an anti-capitalist framework, in intellectual and academic pursuits, in activism and in development based discourses and projects, in light of these conditions that affect and oppress women and queer identities and orientations in the global South. By foregrounding these issues and how they affect and further marginalize women in the third-world, Mohanty discusses creative and necessary collaborations that need to emerge from feminist and activist communities globally. She defines feminist solidarity “in terms of mutuality, accountability, and the recognition of common interests as the basis for relationships among diverse communities. Rather than assuming an enforced commonality of oppression, the practice of solidarity foregrounds communities of people who have chosen to work and fight there” (Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders 7).

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Within feminist thought, transnational theorists have pushed back against hegemonic western-based feminist conceptions of core ideals such as empowerment and agency. In her article “Feminist Theory, Agency and the Liberatory Subject,” Saba Mahmood comments on the limited scope of western definitions and discourses in studying subjects that are removed from the western contexts (where these discourses were conceptualized). More specifically she critiques the core idea of agency, a central concept within feminist theory. Using examples from the women’s mosque movement in Egypt she problematizes the trope of resistance as being seen as a definitive component of agency and how it is used to theorize about empowered agents. She states that this excludes other essential aspects such as “motivations, desires and goals” (Mahmood 115) from the definition of agency especially where it pertains to Muslim women. Taking from Mahmood’s work, universalizing certain qualities to be inherently feminist or to restrict what can be defined as ‘authentically feminist’ is to pull at a thread in feminist academic thought as old as the field itself, the urge to define and restrict what feminism necessarily has to entail. While the merits of that conversation exist within feminist academic thought, it is important to recognize here that third world and non-western women have come out on the losing end of this argument, partly because of the imbalance of resource and power in defining one’s own narrative as pointed out by Mohanty, Narayan and Shohat above. In the article “Area Studies, Transnationalism, and the Feminist Production of Knowledge” written in 2001, Ella Shohat also repeats the epistemological critiques made by Mohanty of “[e]urocentric identity designations, intellectual grids, and disciplinary boundaries that have produced such figures and discourses as third-world women and Middle Eastern Studies” (1269). She talks about the tendency of using western developed theories and paradigms to analyze women’s issues in countries in the global South. She encourages a revisiting of these fixed boundaries to be more encompassing and realistic in order to prevent a stereotypical and uniform reading of complicated identities as is being produced by western scholarship today. Lila Abu-Lughod is an Arab-American scholar who continues this thread in her work. She talks about the problematic categorization and marginalization of women in the Middle East. Abu-Lughod wrote her article “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?” as a response to the war on Afghanistan that was waged after 9/11, which has been premised upon

17 what she borrows from another prominent Arab-American scholar, Leila Ahmed, to call ‘colonial feminism’(784). In her paper, she takes issue with broad distinct categorizations of groups of women such as ‘Muslim’ or ‘third world’ or ‘Afghan’ women as if these were uniform neatly segregated categories based on shared characteristics and warns against sweeping generalizations about Afghanistan and Afghan men that came to categorize First Lady Laura and President George W. Bush’s speeches when they spoke about the war on Afghanistan as a mission to save Afghan women. Where Abu-Lughod’s work prompts feminist academics to be more critical of their own ‘good intent’ in responding to more sensational violences around the globe, Narayan dissects this ‘crossing over’ of issues and violences in her book Dislocating Cultures. In one of the chapters entitled “Cross Cultural Connections, Border-Crossing, and ‘Death by Culture’” she problematizes the ways issues cross boundaries and how they are portrayed internationally as decontextualized and dislocated from the local social and political factors that influence and contribute to it. She uses the example of dowry deaths, which are a rising feminist concern within and an increasingly popular issue coming up in western media, to explore how specific issues cross borders and how this migration of issues across certain boundaries changes the narrative attached to it. In the chapter she explores why the Western fascination with dowry deaths (as they occur in India) are treated as distinct and culturally unique features situated within the Indian culture instead of seen as a wider problem linked to domestic violence and murders as a wider issue rooted in patriarchal rather than cultural practices. It talks about the “making” of feminist issues (88) and how third world women’s issues are perceived across transnational boundaries (Narayan, Dislocating Cultures; Abu- Lughod). I would like to talk about this crossing over as well since it is a central concern of this thesis as well as a concern of G@D members. It links with their wishes to take control of their own narrative of feminist activism in Pakistan, a concern that has been reflected in the works of many transnational authors. More recent and directly relevant to my thesis in this ongoing conversation on issues of representation of women in the Global South, I find Moon Charania’s work noteworthy. In her book Will the Real Pakistani Woman Please Stand up? Charania analyses and critiques the power of visual images and discourses and how the image of the ‘quintessential’ Pakistani woman and accompanying human rights discourses has been deployed in service of

18 the global US hegemonic empire. Using the images of Malala Yousufzai, Mukhtaran Mai, Benazir Bhutto and the women at the Lal Masjid riot, she directs a critical eye at the compositions of these images “to understand how the contemporary proliferation of the woman subject is mired in a strange chasm between the univocality of global rhetoric such as democracy [...] and the polyvocality of local interpretations of femininity and feminism”. (Charania, Will the Real 33). The book’s closing remarks coincide with the point of departure for my thesis which in part “ponder(s) how feminist activists in the local life-worlds of Pakistan negotiate these images and representations in their activism” (135).

TRANSNATIONAL FEMINIST THOUGHT IN WOMEN’S AND GENDER STUDIES Mohanty’s writings and reframing of post-colonial critiques of feminist academic thought coincide with a broader shift in the field of Women’s and Gender Studies, an inclination towards a more global orientation of outlook towards women’s and queer issues. Today transnational feminist thought is fast being incorporated into the Euro-American academia. Presently more syllabi in the North American feminist academic settings are including feminist perspectives from a global lens, a greater focus on women’s and queer issues with regard to a range of intersecting identities and the work of different transnational feminists. Students in Women’s and Gender Studies program across the board in most Euro- American settings are encouraged to retain a more global perspective than ever before (Alexander and Mohanty). Transnational feminist networks and academic collaborations also emerged out of the United Nations Women’s conferences and actively came to play a role in the dictates of various international documents and declarations, a small example of which is the inclusion of in the Vienna Declaration in 1993 (Moghadam 9). Where these positive developments have in part emerged out of the collaborative efforts of academics, policy makers, activists and practitioners and in part necessitated by the process of globalization that demands a more outward and international approach be adopted, there are certain extenuating circumstances that curb the effectiveness and influence of transnational feminism and hamper a much needed approach to resolving many core women’s issues across the globe. Greater integration of transnational feminist thought with the North American academia is needed since it reflects a core component of intersectionality

19 i.e. being able to understand how students within the US and Europe are implicated in the ways they benefit from the subjugation and exploitation of women in the Global South and how academia silences and marginalizes these women and queer identities. Authors Chandra T. Mohanty and M. Jaqui Alexander undertook an analysis of 13 Women’s and Gender Studies syllabi of different levels to explore how transnational feminist thought was being represented and taught. While they applaud the overall complexity and nuance with which most of the introductory syllabi interacted with global feminist movements and women of color feminisms, they uncovered a few core flaws with which these syllabi had been constructed including the dreaded ‘add and stir’ approach when it came to internationalizing some of the upper division courses. The syllabi retained a focus on the Euro-American centric view of core feminist values as different classrooms approached third-world women’s movements and issues faced by women in different parts of the world where they noted a “a curious elision of the transnational within the United States, pushing it to operate only elsewhere, outside of the geopolitical borders of the US nation-state” (Alexander and Mohanty 32). Furthermore these courses also adopted a tone resonant with earlier models of global sisterhood in their approach of how they presented democratic governance as a core tenet of feminist thought which had accomplished a lot in the context of the US and if exported to various parts of the developing world, it would yield similar results (34). These courses also segregated the study of gender norms and practices with that of sexual identities giving way to a Western understanding and compartmentalization of identity in contexts where this may not be the case as well as leaving queer identities out of the purview of transnational feminist academic thought (Alexander and Mohanty; Shohat, “Area Studies”). Similarly in her article “Transforming Pedagogies: Imagining Internationalist/Feminist/Antiracist Literacies” Piya Chatterjee shares her experiences of teaching an upper division course on transnational feminist issues from the perspective of the global South, decentering the course from a US or Euro-American lens. An immediate effect of this decentering is the disconnect she senses amongst her students, she notes a persistent struggle for students in her class to connect with or relate to issues that women in different global contexts face in a more personal and engaged manner (Chatterjee). While both the articles provide a much more detailed discussion on the troubles of approaching transnational women’s and queer issues, I have highlighted these key points and experiences because they

20 represent concrete boundaries of transnationalizing feminism and the areas this sub-field continues to struggle with due to larger underlying issues related to politics of location, epistemological crises as well as one of representation.

CONCLUSION This chapter consolidates some of the main conversations in transnational feminist thought that inform this thesis. The central themes presented by the authors mentioned in this chapter and the concerns they wish to bring to the forefront of feminist discussions, around agency, issues of border crossing, of colonial knowledge creation practices etc represent crucial obstacles within feminist academia in the global North that frame my analysis and research. Drawing from the works of these post-colonial, transnational, Islamic and Muslim feminists, many from the Global South, I explore and frame the experiences of G@D members as a feminist collective in Pakistan.

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CHAPTER 2

HISTORY AND CONTEXT OF PAKISTANI WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS

“The political and cultural labyrinth in which Pakistani feminists are caught and within which they do feminist work is all the more complex because it emerges at the intersection of colonial memory and the contemporary troubling contexts of geopolitics shaped by 9/11, the war on terror, and brutal US intervention in the region” (Charania, “Feminism” 319). Before I begin discussion on the work of G@D, it is important for me to situate them in the historical context of Pakistan’s feminist movements. The core feminist beliefs that drive G@D’s programming, the modes and language of resistance that they employ in their work, and the systemic issues they seek to dismantle are firmly and consciously rooted in and draw from these histories and geographies they are situated in. G@D is a product of both the local and the global feminist and social justice movements that preceded the collective; however they have chosen to restrict their focus and attention to understanding and fighting against local hetero-patriarchal power structures. While their work is rooted in challenging the local, there is a conscious effort on part of G@D to understand the global and how it interplays with creating, disrupting and influencing the local structures of power in Pakistan. Histories of colonization, colonial systems of law and education, of the subsequent partitions of land and regional unrest, the Cold War and the War on Terror weigh heavy on the socio- political fabric of the nation today and influence local power structures and create hierarchies that women’s movements have been resisting since the creation of the country. I will be tracing women’s movements after the creation of Pakistan in 1947. South Asia has a long history of feminist and women’s anti-colonial movements dating before the partition but for the sake of relevance and brevity I will explore the nature and context of women’s movements after 1947. These women’s and feminist movements that developed

22 and took shape after independence in various parts of the country at various points in time are precursors to the kind of politics and activism that G@D propagates and is engaged in.3 As a result of a religiously charged anti-colonial movement and in the Indian subcontinent, which raged for the first half of the 18th century, the British left in the August of 1947 cleaving the region into two independent nation-states, Pakistan and India. This dissolution of formal British rule and their abrupt withdrawal in August resulted in one of the bloodiest and most violent massacres witnessed in the region, an event now known as The Partition. The Partition harnessed the growing religious divides in the subcontinent. Many Muslims migrated towards the regions now known as Pakistan and Bangladesh, while Hindus and many Sikhs travelled to India. Thus, Pakistan was created in August 14th, 1947 on the basis of popular support for the claim made by some Muslim leaders that Muslims in India needed their own independent territory to rule. This affiliation with the Islamic faith, and the claim towards a ‘pure’ Muslim homeland has affected the socio-political trajectory and the development of the country over the past seventy years. Feminist writing in Pakistan has criticized the way the state has deployed conservative readings of Sunni Islamic faith to control and restrict women’s rights and causes over the years (Zia; Shaheed, “Women’s Movement”). Repeatedly these Islamic tenets and laws have been implemented, politicized and used as a bargaining chip and a political tool to negotiate with women’s groups, religious and political parties and have posed one of the biggest challenges to women’s movements in the country and continue to affect feminist mobilizing and activism to this day. This institutionalization and implementation of strict laws, the most harsh centered around the control of women’s sexuality, have also spawned the strongest and most concerted efforts and resistance from women’s and feminist groups in the subcontinent (Jamal, “Gender”).

3 Ideally this chapter would include how these women’s movements related to the issue of public spaces over the decades and how feminists and activists in Pakistan inhabit, perceive and claim public spaces as a space for protest. However, due to a lack of academic literature written on the matter as well as available for me to access from the US, a discussion on this issue as well as its evolution over time is missing from this chapter.

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ANTI-COLONIAL WOMEN’S MOVEMENT: EVENTS LEADING UP TO 1947 Pre-partition India under British colonial rule saw intermittent protests staged by women’s groups over a range of issues including opposition to the removal of the Muslim caliphate from Turkey by the British, called the , as well as the in Lahore protesting British imperial rule. The Khilafat movement (1919-1924), harnessed the anti-British sentiments that had been brewing in India against military conscription of Indians in the First World War. It preceded the Khaksar Movement (1931), which was a social movement protesting British colonial occupation in India. The Khaksar Movement campaigned to overthrow oppressive British imperial governance and to replace it with governance by locals, inclusive of Hindus and Muslims both, a vision for a unified India (Muhammad). The movements were popularly received in pre-partition India where the anti- British Colonial sentiments were on the rise and fed into the growing nationalist sentiments and demands for independence from colonial rule. There were many prominent female figures part of these anti-colonial and nationalist struggles and in favor of the creation of a separate Muslim State. These figures included Abadi Begum popularly known as Bi Amma, , Begum Rana Liaquat Ali, Nishat un Nissa Hasrat and eleven year old Saeeda Bano to name a few (Morgan 528; Saigol). However Rubina Saigol concludes that while women were mobilized to further anti-colonial causes, this did not translate into concrete and progressive changes in the lives of women after the creation of Pakistani especially “as they invoked cultural nationalism which reinforces the patriarchal ideas of masculinity and femininity” (Saigol 6). Regardless of these opposing views, these anti-colonial movements led by women leaders became seeds of dissent and resistance that spurred the exit of the colonial rulers and significantly changed the course of feminist and women’s movements in South Asia.

EARLY YEARS OF THE STATE AND GROWING WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS: 1947-1971 Once Pakistan was created, various women’s political, religious and ethnic groups were absorbed into the mass scale recuperation and recovery efforts after the massacres and violence of The Partition as well as for the establishment of a newborn nation state (Mumtaz

24 and Shaheed). Even if meeker and divided, women’s political engagement continued, this time in fighting a government, the same one they had rallied behind to create and fortify before the partition. One of the first bills that women protested in favor of was the Muslim Personal Law of Shariat (1948) which had been tabled by the parliament. Rubina Saigol records that “thousands of women marched to the Assembly chambers shouting slogans, led by and other women leaders and finally the Muslim Personal Law of Shariat (1948) became effective recognizing women’s right to inherit property” (8). It was as early on as 1948 that women’s groups and political figures found that in this new state some of the most staunch opposition and resistance to their rights was going to come from the religious clergy. In this instance it is also important to point out how Islamic tenets were often manipulated, to favor the status quo and men. By opposing this law the religious clergy was effectively opposing the will of the Quran which states the right of women as property owners. However, in this case and in many future instances, laws that favored men received vocal support from the religious clergy and political parties. And laws that supported women, even if religiously justified were often overlooked. Many in Pakistan, especially the clergy, were vocally opposed to the idea of women’s liberation and rights because of the associations that had been made between women’s rights and the “West” under colonial rule (Shaheed, “Other Side”; Charania, “Feminism”). One of the first women’s organizations in Pakistan was founded by Begum Rana , the wife of then Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan. The organization called APWA, All Pakistani Women’s Association, emerged out of the volunteer relief work that was being done by women to support the incoming refugees from India in 1949. Due to its affiliation and close working relationship with the state, initially APWA espoused a brand of women’s empowerment that was peripherally catered to Islamic sentiments in their activism and work. APWA retained a focus on issues such as women’s healthcare and education (Jafar, Lofty Ideals 38). But APWA’s emphasis on family as a basis of the nation state led towards campaigns mobilizing women in urban centers on core issues related to family and marriage laws in Pakistan. The group led a campaign against Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Bogra’s second marriage in 1955. These campaigns served as a platform for feminists and activists to network and resulted in the creation of other women’s groups such as United Front of Women’s Rights (UFWR). UFWR was led by Assemblywoman Jahanara

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Shahnawaz and the collective efforts of these groups ultimately led to the passing of Family Ordinance Act in 1961. The Family Ordinance Act was designed as a way to protect women in marriage. It banned an oral process of divorce, added restrictions to curb polygamy4 and instituted a minimum age for marriage5, to name a few (Jafar, Lofty Ideals). The year 1958 is a notable date in the ’s political timeline and in the trajectory of women’s movements because it marks the overthrow of democracy for the first time in favor of military rule and dictatorship. The subsequent years were characterized by pendulum shifts between military and democratic governance. The lack of security and consistency in governance affected the relationship between women and women’s groups with the state. Women’s rights were repeatedly instated, dissolved and reinstated based on the global outlook and political orientation of the state. The years under military rule, especially under military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq witnessed the most loud and boisterous women’s and feminist movements in the history of the country. There were sporadic women’s groups, established in the early years of Pakistan like the Democratic Women’s Association (DWA) which operated along Marxist ideologies, and catered to the interests of women from lower and working classes. DWA supported and advocated for the rights of women in factories, in rural areas and in low-income urban areas, on issues of equitable and inclusive educational and health care access and labor rights. The DWA is Pakistan’s most prominent left wing women’s group which vocally criticized the invasion of East Pakistan and raised awareness about Pakistani military activity in the then East Pakistan and around the of Bangladeshi women. Groups like DWA were largely outliers in a that has largely been characterized as upper class, elitist and often one with close political ties to the state and influential political actors, particularly in the early years of the country (Shaheed, “Women’s Movement”; Saigol).

4 Under these laws the man had to obtain written from his first wife in order to get remarried. 5 The minimum age for marriage was legally set at 16 year old for girls and 18 for boys.

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1971-1988: REALIZING THE ‘ISLAMIC’ REPUBLIC OF PAKISTAN The year 1971 witnessed the massacre and violence that the West Pakistani military inflicted on the eastern wing and saw the consequent loss of East Pakistan or as it came to be known, Bangladesh. In light of this secession, Pakistan, under the leadership of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, sought to redeem its image as a progressive and “modern” state in the eyes of the world. The new constitution (1973) declared women equal to men and banned “discrimination on the basis of sex alone”. The state would “ensure the full participation of women in all spheres of national life” (Jalal 99). Ayesha Jalal qualifies that these legal affirmations, along with an overt display of orientation with populism and ‘’ by the ruling elite and Bhutto’s family, were accompanied by more public visibility and general acceptance of women’s participation and presence in the public sphere and public space (Jalal 98-9). Many prominent women’s advocacy groups were established in the 1970’s including Shirkatgah and Aurat Foundation which have continued to remain integral and renowned women’s organizations till the present and served as a platform for mobilizing for influential feminist leaders and organizations like Women’s Action Forum, the work of which I discuss later. The Pakistani women’s movements came into full force in the late 1970’s and 1980’s as they found women and religious minorities explicitly being targeted by a nation ‘re- orienting’ itself to its founding ideology i.e. a state that upheld Islamic values and norms. General Zia-ul-Haq’s overthrowing of Bhutto’s government in 1977 led to the installation of one of the most brutal and oppressive regimes in Pakistan to date. General Zia’s governance was characterized by the promulgation and institution of fundamentalist and conservative Sunni Islamic tenets and laws to curb the rights of marginalized groups, especially women and non-Muslims. Simultaneously, Pakistan gained legitimacy as a central actor in the Cold War aligned with the US in a bid to aid imperial control over Afghanistan. 1978 onwards saw a subsequent militarization of the state and various state actors as well as the mujahideen, groups who claimed to be freedom fighters and were supported by Saudi Arabia and the US to rid Afghanistan of Soviet influence, “Intricate connections forged between specific religious seminaries (madrassahs), armed militant groups, the mujahideen and the military state during and after the Afghan war blurred the state–non-state divide, allowing non-state

27 politico-religious actors to push their agendas in social spaces—including through armed tactics—almost unfettered” (Shaheed, “Contested Identities” 854-5). The support of the US over this illegitimate and often brutal regime, strengthened and prolonged Zia’s stay in office. The effects of this regime continue to haunt the social fabric of Pakistani state and society till the present day and effectively dealt a blow to the labor movements in the country, which were seen as symbolic of the evil of communism (Saigol). Farida Shaheed notes that one of the most important side effects of Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization policies was to shift governance from state actors and legal jurisdiction to private actors such as Islamic religious leaders and imams at small mosques. By inviting the public in administering and upholding morality as a collective responsibility of the state, everyone was invited to dispense judgment on the streets, especially on the conduct and attire of women, based on what was deemed Islamically ‘immoral’. A ‘modest’ dress code was established for female school going teachers and students and those working in state jobs. Gender segregation was encouraged as a norm for the general public and enforced at state events affecting how women’s position was seen in society (Shaheed, “Contested Identities”). These regulations and many others consciously pushed women back into private sphere and significantly influenced how their participation in public spaces was observed. Vague and variant definitions of immorality and religion established vague standards that were often used to restrict and curb women’s movement in public, “State calls for upholding ‘public morality’ insidiously licensed any male on the streets to admonish, even physically assault, any woman he regarded to be improperly dressed; sexual harassment in public spaces spiraled” (Shaheed, “Contested Identities” 859). Christian, Parsee and Hindu women were equally subjected to these ‘Islamic’ standards but were left more vulnerable under a state and institutions that showed an overt bias towards Islamic standards and norms. It was under Zia- ul-Haq’s regime that women’s relationship with public spaces and the public sphere was most drastically altered. There was a visible and conscious move to restrict women’s interactions with the public sphere (Shaheed, “Contested Identities”). This was contrary to the years leading up to Zia’s regime when women were a more casual part of cityscapes in Pakistan. One of the unintended consequences of this time period was the bold opposition it received from members of civil society and led to the mobilizing of an organized women’s

28 movement. One such instance that drew outrage from many distinct groups and strata of society was the overhauling of Hudood Laws in 1979 to include legal punishment of adultery and fornications. The Hudood Laws were religiously inspired laws set up to punish criminal activity, however, under Zia, these laws attempted to eliminate sex outside of marriage. These laws were revamped to include requirements in the legal procedure regarding witnesses which resulted in a conflation of survivors with adulterers. There was subsequent prescription of flogging or death penalty prescribed as punishment for adultery or fornication which, even if scarcely implemented (due to a patriarchal bias in favor of the men), resulted in the unjust and disproportional imprisonment of many rape survivors. It took decades to amend the laws. Shaheed states, “the movement born in opposition [to state repression] managed to put women permanently on the national agenda of diverse political actors, the state apparatus and even amongst its opponents in the politico-religious parties, such as the Jamaat-i-Islami” (“Women’s Movement” 97). While the space for resistance visibly started to shrink under Zia’s regime, there were many voices criticizing these oppressive laws. Many artists, poets and academics rose to challenge this government and address the growing restrictions that were casually added, curbing the rights of religious minorities and women. Renowned feminist poets and artists such Kishwar Naheed, Sheema Kirmani, Madiha Gauhar, Rubina Saigol to name a few all challenged the state head on in their art. The street theatre group, Ajoka, founded by Gauhar performed interactive street theatre in rural to raise consciousness against the regime’s oppressive policies regarding attacking women or minorities (Akhtar). One of the strongest groups to emerge out of this moment came out of the academically inclined collective Shirkatgah, a women’s resource centre. These women used the platform of Shirkatgah to mobilize and created a stronger and more activist based network across cities called the Women’s Action Forum (WAF) which ultimately became the face of feminist resistance under Zia’s regime. “WAF used picketing, demonstrations, processions, rallies, signature campaigns, consciousness raising, telegrams, writing and other strategies to register protest and oppose the regime’s draconian measures” (Saigol 15). The group had a close working relationship with Shirkatgah, Aurat Foundation and APWA, and often membership overlapped with one or more of these groups. WAF used the preexisting resources and networks these groups had developed over the years. It remains active to this

29 day in all the major urban centres of Pakistan, its members continue to be leading figures in women’s rights and gender related issues in the country. As the work of WAF gained recognition and legitimacy through their work, they had to deal with questions on mobilizing and strategizing in the context of limited resources, a ban on overtly political organizing and a very powerful opponent in religiously backed military regime. Saigol characterizes these questions as revolving around governing framework, whether it should be religious or secular, and if the focus of the feminist collective should be extended to other marginalized groups such as religious or gender minorities (Saigol 15). These conversations continued well after Zia’s regime and have come to signify deep fractures within the movement. The concerns centered in this discussion are about adopting a secular versus religious framework of women’s mobilizing. This conversation is important because it is centered in a country where a majority of the feminist struggles were propped up in opposition to the religious governance and to support the ruling elites. The opposing camp pushed for recognition of the value of adopting a religious framework arguing that it is valued and understood amongst the population and would make the movement accessible to the wider population (Gardezi). A lesser known but marginally more radical and inclusive in nature, the Sindhiani Tehreek was also working alongside WAF and other feminist groups to challenge the status quo. The Sindhiani Tehreek worked with women from working classes in urban areas as well as peasant women from rural areas. Unlike WAF which had more liberal feminist leanings on tackling women’s legal and institutional rights being attacked by the government, the Sindhiani Tehreek addressed many patriarchal practices such as forced marriages or age old traditions of honor killing that continued to affect the lives of women in (Saigol; Zia). Pakistan Women Lawyers Association (PAWLA) was also a prominent organisation established during the reign of Zia to represent the legal interests of women and continued to pressure successive governments to amend and repeal misogynistic and patriarchal laws (Charania, “Feminism”).

1990’S ONWARDS: OF STATE AND NGO FEMINISMS The 1990’s ushered in a neoliberal world order as the Cold World conclusively ended on a positive note for the US. This had many implications for governments and governance

30 in the global South. There was a directed push towards privatization and cutting back on state welfare. International donor organizations and development firms formally adopted the mandate of free market ideology in their work. The Global South and developing countries also witnessed a marked proliferation of NGOs and IGOs and an increase in funding for grassroots and local organizations (Jafar, Women’s NGOs). In this decade, after the end of General Zia-ul-Haq’s rule, the country saw an anxious return to democracy. Both the democratically-elected governments of Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto (1988-1990 and 1993-1996) and Nawaz Sharif (1990-1993 and 1997- 1999) were met with an abrupt end to their terms in this time period. While the women’s movements and groups had placed high hopes on Benazir Bhutto as the first female head of state to be elected in Pakistan, they were largely dismayed. In spite of Bhutto’s vocal stance on women’s and humans rights issues, Bhutto’s government was largely unable to repeal some of Zia’s misogynistic policies due to the complicated processes of repeal that he had implemented to protect these laws. The fact that repealing these laws required a majority vote which was seen as being antithetical and in opposition to Islamic values posed a significant obstacle (Jafar, Lofty Ideals 57). No political party wanted to risk losing favor with religious clergy and the supposedly religious majority vote base. Bhutto’s government was also focused on pandering to the landed gentry in Sindh, much like senior Bhutto, an ironic diversion from the party’s claim at populism and being labor friendly. Steps that Benazir Bhutto’s government was able to accomplish was the creation of a Women’s Ministry committed solely to addressing and responding to women’s issues. This step was more symbolic than effective, but the state’s formal recognition of women’s marginalization as being a legitimate and urgent concern was like a balm on a festering wound that had been left untreated and agitated during Zia’s regime. Concurrently, other measures were also taken to mainstream gender issues structurally in various urban and rural settings such as creating Women’s Studies Centers in public universities in Pakistan, introducing Social Action Programs “intended to integrate policies for delivery of social service and facilitate the participation of the poor in development projects” (Laumann), and setting up women-only banks and stations (Jafar, Lofty Ideals; Saigol). The women’s movement, which had positioned and developed itself in stark opposition of General’s Zia’s regime, was absorbed into state structures and NGOs at this

31 time. This ‘NGOization’ of Pakistan’s women’s movement was both a result of state policies, a government giving lip-service to women’s rights as well as due to a general proliferation of foreign based funding in the country. The growth of the development sector promised to sustain a movement or feminist activism in a context where it had been previously underpaid and unsustainable work continuously threatened by forces more powerful, more supported and better funded than itself. The democratic governments of Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto were dissolved and reinstated, twice each in the span of a decade. Each political tenure had a markedly different tone of governance. Women’s rights and issues were treated as bargaining chips during these times, allaying and pandering to the interests of various advocacy groups, lobbies and social strata in Pakistan. NGO’s became associated not just with the delivery of welfare services, but with women’s causes and western intervention. This relationship was further cemented by Sharif’s ban of NGOs which, his government claimed, were serving as gateways to ‘westernizing’ Pakistani society and state. The fact that women were targeted beneficiaries of this sector as well as the groups that vocally protested this ban put these activists and women’s NGOs in direct opposition discursively to the state and in favor of ‘westernization’ (Jafar, Lofty Ideals). The accusation that women’s and feminist activism is a ‘foreign’ idea or that feminism represents a larger crisis of Pakistani identity has continued to flourish over the past decades. This is a key challenge that is posed to women’s movements today and a critique that feminist collectives such as G@D have to contend with often in their work. The 1990’s also saw a maturing of the seeds that Zia’s regime had systematically sown in the prior decade with religious right-wing lobbies gaining momentum and placing themselves firmly in opposition to women’s causes and groups. Divisive ethnic and religious politics increased violence targeted at certain minority religious and ethnic groups across the country. The state’s rebranding itself as an Islamic state (and a strictly Sunni one at that) came to fruition at this time (Toor).

THE WAR ON TERROR AND RETURN OF MILITARY GOVERNANCE The events of 9/11 set in motion a global reconfiguration of power and perpetuated the “clash of civilization” model (Huntington), a binary pitting the ‘Muslim’ world against

32 the supposedly secular and civilized Western countries. Pakistan’s role then became a very tricky one, positioned as an ally to the US and therefore in an understood opposition to its own proclaimed Muslim identity. Pakistan, yet again, became a frontline state aiding US imperialist interests in Afghanistan. The military coup by General Pervez Musharraf of Nawaz Sharif’s government in 1999 coincided neatly with this timeline of shifting global and hegemonic structures. To nobody’s surprise, billions of dollars of military and civic aid poured into the country under Musharraf’s rule. The trend of women’s groups to mobilize under the umbrella of NGOs and civil sector continued through this time, having created a formal space for their activism in this sector. Musharraf had fashioned himself as a religiously moderate and a ‘liberal’ dictator, an ally to women’s causes, at least ostensibly (Saigol 25). Under his rule of ‘enlightened moderation’ certain progressive changes were made to laws, made all the more possible under a dictatorship that was not beholden to its respective vote banks. He increased women’s participation for both the parliament and the senate by reserving 17% of the seats for women, the most in Pakistan’s history (Kalhoro 12). Most significantly certain draconian measures that were part of the Hudood Laws were repealed after having inflicted around three decades of violence on many vulnerable women. The law had largely remained untouched by previous governments (Kalhoro). The case of Mukhtaran Mai’s gang-rape in 2002 was crucial in restarting the debate. Mukhtaran Mai had been gang-raped on the orders of a jirga6. This judgment was passed on the basis that Mai’s brother had allegedly been seen with a girl from a neighboring village. Taken up by key human rights and feminist figures in the country such as Asma Jehangir7 and prominent activists, Hina Jilani and Aqsa Khan, there was a renewed vigor in the women’s movement to amend these laws. They used the particular injustices of Mai’s case to highlight

6 Tribal councils that lie outside the purview of the legal system of Pakistan. In the absence of a well established legal system in certain rural areas or in tribal areas, jirgas are relied upon to broker peace in conflict and hand out justice. Jirgas often rely on dated codes of honor to navigate cases. 7 Asma Jehangir is a renowned activist, human rights lawyer and the founder of Human Rights Commission in Pakistan.

33 the loopholes in the laws and mobilize the country’s sympathies and gain the momentum the movement had largely been lacking to firmly and finally oppose these laws. However, as Afiya S. Zia points out, the women’s movement was unable to get the law repealed overall, and was even unable to get a conversation started on the patriarchal values underpinning the law. She also highlights how the right-wing women’s conservative lobby was a crucial factor behind these changes, which resulted in restricting the limits within with the conversation was had; the law’s fate, and therefore that of women all over the country, was to be decided within the confines of Islam (Zia 37-8). The events at Mosque catalyzed not just the fall of Musharraf’s government in 2008, but set the tone for governance in Pakistan in the following years. 2007 saw the public military siege of the Jamia Hafsa Mosque which had been occupied by protesting right-wing Muslim female students at the mosque. These students were protesting the state’s decision to close the school under the suspicions that it was harboring terrorists. They demanded the institution of Sharia rule and had been publicly registering their protest in other locations such as public libraries. They had also abducted women from their homes alleging that they were sex workers. The prolonged nature of the protest and the subsequent military response became a media spectacle not just in Pakistan but also internationally. This event signaled the steady demise of Musharraf’s regime as he lost favor with the religious right-wing and secularist groups in the country. This event also restarted and brought to the forefront important conversations that the feminist movement had been embroiled in for the past three decades. The events around Jamia Hafsa drew vocal condemnation from many activists and feminists and the questions of whether feminist advocacy and activism should be framed within a religious approach or a secular one were brought back into discussions around mobilizing and strategizing. While these feminist groups have largely retained a secular framework, academics such as Afiya Zia criticize the movement for not making this stance more public and vocal. She criticizes that the “liberal side-stepping” of women’s groups and general failure to operate along secular lines has led to a failure to confront the specter of religious fundamentalism in the country (Zia 40). Alternately, Amina Jamal states that pitting the secular versus Islamic framework of operations in an oppositional binary has contributed towards a failure of the movement to establish its own legitimacy (Jamal, “Feminist 'Selves'”).

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Marginal gains were made under the two democratic governments that succeeded Musharraf’s regime by the women’s movements and some losses accrued as well. In 2010 a law against sexual harassment at the workplace was passed by the Parliament. The Domestic Violence Bill faced many hurdles between its passing in 2009 in the National Assembly and 2012 in the Senate after much debate on need and purpose of such a bill. Many in the religious right refuted the need for a bill on domestic violence because it was deemed a fictional and foreign invention, nothing that had to contend with. The bill has largely remained criticized by feminists who contest the variable implementation of the bill across provinces. The Bill that was designed by Punjab was heavily criticized for lacking a rights-based approach towards survivors of domestic violence (Kalhoro; Saigol). In 2016, the laws governing honor killings in Pakistan were amended to prosecute perpetrators. These changes were made after the honor killing of a local celebrity, Qandeel Baloch. The conversations sparked by her death pushed many women’s collectives including G@D to hold protests in various cities across the country demanding that her killer, in this case her brother, be punished. Prior to this amendment the perpetrators could be pardoned by the families of the murdered, almost inevitable in cases where brothers or fathers killed their female relatives in the name of ‘dishonor’ (BBC).

CONCLUSION While the women’s movement in Pakistan has been active and vigilant in the demand for their rights, it is unfortunate that many gains for the movement were made as their rights were being violated or ignored. Feminist and women’s groups are more active and present as a coherent front under dictatorships unlike under democratic governance (Zia). Furthermore, momentum from national tragedies and stories such as Mukhtaran Mai’s, Malala Yousufzai’s and Qandeel Baloch’s are often needed to create legal change or get justice which can otherwise be difficult to achieve. This dynamic brings into play the importance of stories that make up national tragedies, the discursive elements which create outrage versus silence

35 regarding the abuse and violation of the rights of certain groups. This means that there is a national media outcry when young girls get raped as in the case of six year old Zainab Ansari8 but older women become targets of suspicion and accusations from the public and media as was the case observed with Mukhtaran Mai. The absence of queer groups and identities from mainstream discussions on human rights and the erasure of their rights perhaps comes from these silences from media and national discourse on the well-being, rights and injustices faced by these groups. The assumed linkages between LGBTQ communities as being western and foreign may have inhibited feminist activism in Pakistan. “Middle class morality and norms, the ‘convenience of subservience’ in the patriarchal bargain and the deeply held notions of privacy” are some of the reasons that sexual and gender minorities have not been part of the agenda of mainstream women’s and feminist movements in Pakistan (Saigol 41). Some legal changes and successes have been achieved over the years regarding the rights of transwomen or khawajasirahs in Pakistan (transmen, non-binary and queer individuals largely remain erased from public discourse). However, in many instances there has been a failure of the larger women’s movement to include and talk about the issues of the khawajasirah community. Over the past decade prominent khawajasirah activists such as Kami Sid and Bindiya Rana have managed to get trans issues into mainstream political and cultural conversations and received public recognition for their efforts, but their work is disconnected from the larger women’s movement in Pakistan.

8 Zainab Ansari was abducted, raped and murdered in Kasur, Pakistan, her body was found four days later, on January 4th 2018. The media coverage of her case ignited many conversations, protests and campaigns against sexual violence against young girls across the country.

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CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

Given Pakistan’s history of being ravaged under British colonial rule, its partition from India and ongoing conflict, and its current role in contemporary world politics, geopolitically aligned (even if precariously) with the U.S. in the War on Terror, I use post- colonial and transnational feminist theories as the theoretical framework for analysis and discussion. These theories are helpful not just in framing the conversation around knowledge production for my thesis but they are useful for exploring how organic grassroots women’s movements such as G@D in the Global South are read and perceived by Western feminists and the ensuing discussions on agency and oppression as they are tacked onto these women. Being a small part of scholarship that is actively engaged in reclaiming the narrative of feminism as something that was neither birthed nor perfected in North America or in a Women’s Studies classroom is a central motivator for me to write this thesis. Authors like Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Uma Narayan, Saba Mahmood, Moon Charania and Richa Nagar have written extensively on the Muslim or South Asian woman, exploring her epistemic position as a colonized body and the resultant framing of knowledge. These authors and their critiques have given me a vocabulary to talk about these issues and this thesis is the outcome of my engagement with these conversations around Pakistani women. Their discussions around ideas of agency and empowerment of Pakistani women are central to this thesis which explores and frames feminist activism around public spaces in Pakistan as they operate within and attempt to resist global neo-liberal capitalist structures. The choice of using Post-Colonial and transnational theory to frame my analysis also comes from my positionality as a Pakistani or a third-world feminist which is often synonymous with being an outsider to the western centric setting of a Women’s Studies Department in a North American university. Theories addressing the post-colonial and the

37 transnational have been my refuge in this context, threads helping me make sense of power structures and lived oppressions from the location of an international student hailing from the third-world. Theories which confront and critique the inbuilt privilege of my specific position in the academy are not only relevant but necessary in filling in the fissures that have invariably come to exist in and define the scholarship produced on women in the Global South and more specifically in South Asia in the past from this position. Sandra Harding states that “discourses oppositional to the dominant ones can arise as marginalized groups begin to articulate their histories, needs, and desires “for themselves” instead of only in the ways encouraged by “their masters’” favored conceptual framework” (445-6). Increasingly there has been a push to address the limitations of the academy in recognizing and representing the experiences of third-world women.

RESEARCH TOOLS For the purpose of this research I employed two main research tools to allow me to better access and represent G@D’s work and political leanings. While I rely primarily on my interviews in the thesis, I also selected Facebook posts of G@D for textual analysis. Since the group does extensive work on the internet and relies heavily on its various social media platforms to engage with their followers on issues of public spaces these Facebook posts offer deeper insight into engagement with public spaces as well as their feminist politics. My thesis constitutes feminist research because it draws heavily from feminist theories and the foundational works of feminist theorists. The research methods I used were modeled on feminist principles of conducting research and creating knowledge (Hesse- Biber). Hesse-Biber talks about the value of feminist research methods and especially interviewing as an important way of “uncovering subjugated knowledge of the diversity of women’s realities that often lie hidden and unarticulated” (184). I conducted semi-structured interviews with Five core members of G@D, as identified by Sarah including her. These interviews were semi-structured, keeping the focus of the research questions in mind. However, opportunities were provided for interviewees to interject and bring their own direction to the interview as well (Hesse-Biber 186). Each of these interviews lasted between an hour and two hours and some were conducted in multiple sittings. I also had a few follow up conversations with Sarah, to clarify and confirm a few details that came up during these

38 interviews, as well afterwards to ensure that I had gathered key details accurately. All interviews were conducted on Skype instead of in-person due to a limitation of funding and were recorded on my phone. The recordings and transcriptions were secured in password protected files on my laptop. I included G@D’s online content because their online activism is a central part of their activism. I chose to focus just on their Facebook page because that is their central platform around which they have built their activism. I chose five posts from their Facebook page to assess what content is shared and put out by the G@D members. I looked at some of their ‘original’ posts over a time period ranging from March 2016 to April 2018. More specifically these statuses written by the G@D members themselves that captured and elaborated on the experience of these girls and genderqueer individuals navigating public spaces and interacting with foreign media outfits. By the term original, I refer to Facebook posts that were created and/or written out for the Facebook audiences of G@D. Original posts here do not refer to content that has been shared and created by other pages and groups, which may reflect the politics/stance of G@D and was shared on their Facebook page, but was not created or posted by them first. I used textual analysis to study the emerging common themes and concerns that were raised or encountered by G@D members in these original Facebook posts. These posts allowed me to substantiate the claims that I made about G@D and their work and allowed me a closer look at certain moments in which G@D members made detailed accounts and reflections on their engagement with public spaces and interactions with other individuals with whom these members shared those spaces.

MY STANDPOINT AND MOTIVATIONS I was invited to join the collective as a member presumably because I am a feminist hailing from the middle-class and Sarah thought I could contribute towards the group’s ideological development. I have been a part of the group since its earlier days and have been privy to their in-group online discussions around their feminist priorities, politics, their agenda-setting and also how they operate and confront issues. I have played a minor role in shaping their agenda and politics over the last couple of years, however I left the country to complete my graduate degree in the United States and considering the physical and hands-on work that activism around public spaces demands, I have not been an active and a physically

39 present member. My current positionality, as a feminist academic, trained in a North American university gave me outsider status in the group. However my insights into the working of the group and my established relationships with some of the members helped me in formulating the research questions and directed my focus towards their priorities and critiques. These G@D members may have identified me as an insider to the group in their interviews. This trust allowed me to have frank conversations about their politics. My respective standpoints as a feminist and a Muslim and Pakistani graduate student in the United States, coming from a middle-class background, an activist and a member of G@D situated me both as an insider and an outsider to this conversation and at the same time allowed me access to “surprising epistemological resources created by the positional “powers of the weak” (Harding 444). When Sarah started G@D, it was met with ridicule and indignation by friends, acquaintances and Facebook commentators. The work of G@D was criticized by many of G@D’s Facebook followers, male and female, G@D’s critics and even some veteran Pakistan feminists for being unnecessary and unimportant compared to other pressing women’s issues such as violence, rape, and honor killings. This argument of what constitutes an authentically ‘women’s issue’ is one that finds its way into most conversations that I have had in Pakistan as a feminist. The constructed binary of the East and West plays out regularly and in very concrete ways for women in these conversations, who are expected to choose between their local culture, identity and norms or a ‘western’ based movement such as feminism. There is little to no ownership or recognition of Pakistani feminists by the education systems, popular media, and news media and an acceptance of the many local women’s movements and their role in fighting for women’s rights in the country. So when I chose to research on G@D’s activism around public space, a central motivator was for me to capture this in-between space that women often find themselves in, in a country like Pakistan which continues to be wary and suspicious of all things deemed ‘western’ which in this case refers to feminism as a political movement. As someone who finds herself neatly caught in that space myself many a time, I am using the specific position of these women at G@D to capture the dilemma of being a Pakistani feminist often accused of being conspirators with the ‘west’ while having the words ‘oppressed’ and ‘backward’ inscribed onto our bodies and work by feminists in the global North. My aim is to unpack the

40 nuances of the work that G@D does, given their precarious position, as they are often accused of being complicit in ‘elite and exclusive feminism’ while consciously fighting to take control over the way their narrative is told by foreign sources.

THE INTERVIEWEES I interviewed five core members of G@D, members who have been part of G@D since its early days and had contributed significantly in shaping its politics and who had accumulated significant experience mobilizing as part of the group over the past three years. I used these interviews to explore their experiences as feminist activists as well as their lived and gendered experiences of inhabiting the streets of their respective cities. In discussion with them I investigated how they view the issue of restricted access to public space in the context of urban Pakistan and the feminist ideologies that have come to inform their activism. I have used pseudonyms for each of the members of G@D in compliance with the restrictions imposed on me by the committee in charge of ethical review at San Diego State University (SDSU) known as the Institutional Review Board (IRB) which disallows me from revealing their identities in order to minimize any risk or harm that is associated with the work they do. Sarah is the founder of G@D. She started G@D in Karachi, soon after completing her undergraduate degree from the US. She is an atheist, is able-bodied and hails from a middle class background. Sarah is a writer by profession and has been writing for various magazines and newspapers across the country, mostly related to gender issues. Sarah identifies as genderqueer and nonbinary and has been exploring her identity more as of the last few years, which has been reflected in the overall shift of gender inclusive language that G@D has increasingly begun to employ on its social media accounts. Asra is currently a student living in London to complete her graduate degree. Asra is an able-bodied, Muslim, cis-woman who was part of the Karachi chapter of G@D until mid 2017 before she moved away from Pakistan. She was a teacher at a private school in Karachi. She joined G@D early on after it was created and has played an integral role in shaping the politics of G@D and representing it on various forums including panels and dialogues. Zeenat is an integral part of the G@D Islamabad chapter. She is an able-bodied, Muslim, cis-woman who is connected with various activist groups and collectives apart from

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G@D. She is a lawyer by training but is professionally involved in the development sector. Her participation in other groups includes membership of a prominent feminist organisation, as well as a political party for working class men and women across urban and rural Pakistan. Although she identifies G@D as a central base where she can bring together various intersecting issues to work on them, she is very critical of G@D’s inability to resonate with working classes. Mahjabeen, also from Islamabad, shares this critique of G@D. She is an able-bodied, Muslim cis-woman and one of the oldest members of the group. She completed her undergraduate degree from the same college as Sarah in the US and now works in the development sector for a well known international donor agency. Mahjabeen has been managing most of the events for G@D Islamabad chapter. She is involved in formal standup comedy in a part time role as a way to engage with and present her feminist politics. Yumna is one of the key members of G@D, the Lahore chapter who manages most of the event planning for G@D in the city along with other members. She completed her undergraduate degree from a university in Lahore. She is an up and coming poet and spoken word artist with a significant personal social media presence and following. She also teaches English at a private school as her secondary job. These interviews were conducted bilingually, mainly in English with occasional punctuation of sentences and sayings in . The quotes that appear in my thesis have been inserted directly as spoken in English, but some had to be translated from Urdu to their closest meaning by me, in order to retain some of its original context and to be accessible for my audience which is predominantly English speaking.

LIMITATIONS While there are many and varied readings of the nature and activism of G@D, and my thesis is inevitably imposing one such reading on the work and activism of the group, my thesis was designed to be a small project in giving them the power to define and narrate their own work and experiences. It is a crucial means of empowerment and agency that the group has in some ways been deprived of. Therefore, there is the unfortunate irony in undertaking a research project to define, empower and highlight the work of this collective and be unable to name the actors and activists that constitute G@D. While the thesis still reflects and retains

42 some of their concerns and is framed by my analysis, the purpose of this project is only partially realized if institutional barriers, foreign to their context and work, dictate the limitations within which this research is conducted and presented. For example, I was deterred from eliciting detailed personal information and identifiable data from my interviewees by the IRB. This hindered my ability to fully explore how they negotiated public spaces given their various specific gendered, religious, ethnic, physically readable identities. I was also unable to interview some of the more central and older members of G@D that I had reached out to because of the various projects they were engaged in which would have added more depth and nuance to the discussions I present in the following chapters. My thesis is only partially complete in the absence of these crucial voices. While G@D members have amassed important experiences and had a lot of valuable insights to contribute to my research, they are still a younger collective, around three years old. Therefore I believe I could have benefited greatly from interviewing members of this collective a few years down the line, when they have accumulated more experiences and are able to offer me more seasoned perspectives into their own work as well as the context they operate in.

RESEARCH REFLECTIONS The interviews I undertook with the five main members of the G@D reflect the thoughts, opinions and musings of each G@D member that I spoke to and are not strictly reflective of the beliefs of the group as a whole. These interviews allowed me to look at the internal conflicts, competing narratives, continuing conversations and disagreements that these individuals have been grappling with over the course of their work. They reflect their own journeys of growth, as well as differentiated experiences of inhabiting those same spaces that ultimately affect how these ideas came to be formed and negotiated within the group. This project was modeled as much on feminist activist research as allowed given the limitations of a master’s thesis project. I was motivated to work collaboratively with G@D, acknowledging their expertise and insights into an issue they navigate regularly. I greatly appreciate Richa Nagar’s model of collaboration with fieldworkers in India. In their collective writings in Playing with Fire, Nagar, a professor based in the US, worked closely

43 with Dalit, low caste and Muslim activists and fieldworkers from an NGO in India to document and explore the lived realities and struggles of these women (Sangtin Writers and Nagar). I value the radical act of creating knowledge in conversation with and as voiced by the activists themselves. While I am unable to accommodate the voices of many G@D members or compensate them for their efforts, I do maintain that their active role and contribution towards the research topic are invaluable. Their insights on the matters of contemporary feminist conversations in Pakistan were invaluable and I am deeply indebted to the various members of the group for trusting me with their professional as well as personal information which was used to construct the structure of the thesis even if not overtly mentioned. As a researcher it is important for me to verbalize my disappointment in the necessary process of academic knowledge production which disallowed me from actively collaborating with G@D for the production of this academic piece. Being credited for this thesis in name is their due right given their expertise and practical daily experiences in battling patriarchal and racist norms surrounding their feminist activism in public spaces in Pakistan. I recognize the insistence by Swarr and Nagar’s that, “all academic production is necessarily collaborative, notwithstanding the individualized manner in which authorship is claimed and assigned and celebrity granted to academics as isolated knowledge producers” (1). Western academia, within which these authors and I operate and produce these knowledges, is set up with certain constraints and limitations. It is a colonized structure itself designed to monopolize what constitutes knowledge and knower (Swarr and Nagar; Tuck and Yang; Alexander and Mohanty; Smith). I would have been unable to realize this project of reclaiming feminist activism in a post-colonial country without the help of G@D.

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CHAPTER 4

ANSWERING THE QUESTION, WHY LOITER: FRAMING GIRLS AT DHABAS, THEIR ACTIVISM AND FEMINIST PRAXIS

As I reflect on my relationships with cities and their spaces, and on the relationship of the G@D with these spaces, I tease the connections back to Karachi. Navigating my data and interviews and processing my own relationship with public spaces, I realize that everything about this research, including my own affinity and what drew me to it, is about Karachi. The city is central to this thesis not just because I am talking about its spaces and the radical potential for inclusion and change of those spaces; Karachi is central because it’s tightly woven into each aspect of the conversations and the narratives that my thesis talks about. Even when I’m interviewing members of G@D from Lahore and Islamabad, it’s still about Karachi. It’s about how these cities compare and contrast to Karachi, the only city I pretend to know intimately. This sprawling city by the sea, boasts a population of over 20 million people today withstanding many waves of migration and regional traumas (Gazdar). My own story is neatly tied in with this city, my grandparents being one of the later arrivals to Karachi after the partition, in the early 1950’s. My grandfather was one of the earliest town-planners of Karachi trying to impose some sort of order over spaces that seem to have developed of their own accord over the years. The city has hosted many ethnic groups like my own, refugees and migrants from various local and international crises such as floods, displacement, military operations and refugees from multiple invasions of Afghanistan. It has weathered colonial occupation, reflected in the street names and the Victorian style architecture that differentiate the older parts of the city from the newer ones. More recently it has experienced a spate of terrorist attacks targeting civilians and military personnel, as retaliation for

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Pakistan’s participation and willing support for US military invasion in Afghanistan in the War on Terror. Citywide shut downs and ethnic clashes make intermittent interruptions to daily life in Karachi as various ethnic groups fight to make and retain their control over the resources of the city. Food and literature festivals also have a similar effect on the city, the traffic jams bringing sections of the city to a grinding halt. The city has exploded over the years, growing south into the coastline, even reclaiming a part of it, as it continues to expand. Karachi and Lahore, today, look like many urban centers in post-colonial and developing countries: semi-planned and metropolitan hubs with slum dwellers and starkly classed neighborhoods. Both cities draw migrants from rural and less developed parts of Sindh and Punjab. Islamabad, the capital, has the highest cost of living in Pakistan and is more inhospitable for local migrants and generally the working classes. Home base for the development sector, foreign embassies and ambassadors, Islamabad is as a city built to accommodate Pakistan’s elite. Planned deliberately and carefully, the well-defined and orderly neighborhoods stand out in sharp contrast to Lahore and Karachi. G@D members from Islamabad, Zeenat and Mahjabeen, sketch a picture, in their interviews, of greater women’s participation in public spaces in Islamabad as compared to a metropolitan city like Lahore. Upper and middle class women are a greater part of the cityscape of Islamabad where fewer working class men crowd the streets. Classed and expensive transportation systems make the city generally unfriendly to the working class men and women. However even as Islamabad is marginally more inclusive of upper and middle class women, the issue of gendered and limited public spaces still persists as cafes, restaurants, malls are preferred recreational spots over dhabas or parks. Shilpa Phadke et al. talks about ‘global cities’ such as Mumbai being inducted into a neo-liberal urban order in which citizenship is conditioned upon affordability, respectability and the status quo. Public spaces such as parks, bazaars, waterfronts in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad are increasingly being classed and privatized catering to these ideals of ‘citizens’, which are premised upon certain racial, religious, gendered and classed ideals. Predominantly favoring Sunni-Muslim upper class men, notions about the ideal subject to whom the city structures and caters its spaces differ racially and ethnically from city to city in Pakistan. Cities in Pakistan are witnessing increasing privatization of public spaces. Air- conditioned malls are replacing the bazaars. Coffee shops with glass windows allow

46 consumers a glimpse of city life, giving the impression of interacting with the city without having to experience the pollution, noise or the city itself. By paying a sum to rent a beach house, many residents of Karachi can experience the Arabian Sea away from the crowds. Many of these coffee shops, malls and gated communities are patrolled by private security guard companies which have mushroomed in order to cater to this growing demand for private security that keeps the poor and the beggars out of these spaces ensuring that upper and middle class consumers get the experience of being out in public without having to interact with the uncomfortable realities of it (Ayub). I will be using this chapter to situate and contextualize the lived experiences of G@D and frame their activism. I will explore the various key parts of the puzzle that help explain and understand the work and activism of G@D as well as the context in which they operate and the radical changes they envision in their daily acts of resistance. I will be using the work of Shilpa Phadke and her coauthors Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade and their book Why Loiter: Women and Risk in the Streets of Mumbai to frame G@D’s work. Why Loiter heavily informs the activism and work of G@D. Their feminist politics and understandings of public spaces is rooted in the work of Shilpa Phadke and her co-authors. Since its inception various members of G@D have collaborated with Shilpa Phadke on projects and online campaigns.

ISLAM, HONOR AND RESPECTABILITY POLITICS IN PAKISTAN Ideals of honor and izzat9 control and pervade women’s identities and status in South Asia, particularly Pakistan. Familial and communal honor is rooted in the chastity of young girls and women in the family. “It is thought that the preservation of a woman’s chastity and fidelity, through segregation and control, is the responsibility of the men to whom she belongs” (Patel and Gadit 689). By reducing women’s bodies and their worth to familial, communal, tribal10 and even state honor, men, women and communities are encouraged to

9 Izzat, an urdu word, is most commonly used to denote honor. 10 Where applicable. Tribal laws and settings exist in certain parts of Pakistan, more commonly in

47 police women’s social and public activities, which ultimately restricts women’s agency and sense of self. Girls from a young age are made aware of these understood and accepted codes of honor, such as to avoid interactions with strange men, being alone or without a stated purpose in public with strange men, to dress and behave according to the accepted dress code which may differ in nature and strictness along religious, class, ethnic and caste lines. Young girls are thus encouraged to be mindful of these strict codes of honor when interacting with strange men or when in public places and “respectability is fundamentally defined by the public and private spaces” (Phadke et al. 24). Many women who do step out to go to the marketplace, schools, work are encouraged to cover themselves and dress modestly, which often includes the headscarf or the face veil. Thus, there is a pervasive idea of honor that lies at the centre of women’s interactions not just with public spaces, but also with individuals and actors on the street. These codes of honor are enforced more strictly in public spaces where women’s bodies are policed and infantilized in different ways ranging from cat calls, stares, and a subtle but underlying threat of violence and assault. The ultimate physical threat which governs women’s behavior and relationships with men is the threat of honor killing if women are caught or linked to dishonorable acts such engaging in relations with men outside of wedlock (Patel and Gadit). While these cases are rare and punishable by law, circulating conversations around women’s role and honor create space and tolerance for vigilante punishments such as honor killings. After the famous honor killing case of celebrity Qandeel Baloch in 2016, conversation criticizing and raising awareness around issues of honor and izzat were restarted by Pakistani celebrities and activists, highlighted by foreign media and finally noted by politicians and key changes were made to laws closing loopholes allowing killers (often male relatives) to go free (BBC). Religion represents a crucial front which affects women’s access to public spaces. Apart from dictating norms around public space access for women, it is a significant barrier

Balochistan, Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) and (KPK).

48 in talking about issues of public space access for women in Pakistan. It was under Zia-ul- Haq’s dictatorial regime that conservative Islamic rulings were brought into the realm of law and formal policy such as establishing a ‘modest’ dress code for female students and teachers at schools and colleges or female employees working at state institutions or enforcing gender segregation at state institutions and events. Many formal policies and informal agendas around modesty, propriety and religiosity were pushed onto women’s bodies and lives such as tacit and overt encouragements towards women staying at home, “State broadcast media extolled the virtues of the good self-sacrificing woman, ... and blamed ‘other’ publicly visible women (particularly working women) for the disintegration of the family, of moral rectitude and values as well as for corruption and other social ills. An entire generation imbibed propaganda that women’s only place was in the home” (Shaheed, “Contested Identities” 859). These laws and policies, removed almost three decades ago, shortly after the abrupt end of Zia’s regime, have taken hold of the social fabric of the country, particularly urban areas. Today these norms continue to affect how women’s participation in the public sphere is seen and have effectively influenced overarching narratives around women’s role in the family as homemakers and caretakers and especially around ideas of honor and izzat around women. Members of G@D are well acquainted with these myths of honor and respectability and how these circulating narratives are used to restrict women’s public space access. They encounter these myths both in their personal lives also face these conversations on their social media accounts. The conversations and comments on their Facebook posts as well as in their events people often accuse them of misleading women or encouraging women to indulge in ‘dishonorable’ behavior such as mingle with men at dhabas. Yumna reports one such instance from a dialogue event that G@D hosted in a local park in Lahore. She states that a lot of students, mostly women had turned up to participate in the dialogue on public spaces when an old man, who was jogging in the park, decided to join them for the conversation. After hearing the ongoing conversation around harassment Yumna says “he decided to join the conversation. The man started slut shaming all the girls, telling us that if women would just covered up we wouldn’t have to talk about harassment because there would be no harassment, essentially placing the blame on us.” This incident reflects a common thread of conversation that comes up around women’s participation in public spaces and issues of harassment. This narrative places the onus of protection and self-preservation

49 on the woman and makes it her responsibility instead of the perpetrators, bystanders or the state. In her personal life as well, Sarah confronts these constructs of izzat and propriety of behavior in public. She talks about being told to cover up and dress appropriately when she is stepping out. She says there is a very complicated conflation of Islamic and cultural norms which come together to dictate patriarchal conditions of ‘respectability’ and honor. She finds that over the past decade she is increasingly running into the suggestion to cover up, especially from her family but even from strangers in the streets or when she is sitting at a dhaba. “I feel like Islam and religion factor in much more vocally in our restrictions than it did when we were children. There is a palpable shift in how much more it is used to police, prohibit and restrict our movement in public space and otherwise.” When Asra joined the collective, she says that she didn’t tell her family for months that she was setting up and attending events at dhabas regularly. “I knew that my parents would disapprove of my activism and they did. My mom’s disapproval came out of a security concern for me and my well being while my father was worried about respect and izzat.” Sarah, who sees a very complicated relationship between culture and , reports that often people who have cultural concerns about women’s participation in the public sphere will use the language of Islam to voice their concerns. “When I’m speaking at universities and school settings, I often have typically a man from the audience stand up and criticize our work citing some verse from the Quran and typically this also starts a conversations amongst Muslim women in the audience who provide alternative verses or interpretations or readings of those verses.” Most G@D members are uncomfortable directly addressing Islam in their work and activism. They feel under confident in approaching these conversations in person or on the group because of their limited knowledge of Islam and in certain cases the fear of being labeled as blasphemous which is a punishable offense in Pakistan. Mahjabeen identifies that discussions around women’s role in Islam signal a “shut down” point in any conversation. She does not feel comfortable or safe in criticizing or even opposing someone’s religious views in public.

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DHABA AS A SITE OF RADICAL POSSIBILITIES What is it about the bare bones of infrastructure that gives dhabas a central position in the activism of G@D? As mentioned in the introduction, Dhabas are small-scale structures (using the word structure loosely) that can be found across cities, villages and highways in South Asia. Dhabas have an institutional recognition in the region, their primary purpose being to serve tea at cheap rates to consumers made possible since they do not incur the kind of overhead that cafes and coffee shops do. A basic dhaba, and the ones most commonly found in cities, is likely to be a small-scale infrastructural set up including a stove, equipment to heat and serve tea in, with chairs and tables set up on a nearby sidewalk. Having the basic equipment to make and serve tea in a sheltered place lends to the ubiquity and ease of access to dhabas across cities and countries in South Asia. Dhabas offer unique possibilities of interactions that many other public places such as parks or waterfronts do not. Young men and old, blue and white collar workers, the unemployed and homeless are seen mingling and spending their tea breaks and days playing, chatting, smoking pot or just lounging at dhabas. If the dhaba is a more established one, they offer family rooms for women and families to have chai, in enclosed and therefore ‘respectable’ settings, though women rarely linger on after finishing their food or tea and do not utilize those spaces in the same ways that men do. This mode of using dhabas as free and ‘public’ spaces, of inhabiting the space well after the purchased cup of chai has been consumed distinguishes them from coffee shops and most capitalist structures in Pakistan where there is an implicit expectation of continued payment to use a space. The physical structuring of dhabas (or lack thereof) creates opportunities for interactions with public spaces and cities in ways that more capitalist and urban structures such as coffee shops do not permit. This is one of the main reasons why dhabas have been selected as a site of resistance for middle and upper class women and queer activists at G@D. For upper and middle class women who have reduced interactions with public spaces because of access to private modes of transportation, loitering at a typical roadside dhaba then calls into question all sorts of capitalist and patriarchal assumptions about respectability, honor, productivity and gender roles and expectations attached to them (Phadke et al.). Dhabas offer some women a

51 recreational space allowing them a rare opportunity to interact and develop a relationship with their cities. Coffee shops operate exclusively as capitalist structures modeled both physically and operationally to exclude the marginalized communities such as the working classes, beggars, non-normative and disabled bodies in South Asian urban centers. In comparison to coffee shops, most dhabas are positioned structurally and discursively, in ways that subvert capitalist business models. Phadke et al. assert that at dhabas “[I]f a beverage is being consumed, it is likely to be unbranded, roadside [...] chai” (186). Furthermore, dhabas lack formal boundaries and walls, bleeding into the city. There are no armed security guards stationed at the entrance of dhabas restricting access to these places as with most coffee shops and stores in Karachi and other cities in Pakistan. The lower cost of tea and food ensure that dhabas are more inviting and inclusive spaces and allows dhabas to cater a wider variety of groups, especially the working classes. However as Tim Cresswell asserts in his book In Place/Out of Place, the structure of spaces invites certain types of behaviors and groups which are considered ‘appropriate’ and in accordance with the perceived ‘nature’ of the place. Thus if we apply that analysis to dhabas it is important to note that just by virtue of being unguarded and unrestrained spaces, dhabas do not ensure inclusivity and access, rather it puts them in the realm of public space. Public spaces like other ‘places’ are created by and extensions of dominant ideology, as Cresswell asserts and ideology is powerful enough to put geography and place into the realm of the ‘natural’ (161). So for example which demographic gets unconditional access to public spaces like dhabas is determined by dominant hetero-patriarchal ideology and ideals of ‘citizenship’. He states that “value and meaning are not inherent in any space or place— indeed they must be created, reproduced, and defended from heresy” (9). Therefore, cultural norms and associations mapped onto dhabas define them as predominantly male spaces and conditioned upon racialized and gendered ideals of ‘citizenship’.

CREATING THE OTHER: HOW RACE AND CLASS INTERSECT TO DEFINE THE ‘OTHER’ One of the most common criticisms leveled at G@D is their treatment of the working and lower classes. Ranging from the exclusion of working class women from the movement

52 that is G@D, to occupying and usurping the spaces that are seen as belonging to working class men (such as dhabas), G@D have consistently had to justify and clarify their objectives in order to establish validity as activists. In my interviews, this assessment was accepted as a partly valid claim (even if not strong enough to invalidate their work completely) and one that each of the members was conscious of in their work. This affected how they approached their events and their activism in small ways e.g. the members were very self conscious of their use of English so they talked about practicing phrases and slogans in Urdu before protests or pre writing speeches and definitions and keywords in Urdu in an effort to be understood by more people. Sarah informs me of a relatively newer but an active member at G@D who has refused to participate in the annual bike rally hosted in April, 2018 because of the classist and exclusive nature of the event - it doesn’t interest or cater to working class women. As we speak, Sarah mulls over the idea of doing a conversation with that member on live video in order to air out their grievances, as well as present a counter narrative to those grievances which are inevitably shared by many of G@D’s followers and critics alike. This process of negotiating with each other and the critique on this issue of class exclusion is an ongoing one and one of which they are hyper aware. Where G@D is accused of disturbing the spaces of lower and working class men in Pakistan, they have developed a conscious understanding and awareness of the dynamics of race, class and gender and how their intersections play out in these spaces. As visibly upper class women individuals at dhabas, they are aware of how their identities can and have been deployed to discriminate against working class men at these dhabas. In their book Why Loiter, Phadke et al. assert that “[b]y creating the image of certain men as perpetrators of violence against women, women’s access to public spaces is further controlled and circumscribed and acquires unquestionable rationality” (19). The authors have explored the identity of the supposed perpetrators in the context of Mumbai, the intersecting identities of working class, lower caste or Muslim and male to construct the ever looming threat of sexual violence by these perpetrators. These identities reflect the most marginalized in the context of Mumbai. In Pakistan lower and working class men, from most marginalized ethnic and religious identities are deployed in similar ways to control women’s movement. The specter of the sexual predator is built on this ideal of the ‘other’, and lower and working class men are seen as being predatory by default. This circulating narrative which demonizes working

53 class men such as rickshaw drivers, mazdoors, dhaba owners and those who sit at these dhabas, represents another crucial threat that women need protecting from. The potential threat of sexual assault from these men is used to restrict women’s movements outside of the home. “This narrative is problematic because it pushes the idea that the real danger is outside of our home.” It skews the narratives around violence against women. “There is the otherization of the ‘poor men’ who are ‘outside’ and there can be no threat that comes from the inside the home when we know that domestic violence is a very real phenomena in our houses and families.” By creating and pushing the specter of Stranger Danger for women on the streets or outside in public, the conversation around women’s safety and well being is effectively misdirected from the dangers and restrictions women face at home, including domestic abuse, marital rape and violence, “The idea that women must stay inside to be protected is false - it’s not that if women stay inside they will not be hurt, it is that they will be hurt by someone of their own class” which is an acceptable solution to many women and men and that is the notion that G@D wants to disrupt. G@D has criticized this demonization of working class men on their page and consistently addresses these issues as they come up. In September of 2016, G@D released a statement criticizing a video made along themes of women’s empowerment, linking it to claiming public spaces. The video begins with a young woman shuffling along in a in a crowded street in Lahore wary of the stares of the shopkeepers, hawkers and men on the street. When a man (planted by the production team) catcalls this woman, she throws off her burqa, launches into a dance sequence to Beyonce’s “Run The World” and is joined by other female actors as it turns into a flash mob. The men who collect around to record and witness this flash mob (definitely not an incident common in the streets of Lahore) in the background are meant to signal and represent one of the greatest obstacles in access to public spaces in urban sites in Pakistan. The video concludes with the tagline “Do your own thing”. This video aptly illustrates how the image of the working class man in the streets is created and deployed in opposition to the innocence and purity of women which must be protected at all costs. The statement released by G@D analyses and debunks these myths as they are used and perpetuated to control women’s movements in public and requests women to be wary of these warnings that we consistently get from the people around us. The

54 constructs of honor and how they are used to limit our mobility by our brothers and fathers and mothers are more liable for blame in these moments than the men in the streets. G@D defines an alternate vision of claiming public spaces, the one they envision and practice in their work “Our idea of women in public spaces needs be rooted in claiming / sharing / co- existing in public spaces, instead of in consuming public spaces from another social group. We need to re-imagine our public spaces to welcome all identities. Spaces where all genders can interact and exist across class and religious boundaries” (Girls at Dhabas, “Our Thoughts”).

QUEERING PUBLIC SPACE In the quest to subvert and challenge normative readings of dhabas and public spaces, G@D open up possibilities of access to other groups. By underpinning their activism with class and gender sensitive values they lend their efforts towards the creation of a radical platform via their social media as well as a hands-on reclaiming of spaces. In this section I define the act of ‘queering’ not just to include sexual and gender minorities but to the inclusion of other non-normative bodies in public spaces which are excluded, ogled at, harassed or violated in public. “Queer” can be defined elastically to include sensibilities other than the normative with a propensity towards, but not exclusive of, the homoerotic. “Queer” is therefore a liberating rubric encompassing multiple sensibilities” (Ingram et al. 19). This concept of queering is useful to employ here for me because it serves as a crucial lens through which to read and explore the nature of the activism of G@D. In the case of G@D queering public space works on two levels: The metaphorical normalizing of the bodies ‘queer’ to public space, as well as normalizing the literal queer body in public space. The theme of being treated and viewed as ‘foreign’ and out of place in public spaces is a strong one that emerges out of my interviews. Yumna describes reactions to the bicycle rallies she organizes in Lahore “it does turn a lot of heads.” Similarly, Mahjabeen talks about the reactions her events generally elicit, especially in Lahore. In bike rallies and other dhaba events that she has been a part of in Lahore she says “people look at us like we’re alien creatures.” This idea of being an alien in/to public spaces questions gets at how these women are not a mundane or normative part of the scenery in public spaces or dhabas. They are a ‘spectacle’ to be marveled and ogled at as Asra highlights in a Facebook

55 post (Girls at Dhabas, 25 Jan.). Their presence in the streets is an alien phenomenon, queer by virtue of its strangeness. These interactions with public spaces and people’s expectations perform the function of queering and changing these spaces. They challenge and push against normative conceptions attached to them. While I employ ‘queering’ as a lens to study the work of G@D, it is important to note that this term itself is largely absent from the vernacular used in the context of Pakistan to refer to gender non-conforming individuals. A varied idea of gender nonconformity is largely absent from cultural beliefs around trans-ness as transwomen, more preferably referred to as khawajasirahs, continue to dominate cultural narratives around trans individuals and identities. Historically in South Asia, there is a rich history and various labels ascribed to ‘gender ambiguity’ and these cultural identities ascribed to gender non conforming individuals has mutated and changed historically as the region underwent stark political and social changes through time including colonial and religious interventions. However in the present day governance of Pakistan there is legal recognition extended to both trans men and women, giving them the option to be identified under these binary identities on their identity cards as well as those who belong to the intersex community (Khan 48). Culturally erased altogether are sexually nonconforming identities such as gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual identities. More importantly homosexual activity is punishable by laws codified and categorized under British Colonial occupation of South Asia and continues to marginalize and erase these communities with the threat of strict penalties (Khan 47). Sarah, one of the few genderqueer members of G@D, inhabits the streets on occasion differently from other members of G@D who are visibly female. As a non-normative and difficult to read body, Sarah says her identity on the streets elicits confusion especially when she presents as genderqueer. “Confusing people is a lot of fun for me because it kind of makes them wonder at… how their treatment of me would change?” She talks about that moment in which her identity shifts in people’s minds when she’s in public, their confusion and embarrassment and how people’s attitudes change drastically when they realize the person they are talking to isn’t a boy at all. This tactic in confusing in order to expand on normative expectations of her body and therefore gender can be read as disidentification as defined by José Esteban Muñoz. Disidentification is “a performative mode of tactical recognition that various minoritarian subjects employ in an effort to resist the oppressive and

56 normalizing discourse of dominant ideology” (Muñoz 97). Sarah talks about intentionally queering her body to get people to question their own assumptions and reflect on their own reactions to her. “There are days where I choose to present more queer in public. My hair is short, and I’ll pair it with jhumkas11 - very actively thinking how I will be read because I think it pushes the boundary of what people think a female body looks like. I want people to tug at that box of female - and at some point realize there isn’t a box!” Sarah relies on the tactic of confusion and uncertainty and uses it as a means of situating herself outside “the binary of identification and counteridentification” (Muñoz 97). Sarah notes that her experience of being on the streets when her body is read as a girl’s is equally as unnerving as when she presents as genderqueer i.e. she is met with stares. “The only time I am left alone or feel like I’m in a safe bubble is when I present very much like a man.” She is quick to add that another thing that never happens when she is read as a boy is that she is never confused for a sex worker. When she is alone and unaccompanied on the streets, she has been propositioned and mistaken for a sex worker. Sarah reflects in a post on Facebook from April 1st 2017, on an encounter at a dhaba when she was approached by two men as a sex worker. The post has a reach of almost 30,000 with more than 550 likes on Facebook. It examines the various moving pieces of that moment in which her body was read as being accessible for sex by two well dressed and educated boys driving past. “What is it about the shape of [a girl’s] body under the sky that makes her different from all the other shapes of all the other male bodies in the same street?” (Girls at Dhabas, 1 Apr. 2017). She wonders if it is her attire (a sleeveless top) that was read as signaling to the boys that she was selling sex or whether it was sharing a cup of chai and conversation at a dhaba with a friend who happens to be an older working class man. The underlying assumption behind that being respectable upper class women would never willingly or respectfully share space and engage with a working class man.

11 Chandelier earrings

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The post narrates the exchange between the boys and Sarah. It ends with them telling her to ‘calm her language’ in response to her telling them to “get the fuck out of [her] sight”. She explores how class politics is enmeshed with patriarchal narratives of public spaces, if a woman is on the streets without a clear purpose or destination in sight she must be a sex worker i.e. not a respectable or honorable woman. She dissects class politics and how it creates upper class men as respectable men and working classes as lacking these qualities and sensibilities. “They weren’t – as women are repeatedly warned – some street hawker, some guy on a motorbike, some rickshaw-wala12 looking for the first opportunity to whisk me away and either harm me or fuck me. No, these were two ‘respectable, educated’ boys” (Girls at Dhabas, 1 Apr. 2017). The use of quotes around the words respectable and educated denotes Sarah’s cynicism and critique around ideas of respectability and how they are constructed and deployed to favor upper class men. She uses this post to question, not just popular conception of women’s participation in public spaces but also the participation of lower and working class men. Working class men are constructed as criminal as I illustrate in my section on how racial and class identities are deployed to demonize working class men. They are seen as being more prone to and sexism due to their lack of formal education. On the other hand, presenting as a man allows Sarah unchecked passage into the streets of Karachi. These interactions with public spaces and the various actors in those spaces, who read and respond to women’s and gender non-conforming bodies, have the potential to queer normative understandings of public spaces. Sarah and other women who push against these definitions of the ‘normal’ in these spaces create possibilities for multiple bodies to co-exist in public spaces without their worth, motives and “respectability” being questioned.

12 Rickshaw driver

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NEGOTIATING THE FEMINIST IDENTITY IN A POST-COLONIAL STATE The members of G@D are precariously positioned as ‘feminists’ in a postcolonial and Muslim country, often accused of being ‘Western’ by some in Pakistan while at the same time being read as ‘oppressed’ and disempowered by feminists in the Global North. They occupy this in between space, often having to justify and reaffirm their groundedness in the ‘local’, while simultaneously having to fight to take control over how their narrative is told and retold by foreign news media sources which perpetuate colonial tropes of oppressed brown bodies endangering their lives to ‘liberate’ women in a barbaric and uncivilized place. Advocating for women’s issues while cautiously avoiding being read as ‘western’ and confronting or pushing back against the reading of ‘feminism’ as being foreign is a balancing act that many feminists and activists in Pakistan have had to master. Members of G@D as well as others who identify as ‘feminists’ or work with issues related to women’s rights in Pakistan are often viewed with suspicion and regularly have to confront accusations of having ties to the ‘West’ by their fellow countrymen. Moon Charania explores the tricky relationship of Pakistani feminists with the state, referring to it as ‘precarious citizenship’. Historically, this suspicion is rooted in colonial interventions in the region, and this ‘paranoia’ or fear of losing or struggling to retain cultural ‘authenticity’ is a common feature of societies and communities that were previously colonized. "On the one hand, the accusation of Westernization maps onto nationalist desires (To remain "authentic"), while, on the other hand it intersects with contemporary formations of empire and nation that deny Pakistani women indigenous agency and resistance" (Charania, “Feminism” 319). In the case of G@D, the issue of access to public spaces is portrayed and read by some as a ploy to lead women ‘astray’. In a well-established binary of public vs. private sphere where the private sphere is associated with respectability, religiosity, veiling for women (Mirza), campaigning to get women into public spaces then is met with resistance and viewed as an unnecessary change inspired by women emulating the ‘Western’. In her interview, Mahjabeen asserts that these criticisms are not entirely unfounded or irrational. The fact that G@D primarily uses English while posting on their social media accounts and prefer to communicate in English over other regional languages means that the movement is exclusive and does not cater entirely to the local. The preferred use of English by Pakistan’s

59 elite reflects the colonial heritage of the country, it is an exclusive language which segregates the upper and middle classes of Pakistan. Mahjabeen voices a similar hesitation when she talks about deploying the term ‘feminist’ as part of her identity as well as in association with the work that G@D does. She says it doesn’t feel ‘organic’ to the context and that potentially this is one reason why G@D is met with so much vitriol and resistance online. “For the past few months I have begun to see merit in those accusations, not because we are disingenuous but because the word feminist, at the end of the day, is foreign.” She asserts that the feminist movement in the Global North is a “very western and white sort of a movement” and that G@D has to be very critical of how they approach their connectedness to it. Mahjabeen’s concerns are neither unfounded nor uncommon. Author Farida Shaheed states that this is one of the biggest hurdles that local women’s movements have had to grapple with, [I]n Pakistan’s context, regardless of contested meanings, the absence of an equivalent term for ‘feminism’ in any of the local languages, apart from limiting its usage, raises its own challenges. The absence of vernacular terms facilitates the suggestion – aggressively promoted by opponents of women’s rights and gender – that ‘feminism’ is a North American/European agenda, if not an outright conspiracy, and its local ‘westernized’ proponents, at best, out of touch with the grounded reality of ‘local women’ and unrepresentative of their needs, at worst agents of western imperialist agendas. (“Women’s Movement” 94) This position is further complicated by the fact that the activism and work of G@D, in the past, has been covered by foreign news media outlets and this coverage uses the work of G@D to portray Pakistan as a particularly uncivilized and harsh place for women. Based on these encounters and many others, G@D decided to stop being interviewed by foreign news media sources. Mahjabeen explains the difficult position that they are put in by these interviews “[I]t adds no value to our work that foreign audiences see our work and are pleased about how their western feminist ideals are taking root in such a conservative place but it’s not making a difference to our work. If anything it makes people angry at us for distorting the image of the country and its citizens.” There are many who accuse G@D of deliberately tapping into this victim narrative that is imposed on them by foreign media coverage to gain attention. Finally, for G@D, dhabas figure intrinsically in their identity makeup and the idea of their collective and are a means of combating these accusations of being foreign or ‘western’. Dhabas serve as a central physical site of resistance, a base of sorts for members to plan their

60 activities and events around. However, by choosing to discursively center their collective activist identity around a desi13 structure such as dhabas, activists at G@D signal their connectedness to the ‘local’. This strategic signaling is a crucial piece of their self- identification as local and desi feminists which lends to their credibility in a postcolonial context where their work is typically viewed with suspicion and accusation.

CONCLUSION In responding to my research question around exploring the obstacles to public space access in Pakistan, I have set up this chapter to contextualize and highlight the lived realities of G@D members and the context they operate in. In conversation with G@D members I explore how they conceptualize and perceive barriers to public space entry and come of their primary concerns inhibiting women’s safe and comfortable access to public spaces. The themes highlighted in this chapter offer possible readings of the work of G@D as well as the patriarchal and oppressive values that G@D members have to negotiate. I have talked about various social norms structures which provide a context for the work that G@D does, and the purpose and value of their activism. The factors I mention above are some of the most crucial pieces which the members spoke about in their interviews, issues they have to address and cater to in their daily work as. These factors explain how G@D position themselves and strategically set up resistance in the context they operate in and are important precursors in understanding these strategies and the politics of G@D which I talk about in the next chapter.

13 The word used to denote the ‘local’. Particularly pertaining to the South Asia.

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CHAPTER 5

GIRLS AT DHABAS: STRATEGIZING RESISTANCE

As a feminist collective located in urban Pakistan, G@D faces many challenges which prevent the collective from realizing its potential or even mobilizing effectively against structures of power which inhibit and control the lives of women and queer individuals in Pakistan. This small group of feminists and activists is often confronted with insurmountable odds in their fight against narratives and societal norms that govern how their bodies are seen, that dictate their utility and control how women and queer individuals are treated in Pakistan. In spite of the challenges they confront on a regular basis, the local and global oppressive power structures that restrict and influence the work of G@D, the collective has developed strategies of resistance and a collective sense of how to combat and address these challenges in a meaningful way. Considering the many challenges and limitations that G@D faces in urban Pakistan today, I use this chapter to look at how they strategically mobilize themselves and challenge power structures and patriarchal oppression. In the previous chapter I provided a reading and framing of their work within the societal norms and context they operate in as well as talk about the ways they wish to be understood and read. In this chapter I look at the strategies that G@D employs in its daily working. I also look at the structures of power these activists seek to dismantle and challenge from their specific positionality, as an urban based upper - middle class feminist collective located in Pakistan. Where members of G@D enjoy a sense of community with each other due to a shared purpose and value system, disagreements and differences of opinion are a common feature of in-group discussions. There are many competing voices and clashing opinions when it comes to proposing strategies of resistance and how to approach challenging issues. From the five interviews I conducted, I received vastly differing assessments regarding the purpose and

62 work of G@D. The accusation that G@D had largely not been able to include and represent the voices of lower and working class women is one that G@D has had to contend with on a regular basis. Most of the members I interviewed considered this a partially true assessment and an important critique of their work but not one that invalidated the overall impact and activism of G@D (which is how that criticism is often deployed). Zeenat likens G@D’s following to an echo chamber as their feminist politics reverberate and circulate within the limited reach of their social and class network. G@D has largely been unable to make themselves known or relevant to the lives of working class women in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad in their brief three-year journey. One of the main concerns of G@D that came out in their interviews were the ways that foreign and local news media outlets had misrepresented the scope and scale of their work or misread and misidentified their struggles. A point of clarification that each member made in their interviews was to highlight the small scale of their work and the many limitations ranging from outreach to limited finances which challenge their work. Yumna, Zeenat, Asra, Mahjabeen and Sarah each pointed out the many events including book clubs, study circles and consciousness raising sessions attracted small to no audiences. Each of the members narrated incidents in which it was just the organizer(s) who turned up to an event to find no one else in attendance. The event that is the most popular and which sees the highest attendance in each of the cities is the annual bike rally that G@D hosts across Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore. The idea behind the bike rally is to encourage women to ride bicycles in groups along various stretches of each of the cities as a public demonstration of claiming the streets. The event encourages women riding in safety of numbers and small groups in the streets of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, cities which are not often built to cater to the pedestrian or the bicyclist and most definitely not young women on the streets. By amplifying their presence in the street and covering the event on the social media accounts of G@D, the group curates and creates opportunities of women’s engagement with public spaces and conversations around it. Asra mentions that the sudden growth and recognition of G@D, that it has amassed over the past couple of years has placed them in tricky situations and forced them to confront and set their own agendas, values and feminist politics, “people just assumed we were the flag bearers of feminism, which is not true! … because we were considered an active

63 feminist group, we started getting calls for panels and TED talks and I personally think this happened [early on] at a time when we were still learning and figuring this out for ourselves.” She emphasizes the slow learning process and the importance of self-reflection which has pushed them to grow and develop strategies and mechanisms of coping. This process of self-reflection and continuous conversations with each other are central to effective mobilization and to address new challenges that come up. The group itself has expanded from a handful of new members to around twenty five members but only a handful are active at any given period according to Sarah. In spite of many limitations Sarah states that she has realized that over time G@D has consolidated a certain level of recognition and social capital and power. The group is increasingly being recognized as a valid platform for engagement and an important feminist voice in the country. They are often consulted and invited to weigh in on and present at various events, institutions and conferences across the country. Certain development agencies such as the UN and even brands have reached out to invite them for collaborations.

RECONFIGURING ACTIVISM: THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA Social media therefore plays a critical role in the activism of G@D. Faced with many restrictions, especially limited funding opportunities, G@D uses Facebook as a central platform to showcase their politics, amplify their resistance and engage with their followers, critics and detractors. , Instagram and to a lesser extent Tumblr are used in conjunction with Facebook to extend the outreach of G@D and the work it does. The cultivated and curated social media presence of G@D has yielded consistent engagement with their followers and critics alike. However, as mentioned above, this digital activism and online activism (also dismissively known as armchair activism) has rarely translated into high in-person attendance at their events. While the Facebook event pages often display ample engagement with the topic, event or issue, not many people turn up. Instead of this signifying the failure of the group, Asra says it represents just another aspect of the struggle to claim public spaces in the city, Contrary to the common accusation that is thrown at us, about how as ‘privileged’ upper class women, we can access all public spaces, we normally have a tough time getting women to come out … A lot of the women coming to these events

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are genuinely uncomfortable being in public and often they have not told anybody at home they’re attending our event, so it’s a big deal. In these instances Facebook and digital activism allows these members and their followers marginally safer options for engagement with gendered norms restricting public space access for women without limiting their activism to instances they are able to mobilize in person. An interesting example that belongs to this discussion is the outrage that was initiated around a poster at one of Pakistan’s most noted feminist rallies protesting gender-based oppression in the country, known as Aurat March14, held on Women’s Day. I will talk about the value and scale of this organized show of feminist solidarity cutting across a variety of identity groups later on in my chapter, for now I will just focus on the ensuing conversations on social media around one of the posters at the march. The poster in question that touched a nerve with the Pakistani public and men in particular across class, race and religion, had the slogan “Khana khud garam karo” written on it, translated to mean, “Heat your food yourself”. What was meant as satirical commentary on strict gendered norms in Pakistan, sparked conversations and heated debates on Facebook and Twitter around the purpose and intent of feminism that raged for a month after ended. These debates were conducted on many Facebook pages and groups, commented upon by various social media personalities and G@D also shared many posts on the topic and held space for these discussions. The girl who made that poster penned an article explaining her motivations and intentions and why she felt so strongly on the matter of domesticity being treated solely as women’s domain (Asna). While unrelated to G@D, this example illustrates the utility of using social media to magnify feminist conversations and engage in heated and potentially explosive and unnerving debates from a marginally safer location. It represents a new front of activism in Pakistan and globally.

14 Women’s March

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CREATING AND SUBVERTING NARRATIVES OF WOMEN IN PUBLIC SPACE At the heart of their activism, G@D’s is a project in creating narratives of women’s participation in public space. G@D uses their social media to document instances of women and non-binary individuals interacting with public space. This is an attempt to consciously combat and protest commonly held notions that these spaces are inappropriate or unsafe for women. Sarah is quick to clarify, it is not an ‘alternative’ narrative, and rather she hopes to create a multiplicity of such stories, stories that cater to a range of positive, negative and even the mundane about women’s experience of public spaces. The multiple social media accounts of G@D, especially their Tumblr and Facebook, are dedicated to this end. The G@D social media accounts encourage photographic submissions of women, trans and non-binary individuals inhabiting dhabas and reflecting on their experiences of being there. Pictures, posts and statuses are uploaded to the G@D page and hashtagged #girlsatdhabas15. Sarah believes in the power of sharing and creating stories of women being in public spaces and sharing and reflecting on those experiences as a communal effort, “fundamentally I think this is the most powerful thing that we can do.” By creating this platform and initiating these conversations she hopes to provide alternate stories of women’s engagement with public spaces to young girls, different than the narratives that the older generations have had to encounter. In doing this she hopes to achieve a more routine and ordinary claiming of these spaces, in which these acts are dislocated from the realm of the ‘radical’ or ‘rare’, “Our [Facebook] newsfeeds show our ordinary life, it’s where we update and archive daily and random acts of our life.” By putting up images and photographs of young women enjoying tea at dhabas with their friends and family, Sarah hopes to lend to the idea of a new normal, one in which they question and push against the understood and unspoken boundaries of these spaces.

15 They allow and encourage submissions from queer and non-binary individuals as well and the hashtag will be altered to fit those gender identities.

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G@D members explore their thought process and strategies of creating new narratives in one of their Facebook posts shared on October 3rd, 2017. In the post they explore how social media serves as an extension of public spaces. Facebook and Instagram are typically used by their users as a way to document and archive their lives, the special and the mundane: things that amuse, upset or interest people. The post reflects on how sharing and documenting instances of women interacting with public spaces shifts our perceptions of the everyday. This is the intentional outcome that G@D wishes to achieve by sharing images of themselves and other women interacting with dhabas and public spaces. What happens when the same timelines that announce our engagements and beach vacations suddenly also include photographs of our bodies comfortable in open spaces? Something shifts in our idea of what is part of a woman’s every day. Something shifts in our idea of what it is we record, and archive, and tell the world that we do. Something shifts in our own sense of ownership – here is pleasure without purpose, the most intimate form of our own. (Girls at Dhabas, 3 Oct.) This strategy of creating and subverting narratives of women in public spaces by G@D in changing conceptions of women loitering in the streets is a tactic in meta-ideologizing. Chela Sandoval proposes meta-ideologizing as a key strategy of resistance practiced by minoritarian and oppressed groups against systemic and oppressive ideologies. It refers to “the operation of appropriating dominant ideological forms, and using them whole in order to transform them” (82). In directly speaking to the dominant patriarchal ideologies restricting women’s public space participation, G@D questions the stereotypes inhibiting women’s access public space. For example, by putting up pictures of women and young girls enjoying their cup of chai at a dhaba, G@D combats the common stereotype around women loitering in public spaces i.e. of being ‘dishonorable’ women or even sex workers. The picture accompanying this text shows a group of young women. I recognize some of these as moderators of G@D. They are sitting in a circle at a dhaba and enjoying chai and biscuits in each other’s company. The post describes the picture as being one of many that the collective shares on their page “They’re all replicas of the same pose and frame: smiling women, some public space background” (Girls at Dhabas, 3 Oct.). The picture in this instance is coupled with the text post to provide an alternate definition of these women and

67 gender queer individuals loitering in public spaces; they ascribe a conscious purpose to their loitering and use this post to control and disrupt the narratives that are tacked onto their personhood and their bodies in public spaces without their consent. This post therefore is a small example of meta-ideologizing by G@D using their social media platform i.e. actively subverting and challenging ideas of honor and respectability as they exist in a larger framework that marginalizes and controls women’s agency. As part of these strategies, individual members of G@D also document instances of their personal experiences in public spaces and reflect on these processes. These members post anonymously as part of the collective on the respective social media accounts, using the platform of G@D to share their experiences. They propose and celebrate the act of loitering as a means of resisting the gendered narrative of public space access. In one such post on Facebook from 25th January 2017, Asra talks about her experience stepping out into Karachi and just being a part of the city on the G@D Facebook page. This post is accompanied by an image. The photograph is taken from Asra’s vantage point, her feet up on the chair. The followers of G@D are subjected to a view of a small street in one of Karachi’s neighborhoods, and this picture is framed with Asra’s experience in the accompanying text, although Facebook users do not know which of the members has posted it. Asra uses this post to reflect on her experience of being in the streets of Karachi as well as the inner dialogue that she had to contend with as she stepped out to a dhaba for chai, “Today as I walk out and am greeted by the usual – stares, some smirking and jeering – I wonder if my lipstick is too dark or my jeans are too skinny” (Girls at Dhabas, 25 Jan.). In conclusion to this post she talks about the value of “making a spectacle” of herself while loitering at a dhaba in Karachi, “In a small way, this is also an effort to be a part of the ordinary scene of the city. To negotiating public space- not by barging in and demanding the space- but by engaging with it” (Girls at Dhabas, 25 Jan.). This post has reached approximately 12,000 Facebook users and has 214 likes and 26 shares on Facebook. So Asra uses Facebook as one of the tools to amplify this moment of “making a spectacle” of herself and invites G@D’s followers to be an intimate a part of that process. These posts are just some strategies that G@D members deploy to create new narratives of women in public spaces and make space for engagement and discussion. The posts I have mentioned above both provide space in the comments section for followers to

68 engage with the material these members post, on Facebook especially. While these posts typically receive more criticisms than appreciation, they provide G@D moderators and other feminists with the opportunity to respond to their critiques from the safety of their home instead of engage with these critiques in person. There are many followers like me who also share these pictures, statements and text posts on their Facebook page and use them as a way to initiate and moderate these conversations on their private profile effectively drawing the conversation away from the G@D Facebook page.

LOITERING AS RESISTANCE In the fight to claim public spaces and patriarchal narratives of controlling women’s bodies, G@D utilizes loitering as a crucial means of resistance. The physical act of taking up space and being present in public is proposed as a radical act of transgression by G@D, “ Different groups including women, trans individuals, the disabled, sex workers may find themselves unwelcome or out of place at dhabas with reactions ranging from disdain, suspicion or just annoyance. This act of being viewed as foreign or alien to the space therefore sets a tone for which groups are ‘othered’ at a dhaba, as mentioned earlier in my section on dhabas. This othering of certain identities therein creates possibilities for resistance by ‘transgressing’ perceived or understood boundaries of spaces (Cresswell). Therefore loitering as a tool of resistance as proposed by Shilpa Phadke et al. challenges these unspoken and understood norms about public space participation by women (178-80). Loitering, as a radical act of ‘transgressing’, questioning, and subverting, understood boundaries of dhabas, is a central mission of G@D members who aim to “occupy public spaces on their own terms and whims” (Girls at Dhabas, “Our Story”). The members define their resistance around being visible and noticed without a demonstrable purpose or specific end goal. Phadke et al describe the radical possibilities of loitering for women and marginalized groups in the streets, “For women, such a space of ambiguity can be powerful. Since the very act of being in public without purpose is seen as unfeminine, loitering fundamentally subverts the performance of gender roles.” (Phadke et al. 179) Loitering shifts ideals of impropriety and dishonor that are attached to a woman’s body in the public sphere and subverts norms around women’s and queer public space participation.

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Sarah talks about loitering as a conscious strategy to claim public space access for women. She discusses the value in being free of what Phadke et al have termed the ‘tyranny of purpose’. Sarah describes the hold of the tyranny of purpose in the lives of women in public spaces in a Facebook post, “It demands that we justify our expeditions into the wild world of thoroughfares and khayabans16, especially if we wish to undertake the journey on our feet, and especially if we wish to step out alone” (Girls at Dhabas, 1 Apr. 2018). Sarah talks about her experience walking around in the streets of Karachi and being offered shelter, support, help from the men in her surroundings in an attempt to ‘rescue’ her from this act of loitering aimlessly. Various men in the streets offer their help – the security guard, the shopkeeper, the rickshaw driver who assume a woman in the streets roaming without a purpose must be in distress or in need of assistance. The consistent reactions that these acts elicit are a reminder of the dominance of the binding narratives surrounding women’s bodies in public spaces in Pakistan. Commenting on the value of public space for women Yumna states that, the ability to have a relationship with your city that is unmediated by a third person, when it’s just you and your city, when you can be mobile without being dependent - it’s about survival. It’s about being safe in your own land, outside of the four walls of your house, and for survivors of domestic violence it’s having the option to be outside because their homes are not safe! [Loitering] therefore is important to our sense of self” This idea of a young woman loitering aimlessly on the streets does not configure well with the binding narrative of honor and respectability that is imposed on middle and upper class women and therefore has a disruptive potential for marginalized groups. Capitalist notions of productivity and usefulness are thus tightly woven into the respectable and feminine body. By centering pleasure and “whimsy” (Girls at Dhabas, “Our Story”) instead of a decided and preset purpose for occupying public spaces, G@D draws attention to alternative modes of being in public spaces than what is the norm for the feminine body in public. It puts the feminine or the ‘queer’ body at par with the young boys

16 Streets.

70 playing rummy at dhabas after school or the mazdoors17 enjoying a quick smoke and chai after a long day at work. Loitering connects them to the larger cityscape and demands that they be treated as part of the city’s background. These bodies loitering in public space question notions of conditional access to public space based on their utility or purpose. Loitering without a demonstrable purpose, unhinges and questions not just normative gendered expectations of women in public spaces but also challenges capitalist notions of productivity and the ‘utility’ of space. “Loitering also disrupts the image of the productive body - taut, vigorous, and purposeful - moving precisely towards the ‘greater global good’. [...] Loitering is a threat to the global order in that people are visibly doing nothing” (Phadke et al. 186).

CONTINUING THE LEGACY OF WOMEN’S ACTIVISM IN PAKISTAN G@D operates in an environment in which their validity and legitimacy is consistently being questioned. This suspicion of their ‘agenda’ and the intentions behind their work is not an uncommon occurrence as I highlighted in the previous chapter. Advocacy for women’s rights and feminist activism has typically attracted suspicion of treason and accusations of secret agendas to ‘westernize’ local culture and norms. Unfortunately however, G@D has on occasion had to deal with an additional layer of criticism. According to Mahjabeen, one of the most “disheartening” assessments of G@D’s activism has come from the older generation of feminists and activists in Pakistan. The older generation of feminists, who preceded them by three to four decades (mostly members of Women’s Action Forum and Shirkatgah) have largely been critical of G@D. Some of the women who once spearheaded feminist campaigns against the human rights abuses under Zia-ul-Haq’s dictatorial regime, well renowned activists and advocates have openly criticized G@D and their politics on various social media platforms. Sarah states that she has found

17 Blue Collar construction workers

71 more support and active engagement with G@D from younger feminists, the mid generation between G@D and the more senior members of the women’s movement in the 1980’s. In my interviews, each of the members expresses their disappointment at the way they have been addressed and received by the older cadre of feminists. Zeenat who is both a member of WAF and G@D talks about the general hostility that has been directed at her by older feminists and the outright dismissal of her individual work and that of G@D’s. Mahjabeen states that their work is dismissed on the basis that it is out of touch with the reality, and that they are an exclusive elitist movement who are not vested in making radical and long-term changes. They are accused of being feminists because it is in vogue and in it for the momentary fun of it, Yumna states that they have been accused of being unserious since “activism is a serious pursuit so any kind of talk of pleasure or fun and it's like [we're] taking away from the weight of the feminist movement." Asra asserts that the overall assessment of G@D is that that it is “a millennial, self-congratulatory kind of feminism.” As activists G@D members are told that there is no need to reclaim dhabas and public spaces. There are more serious issues out there. Sarah states that this is in part because some of the older feminists, not all, have not really taken the time out to understand or engage with the work and social media pages of G@D in meaningful ways, For example one of the front runners of the movement has consistently criticized us either openly or in meetings and we later hear about it from someone else. Her issue basically has been that we… that women won this fight years ago and she’s very disappointed to see that G@D is talking about coffee shops - which we are not obviously. She thinks that there are more important things to focus on such as issues of working class women. Sarah talks about another feminist academic, who has zeroed in on that critique of G@D, that as a group they are exclusive and elitist. According to this academic, G@D is run by a group of very privileged feminists, for whom public space access is not much of a struggle and talking about these issues and the struggles of occupying public spaces on social media is the “easy” way of confronting this issue. Members of G@D are not just disappointed at this reductionist appraisal of their work but also resentful of having lost out on the opportunity to connect with more seasoned activists over their shared values, to learn strategies and tactics of resistance and from the mistakes that they made in their time. Zeenat states that as G@D gains recognition, the older

72 feminists are reluctantly coming around to the idea of inviting them and collaborating with them, however it is still very limited engagement and invitations to events and protests are still few and far in between. Contrary to how G@D is perceived, as an anomaly to the women’s movements in Pakistan, G@D view themselves very much a part of this movement and a product of the active struggles these feminists engaged in, especially under General Zia-ul-Haq’s dictatorship. Asra broadly characterizes their politics and their strategies as being similar to WAF’s. Zeenat states that G@D even face similar criticisms as well as struggles that WAF did in the 80’s and 90’s, both struggling to secure funding from trustworthy sources that would not manipulate or control their politics and work, “all the criticisms that we are experiencing, many of these were hurled at them … specially the critique of being exclusionary and elitist.” There is however a palpable disconnect between these generations, not just because of the dismissal of G@D’s work but because of the drastically different environments these groups operate in and the issues they have taken up in their work. Yumna asserts that a superficial understanding of the social media as a tool to mobilize and utilize to one’s benefit may be a key cause of the divide that exists between the older generation of feminists and G@D, “It might be a language that they don't understand: the hashtags, Tumblr and the Instagram posts, I know these might appear frivolous to the older feminists because they don't engage with the online world the way we do, so they don't realise that online space is an extension of public space.” The scope of G@D is much smaller than WAF’s and is structured more loosely and informally. Another crucial distinguishing factor is the lack of similar peer groups and collectives engaged in active struggles for women’s rights. Overall, there is a general absence of organized women’s resistance at the scale that was observed in earlier generations with fewer sustained networks of activists collaborating. In her piece exploring the chronological growth of the women’s movement in Pakistan Rubina Saigol observes that “the founding mothers of earlier movements have failed to mentor or inspire a second or third generation of young women with the kind of passionate commitment witnessed in earlier decades” (Saigol 37). This fragmentation and gradual disintegration of a once radical women’s movement has also been facilitated and incubated under a neoliberal world order. In this context the development sector and the NGO-industrial complex have actively

73 channeled activism into distinct and segregated issue based politics and organizations making it structurally harder for activists and organizations to collaborate. The Aurat March18 held in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad on International Working Women’s Day, on 8th March 2018 stands out as a rare moment of collaboration and solidarity that feminists from various collectives, NGOs, groups and generations of women came together to organize. Where the women’s movement in Pakistan has largely been characterized as elitist, the Aurat March was consciously targeted at women who have consistently been left out of feminist conversations and movements in the past. The Aurat March was attended mostly by women, and included the presence of many marginalized groups in the country. Christian women, trans women and non-binary individuals, women from rural Sindh and various different feminist groups and collectives were present in order to commemorate and lend their support for the status of women’s rights and treatment of women in the country. While G@D did not organize the March formally, most of the members were key organizers of the event and they used their networks and social media accounts to build momentum leading up to the event itself. The Aurat March marks a milestone in the Pakistani women’s movements as a public and proud claiming of feminism that has largely been absent from Pakistan in the past two decades especially.

NGOIZING FEMINISM: CONCERNS AND CRITICISMS In the context of Pakistan, like many other developing countries, NGOs have come up as key actors in the fight for social justice and change. NGOs often provide crucial public services such as education and healthcare and fill the shortfall and gaps that inevitably characterize governance of countries in the Global South. In the next chapter I elaborate more on the issues that characterize the development sector as a transnational phenomenon and the trouble associated with internationally funded NGOs. In this section I highlight how NGOs inhibit and restrict the work of those activists and advocates locally who wish to see

18 Women’s March

74 more radical and lasting changes being made in the fight for equality and justice. The experiences that G@D members have had as being employed in the development sector has made them critical of the role they play in Pakistan and how it has affected change in the landscape of activism in the country. Their negotiations with the development sector have influenced how they position their activism around public spaces. I also use this section to illustrate how mechanisms such as NGOs which are purportedly set up to favor or aid activists in the Global South can represent yet another barrier affecting their work. G@D is both critical of NGOs as well as challenges how development discourse is deployed in a post-colonial context like Pakistan. The 90’s in Pakistan witnessed an increased inflow of international funds dedicated to the growth of the development sector. In subsequent moments in history where Pakistan was closely allied with the US, there were similar inflows to build civic capacities in the country (Jafar, Lofty Ideals; Zaidi). This rapid NGOization and growth of the development sector has subsumed and institutionalized most of the activism and feminist resistance that was witnessed under Zia-ul-Haq’s regime. Rubina Saigol captures how a small group of feminists in Pakistan have exploited this funding to their relative benefit even while critical of the movement being hijacked by these donor agencies. Despite the 1990s being to an extent a period of desertification for the women’s movement, individual women and some women’s groups made substantial and serious contributions to feminist theory. A great deal of self-reflection was carried out regarding the direction of feminism, its visions, goals and impediments. Ironically, this was possible because of the same donors and NGOs which de- politicized the movement. (Saigol 24-5) This phenomena is not unique to Pakistan and is common to many countries in the Global South as Bernal and Grewal point out in the introduction to their book Theorizing NGOs. “The rapid global expansion of ngos over the past two decades has profoundly changed the conditions and context of feminist activism. Many researchers have pointed out that by the end of the twentieth century, feminist activism had shifted from participation in political movements to advocacy and action in feminist and women’s ngos” (Bernal and Grewal 11). G@D is deeply critical and wary of the development sector and its potential to make long term and radical changes in the lives of people in Pakistan.

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In the book, Transnationalism Reversed, Elora Halim Chowdhury highlights problematic patterns employed in the work of international NGOs that focus on short-term solutions in order to yield results (anchored to how funding is generated and justified) which often detract from the long term goals and strategies that local grassroots movements employ in order to bring more systematic changes addressing the root causes of these issues. This issue comes up in my interview with Zeenat who problematizes the issue of activism being absorbed by the NGO sector which restricts, contains and de-radicalizes feminist activism by institutionalizing it as she has observed working with multiple development firms in Pakistan, “NGOs tend to be more focused on making structural changes instead of working on long term social issues; they also have pre-set interest areas that they get funding for. These activists go where the funding goes.” She maintains that while their work is important and necessary, structural changes to laws and regulations do not address the entirety of the issue and most importantly the accompanying mindset that created the problem in the first place. Elora Chowdhury explore this phenomenon in her book. She talks about adjustments that need to be made to campaign rhetoric and programming to fit within the larger narratives that these development firms operate within, and adopt human rights discourses in order to acquire support and funding from funding organizations. As a result the limited energies and scope of local NGOs and activists are redirected in orienting their resources towards gaining the knowledge and training required to apply for grants, learn English, measure goals and effectiveness of projects, organizing data to reflect the standards set by these firms (Chowdhury). Zeenat states that NGOs deradicalize and depoliticize grassroots activism. She narrates how a UN-run campaign on menstrual health, initiated in Islamabad, disallowed the usage of words like sexuality so as not to make the beneficiaries uncomfortable. G@D had been invited to work and collaborate on this campaign. Zeenat states that while she and Mahjabeen were willing to guide them and provide free emotional and intellectual labor towards shaping the campaign, they refrained from publicly claiming or linking that work with G@D because of all these reasons. Asra talks about the issue of ‘otherizing oppression’ that has been created by the consistent narrative perpetuated by NGOs. “Because of the “NGO-ization” of women’s rights many older feminists dismissed our work as a frivolous waste of time. “Real” feminists are the ones who work on the issues of ‘oppressed’ poor women in the villages.” NGOs have

76 created certain target groups of women in need of assistance and many people approach women’s issues with that lens of which issue is valid and ‘real’. Asra asserts that most NGOs work on the assumption and perpetuate the idea that oppression is a feature of poverty. This has othered oppression and abstracted that idea from the lives of middle class women. It creates discursive binaries between the rural and urban, the upper and lower classes, and dictates that women in urban areas or women in middle upper class are free from oppression and liberated. The fact that women are not a feature of public spaces and cityscapes in most Pakistani cities is not seen as an issue of concern for feminists and activists in Pakistan. Both Asra and Zeenat also talk about the loss of radical role models and figures of feminist resistance to the rapid growth of the development sector in Pakistan in the past three decades. As activists they fully understand the value of being paid for one’s labor and how important financial support can mean to any social cause especially in the context of a developing country. However, Asra connects this trend of rapid NGOization to the absence of desi feminist role models growing up. While each of the members I interviewed had many feminist figures in their life to look up to and learn from, especially those in their personal life like their mothers, mother’s friends and teachers and each other, they each talked about coming across more public figures of the feminist movement later on in their lives, especially once they got engaged with activism and G@D. Zeenat and Asra both argue that by being absorbed into the NGO sector, they have been deprived of public figures of feminist resistance especially after the loss of momentum that the women’s movement experienced in the years subsequent to General Zia-ul-Haq’s dictatorship.

RESISTING CAPITALISM In their programming, values and guiding principles G@D has consciously positioned itself to resist capitalism. In their struggle against patriarchal oppression and norms that curb women’s mobility, G@D members realize that hierarchical class structures and capitalist modes of production pose significant obstacles that need to be addressed and dismantled if they wish to make any sort of a prolonged and positive social change in the lives of women in urban Pakistan. Sarah identifies the intersection of capitalism and patriarchy as a critical front in the struggle to claim public space access for women in Pakistan. Public spaces are read as hostile and improper for upper and middle class women, which creates a gap for

77 alternate places where women can seek out entertainment and recreation. Malls, cafes and coffee shops are posed and curated as those spaces that are seen as respectable ‘public’ spaces for these women to occupy. “There is a real desire to be outside, and because there is a desire, it can also be capitalized upon.” There are businesses and companies willing to cater to these anxieties around upper and middle class women mingling with working class men. The number of malls and cafes that have opened up with armed guards stationed at the entrance is testament to the fact that these anxieties run deep and are capitalized upon. Phadke et al. lend to this analysis in their work. They make these ties to capitalism explicit by asserting that these privatized and therefore ‘secure’ spaces also coincide with provision of goods and services i.e. these spaces encourage and make “pleasure related to consumption legitimate” (111) and push for women to experience empowerment and joy as being linked to their spending at shops and on their person. G@D is wary of how their work and their feminist politics can be co-opted by capitalist institutions, particularly after being approached by a company designing clothes for women. In 2017 they were approached by a major clothing brand in Pakistan who claimed to have been inspired by the work of G@D and who valued the work that was being done by G@D. The clothing brand headed by a female CEO, which claims a feminist tangent in their marketing, wanted to include G@D as part of their marketing strategy in their campaign called “Step Outside”. They requested a collaboration with G@D on a photoshoot which was set around the concept of women loitering at dhabas or playing cricket or riding bicycles, all regular features of G@D’s activism, while wearing the clothes designed by this brand. Since members of G@D take a fairly strict stance against businesses, they declined this invitation with a brief note explaining their critiques of and concerns about their work being appropriated by firms not dedicated to the same structural and long term change that members of G@D are. They verbalized their disappointment over the photoshoot that came out of this campaign and criticized the juxtaposition of the models against the ‘poverty’ of dhabas and streets in Karachi the use of working class men as props in their campaign. While taking a clear stance against what they called the ‘otherization’ of working class men they described an alternate vision for inclusion in public spaces in which both groups can engage and partake in public spaces without having to compete with each other. They also pointed out the irony of a fashion brand centering these spaces and low income classes as props for

78 their photoshoot while never thinking about being inclusive or accessible by members of the working class. In another example of how members of G@D exert a conscious opposition to capitalism as well an awareness of their social location within class hierarchies, Asra states that G@D is careful about not turning dhabas into a sites of wonderment or exoticization at the hands of the elite in cities in Pakistan. In their gatherings, study circles, loitering campaigns they encourage meaningful and self reflective engagement of women with public spaces. These conversations typically include discussions on class and privilege and other markers which add nuance to conversations around women’s empowerment and liberation. “We are very conscious of how feminism has been co-opted by neoliberalism and we do not espouse a brand of feminism which is blind to differences of class, race, religion, gender etc.” The purpose behind these consciousness-raising sessions is to dismantle spaces like malls as only ‘public’ places for leisure and recreation for women in the city. G@D is wary of their activism being misread or their movement being appropriated instead to co-opt dhabas and gentrify these spaces where class politics and hierarchies are recreated and the working classes are excluded. Similarly, by refusing to attend or present at events that are ticketed, G@D consciously try and tackle obstacles to inclusion. However, the fact that most working class women and men do not associate with G@D, can access their work or the nature of work means that their efforts to be inclusive have yet to materialize into significant or positive gains with regards to class politics.

CONCLUSION In this chapter I highlight and analyze some of the key strategies and tactics of resistance that members of G@D have developed as a response to the challenges and obstacles that have come up in their everyday operations. By centering their work in the socio-political context they operate in, members of G@D negotiate and address various structures of power such as capitalism, the development sector, religion, patriarchy, class etc that they encounter from their social location. Although these tactics are not always effective and successful and G@D is still operating on a very small scale, G@D exhibits an ambitious and idealistic outlook towards the insurmountable obstacles they confront in their work.

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In the brief time since its conception G@D is fast emerging as a significant feminist voice in the political landscape of Pakistan today. In tackling prominent and important issues related to women’s rights and well-being in Pakistan, well beyond that of access to public space, G@D has secured a prominent position in the current feminist movement in Pakistan, especially amongst the groups involved in digital activism. In this capacity, as a small, relatively informal collective, G@D has been met with many significant issues, challenges and obstacles. Each of their public acts of resistance draws significant backlash on their social media accounts as was observed about the Aurat March I referenced earlier in the chapter as well as the annual bicycle rally G@D hosted in 2018. As critics of feminism descend on the social media accounts of G@D, these accounts are transformed into platforms of discussions, mockery and conversation around women’s status in Pakistan, their apparent emulation of the West, and how the privileged class status of these groups renders these acts of resistance unnecessary and irrelevant. These windows of engagement and discussion contain within them possibilities of social change and improvement, even if on a very small scale. It is these moments that validate and encompass the purpose of G@D.

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CHAPTER 6

ENVISIONING SOLIDARITY: EXAMINING POSSIBILITIES OF TRANSNATIONAL FEMINIST COLLABORATION

Before looking at the views and the politics of G@D regarding international collaborations, I think providing a brief overview of context is important in order to elucidate the connections and threads they draw from and base their skepticism on around transnational solidarity and collaboration. G@D, started in 2015, is a feminist collective that is being spearheaded by young feminists and relatively ‘inexperienced’ activists who took to social media to explore and chart their relationship with public spaces in cities in Pakistan. These are all individuals in their late 20’s and early 30’s, a generation that grew up in a post 9/11 world. They experienced fully the brunt of the neat dichotomy of the post 9/11 world split by the call ‘if you’re not with us, you’re against us’ by George Bush that enforced the binary division between a ‘civilized’ Western world vs. the Muslim world. Pakistan came to be involved in the War on Terror as both an ally and a target of the War as the US military set up shop in military bases of Pakistan to attack the neighboring ‘militant’ country Afghanistan as well as parts of Pakistan. Military support for the War on Terror was tied in with billions of dollars of aid and loans for the Pakistani government and particularly the development and NGO sector based on an alleged allyship between the US and Pakistan which has been fraught since the beginning, proving to be distrustful at best and duplicitous at worst. The inherited post-colonial grievances i.e. hyper-awareness for nationalistic, ethnic, and religious identities has strained ties between ethnic and religious groups in Pakistan and engendered hostile and aggressive relations between Pakistan’s neighboring country, India. These countries, born of one, have a shared history of oppression and subjugation at the

81 hands of the British colonial Empire before 1947, as well as some common languages, cultures and religious, ethnic, and cultural identities that overlap across states, provinces and state borders. Pakistan and India have been involved in multiple wars and constant cross- border skirmishes since independence in 1947 and have come to define their national identities as security states (particularly Pakistan) due to the constant regional crisis, as well as in opposition to each other through the adopted state religions, in spite of India’s claims at being the biggest secular state in the world. While ties with India have remained stressed at best over the years and openly hostile and violent at worst, Pakistani feminists have been able to find and construct well-meaning and in-depth relationships across borders based on a shared understanding of contexts and having a similar trajectory of struggles, as South Asian and ‘developing’ countries. In this discussion I will be using the example of cross-border collaborations to examine how state and regional borders tie in to the discussion on the ‘transnational’ and complicating how border-crossings can change meanings based on context and affect expressions of solidarity drawing from my discussions with member of G@D. The Islamist project undertaken by the military dictator Zia-ul-Haq in Pakistan in the 1980’s has, over the years, redirected the national narrative towards a very fundamentalist reading of the Sunni based Islam and religious norms. Over time these readings and understandings of faith have yielded a conservative outlook on Islamic practices and identities filtering into everyday norms and living patterns of people as well as a spike in terrorist incidents, from local and foreign based terrorist outfits (closely linked to the fact that the region is under attack), along with a sympathy towards these actors and these terror attacks. The bigger cities where these women and queer individuals operate have been targeted extensively by these terrorist activities. These terrorist events include the gunning down of major ‘liberal’ figures or those identifying with a secular agenda or even controversial humans rights cases, systematic targeting and persecution of religious minorities, targeted attacks and blasts at government and military related personnel, resource, infrastructure and institutions. These events fluctuate in nature and quantity and reflect the successes and failures of Pakistan military operations in the region and do not pose a direct threat to any of the members of G@D and do not concern or interrupt their work directly. A more pervasive effect of increasing that has directly influenced the

82 norms of the society and concerns the work of G@D was the idea that private spaces were women’s spaces and they were encouraged to spend time at home or were encouraged to wear religious coverings such as the or the niqab to denote their honour and respectability when out in public (Mirza; Zia). The politics of G@D therefore is mindful of these constructed and inherited systems of power and oppression coupled with a conscious awareness of their own social positionality and privilege especially with regard to post-colonial sensitivities and demarcations of class, religious and ethnic identity politics. The group claims to be intersectional in their approach to women’s and queer issues, situating gender and sexual politics in the myriad complicated and diverse identities that affect their experiences and lived realities especially as it pertains to the experience of public spaces and city life in Pakistan.

THE ROLE AND LIMITATIONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA A key manifestation of limitations of locational politics that highlights obstacles to possibilities of solidarity are the ways that social media has typically been used to appropriate transnational campaigns on women’s issues. This section is integral in framing the social media activism of G@D; how it is read, perceived and presented. In this section I explore certain aspects of social media usage which contribute towards preserving colonial narratives and reaffirming the knowledge gaps between the Global South, specially the Muslim world. Where social media is often talked about as a neutral platform, I illustrate how social media is not exempt from the discursive biases of circulating narratives and colonial ideologies. These discursive biases and prejudices constructing post-colonial and Muslim subjects such as G@D members, in an increasingly Islamophobic world order, represent concrete obstacles and challenges that frame and influence the social media activism of G@D. While there is broad range and nature of social media campaigns, in this section I will focus on some of the prominent ones to emerge out of issues geographically removed from the context of the Western world such as the well-known “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign or the “I am Malala” hashtag. The hashtag movement #bringbackourgirls was based around raising awareness regarding the abduction of 276 school girls in Nigeria by the Boko Haram,

83 a local terrorist outfit. #IamMalala, initiated by former Prime Minister of UK, Gordon Brown, highlighted the tragic shooting of Malala Yousufzai, a 15 year old Pakistani girl, by the Taliban over her public advocacy for girls’ education in Swat Valley. The campaign relied on the case of Malala, using the momentum of her tragedy, which received widespread media attention, to raise awareness regarding obstacles and issues of access related to girls’ education in developing countries (Khoja-Moolji, “Reading Malala” 539). Both of these campaigns were deployed by global internet users in a supposed expression of solidarity with grave issues affecting young girls in various ‘underdeveloped’ and ‘dangerous’ regions of the world and were viral campaigns that also attracted the attention and included the involvement of influential politicians and figures such as Michelle Obama and Pope Francis. These campaigns are common tools of the 21st century to raise awareness and collect funds for important issues afflicting the lives of the marginalized and often the silenced. However, in the context of an unequal playing field and severe informational gaps that exists between the Global North and South such as the case observed in these hashtag campaigns, these social media movements can deepen the crisis of representation and whether intentionally or inadvertently, they often play into neo-colonial tropes of saving these women from their surroundings without providing fleshed out contexts to their narratives, or even an understanding of the political situation or the crisis. By centering the supposed agency and power of the Western body “the campaign ‘reconstitutes the figure of “Third World Woman” as a person accessible (and therefore less dispensable) to the West by claiming her as ours” (Groeneveld 299). By relating to the Nigerian girls as ‘ours’ or claiming to access Malala’s struggles via the hash tag #Iammalala, these hash tags establish their relatability to more ‘humanized’ subjects i.e. the Western audiences. These hash tag campaign claims are divorced, not just from the crises they seek to tackle, but also present as dislocated and hence ‘universal’ bodies of knowledge that deploy universal (colonial) images of third-world women’s oppression. In the erasure of political contexts and nuance, these hash tags erase the role of present and past military interventions by US and European countries (Khoja-Moolji, “Becoming an ‘Intimate Publics’”). These hash tag campaigns tap into narratives of women in the Global South, of them lacking agency and nuance, and they effectively mobilize people in support of colonial missions to ‘conquer’ and ‘invade’.

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A stark difference can be observed between hash tag campaigns that arise in the global South and those that are geographically closer to the US or Europe. For example, the #metoo campaign that was popularized in the last few months of 2017, tackled the universal theme of sexual assault and violence against women. The campaign was aimed at highlighting the sheer instances of assault and rape that women have to face globally. Unlike the previously mentioned campaigns, the #metoo campaign was able to retain a universality of theme while still being able to provide nuance and fleshed out conversations. More importantly, the founder of the movement, Tarana Burke, was invited to give interviews, direction and context to the campaign and provide her story and inspiration for the campaign including her fears, expectations and hopes for #metoo. Many women in the Hollywood film industry have used and guided the use of this hash tag towards a productive exploration of sexual exploitation in the industry, as a platform to call out their abusers, and issues of consent, vulnerability of women and a lack of institutional support. This luxury has not been afforded to most campaigns initiated by activists and feminists from the global South. They are often erased altogether from these campaigns and are unable to guide and lead the story of how the hash tag is used. Over the past two years members of G@D have made it a point to share content and commentary regarding issues that affect the lives of marginalized communities in South Asia. When I first joined the group in 2015, I was given firm instructions by Sarah to avoid posting content regarding social movements in the global North and from Euro-American context. This is not for lack of knowing or a strong passion to see justice being achieved for a historically oppressed and vulnerable group in these parts of the world. When I talked to Sarah about this policy she clarified that G@D wishes to retain a focus on issues and victories that are relevant to the region, "You will never see G@D commentary on Black Lives Matter. We keep things local. ... We haven't earned that space and we are not qualified to speak on those issues. We don't want to interfere or talk on matters that we don't really have insight in. We put out solidarity statements but that's with local issues and activists mostly. That's our scope." She harbors no expectation from the group to be able to change mindsets and combat racism in a context far removed from hers or that of her followers. As a moderator of the page I have often faced difficulty in categorizing and finding feminist-oriented content to share on the G@D Facebook page as relevant to the South Asian

85 audience. I particularly face this when I’m sharing content related to or targeting LGBTQ communities in South Asia. This concern arises especially out of the knowledge that there is not a lot of original content related to these communities in South Asia being produced or created by Pakistani or Indian or Bangladeshi social media feminist groups (reflection of the nature of existing feminist movements in these regions). Where I am tempted to share foreign content I am also hesitant because this content, which may narrate the struggles of queer communities and maybe touch LGBTQ audiences accessing the post, would still be unable to name queer and trans individuals in the local vernacular. This is a struggle that the khwajasirah community of South Asia (both Indian and Pakistani figures) has identified and verbalized at various platforms. Their erasure from the local while fighting the accusation that they are a result of the ‘global’ or rather ‘western’ is a struggle they engage in as a community and are fighting to reclaim their connectedness to the soil and region of South Asia.

SHORTCOMINGS OF THE DEVELOPMENT SECTOR AND DISCOURSE Development agencies and IGOs and NGOs are closely related to this discussion because they often utilize rhetoric and discourse borrowed from feminist academics and policy makers (Beneria et al). While a range of work has been done regarding the effectiveness and success of NGOs and the work of donor agencies, many academics weighing in on the shortcomings of the work of these firms have stated that the development sector, especially when tied in with transnational aid and loans, tends to mirror and protect the status quo within the nation-state as well as between donor and donation dependent states (Kamat, “NGO,” “Privatization”; Jafar, Women’s NGOs; Bernal and Grewal). Some of the main development and donor agencies such as The World Bank, Department of International Development (DFID), USAID, International Monetary Fund (IMF), often fall short of delivering on more sustainable and inclusive models of development precisely because they operate under neoliberal and capitalist models of ‘progress’ and development. Without undermining some of the life-sustaining work that is conducted by development practitioners and organizations in the Global South, I will highlight issues built into the model of development sector and discourse that affect how

86 women’s issues are represented, politicized and tackled that curb results and foreclose possibilities of effective transnational activism. By measuring success and ‘effectiveness’ of international projects in profit-loss terminology, by universalizing development discourse, measuring indices, ideals of development and progress, and humans rights approaches, funding and development based agencies such as USAID, IMF, The World Bank closely reflect neo-colonial values that have more effectively globalized ‘western’ based ideas of development and feminist values rather than create models of sustainable and context- specific needs of women. It can be argued that the tunnel-visioned focus on gender as a primary source of oppression for the lives of women and centering women as primary and most affected groups in developing countries (and ignoring queer communities who are almost always more vulnerable) reflects the global sisterhood model of paternalistic kinship and charity while ignoring the very real histories and present realities of exploitation and exploitative relations. These relations continue to characterize the neo-colonial power dynamic between countries in the global North and South. Given the existing conditions for workers in Bangladesh, China, Mexico, India etc, the transnational flow and exploitation of labor (Beneria et al; Feldman; Parreñas), the lenient movement of capital and corporations without a corresponding move in legislative systems to hold them accountable, polluting and depleting natural resources in these countries to name some of the more transparent workings of the neoliberal project and globalization, the system is structured to deplete and cripple countries in the Global South. Without addressing these realities and exploitative behaviors of corporations these agencies and discourses are doing the equivalent of putting band aid on a festering wound without having to address any of the root causes that have created these situations in the first place. Considering that many G@D members are either directly employed by international donor agencies or rely on their funding for employment, it is surprising that G@D has a very strict policy on not collaborating with foreign donor agencies or to accept funding from them. However it is their very experiences with the development sector and working for foreign donor agencies that shapes their suspicion and distrust of these organizations. In her interview Sarah expresses regret at these circumstances. She asserts that since the personal is political she’s very uncomfortable with membership of G@D overlapping with employees of USAID projects or the UN affiliates. However she states that in the context of a developing

87 country and given that membership of G@D is entirely volunteer based, it is important to be flexible. They risk ending up with limited and/or privileged members if she were to include only those that are in no way engaged with the NGO-industrial complex which has heavily infiltrated the job market in the urban centers of Pakistan, especially the capital Islamabad. In her interview, Sarah maintains that donor agencies for many reasons remain unreliable and problematic sources of funding. The collective has chosen actively to being underfunded and therefore unable to achieve its full potential rather than to accept the changes, demands and conditions that come attached when working with most funding and donor agencies. Zeenat highlights how being a beneficiary of USAID funding in her place of employment brings an overwhelming focus on successes. They demand that we “give them success stories, and tell us that whatever funding we have given has worked in wondrous ways.” Zeenat also talks about this suspicion of funding sources being a common concern and conversation among women’s groups and feminist collectives in Pakistan. She reports that prominent organizations’ like Shirkatgah do not take funding from most donor agencies specially USAID funds and instead rely on funding from Women Living Under Muslim Rule (WUML) which they deem to be more reliable and trustworthy. Women’s Actions Forum (WAF) relies entirely on private or small scale donors or personal fundraising efforts of the groups in a conscious effort to avoid the “potential dangers of the pull of purse strings” (Shaheed, “Women’s Movement” 107). Sarah is also wary of how these development-related donor agencies work in harmony with military action and the War on Terror. She is particularly critical of USAID. USAID funding disbursed and targeted at the civil development as part of the Kerry-Lugar bill which claims to build the infrastructural, structural and civic capacity of Pakistan is famously contingent on the behavior, cooperation and promise of military performance and restrictions (Zaidi 8-9). She recognizes the aim of USAID funding to tame anti-US sentiments in Pakistan without making any concrete efforts towards peace-making. It is “a sanitized approach to peacemaking. Art for peace - Let us paint walls. Music for peace - let us have a closed festival with musicians. It is just lip service to peacemaking.” Participating in these projects is to declaw the potential of radical and transformative movements. She gives the example of The Art for Peace project implemented in a variety of neighborhoods in Karachi. Public art and graffiti on the walls in Pakistan can be very political and ranges from

88 graffiti, to political slogans and slogans for political parties as well as paintings on walls. The Art for Peace project commissioned by USAID took these very political spaces and de- politicized them with very watered down ideas of art supposedly propagating peace with pictures of (the founder of Pakistan) or images of rickshaws or trite slogans about love often found on rickshaws. The workings of the development sector thus restrict potential for radical and reformative change and ultimately damage possibilities of transnational or even collective organizing by undermining the collective base of organizing and putting the onus on individuals to address deep rooted systemic issues.

COMPLICATING THE TRANSNATIONAL: ON COLLABORATING WITH INDIAN FEMINISTS When I speak to the members of G@D I am interested in understanding how they name and conceptualize national borders in a country like Pakistan where state borders are unstable, porous, often unclear or disputed. For me this discussion on borders is central to the discussion on what constitutes the ‘transnational’ particularly when borders have proven to be erratic, unstable and arbitrary in South Asia. The term transnational reflects these characteristics of borders in a post-colonial context. What constitutes transnational in the context of Pakistan has shifted twice in the past decade with the Indo-Pak partition and the creation of Bangladesh and remains unclear in the context of Kashmir on the Indo-Pak border and the at Pak-Afghan border. In Pakistan internal provincial boundaries are sometimes better containers of cultures and identity than state borders which have largely been unable to demarcate distinctive cultural, religious, ethnic identities and heritages in contradiction with the national narrative. These messy, ineffectual and contentious boundaries are an intentional outcome of colonization, a parting gift from Cyril Radcliffe in 1947 when the two autonomous nation-states Pakistan and India were hurriedly carved out of the Indian subcontinent signaling the end of British rule. Radcliffe was invited from Britain to demarcate a border “divid[ing] a province of more than 35 million people, thousands of villages, towns and cities, a unified and integrated system of canals and communication networks, and 16 million Muslims, 15 million Hindus and 5 million Sikhs, who despite their religious differences, shared a common culture, language and history” (Butalia).

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When I ask Yumna how she views collaborations across the Indo-Pak border, she asserts that “a feminist from India might as well be a feminist from Pakistan. Or at least she could’ve been 70 years ago!,” she is amused at the absurdity of considering these identities as ‘transnational’. She makes this observation with regard to a specific feminist academic that she has had the chance to interact with, someone whose work I have cited as being influential to the work of G@D, Shilpa Phadke. She explains that this instant connection with Phadke was not just based on their shared understanding of dhabas and public space constraints in a developing country, she goes on to identify similar identity categories of class, preference for English and what she calls ‘literacy privilege’. Her answer illustrates the complicated divisions of postcolonial identities that have created similarities in certain classes regardless of context and location while segregating many identities that may share geography but still be far removed from each other’s lived realities. It illustrates a nuanced understanding of the politics of location and an understanding of how that affects the way she approaches the concept of feminism and feminist collaborations. Sarah echoes Yumna’s eagerness and inclination to initiate and collaborate with feminist groups across the border in her interview and shares the successes of past collaborations including active support for hash tag campaigns such as #whyloiter on Twitter and Facebook that encourage young women to record and upload their experiences of loitering on streets in cities in South Asia on their social media accounts. Sarah has utilized these hash tags in the past to create a narrative of women’s active and safe participation in public spaces and credits the start of G@D as a collective to her cataloguing pictures of herself enjoying tea at dhabas with #girlsatdhabas. G@D collaborated with the Fearless Collective in mid-February as I wrote this chapter. Fearless Collective is an art-based feminist collective that use art to reclaim public spaces and have painted murals in many countries including India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. G@D was invited to participate in an Instagram takeover of the Fearless Collective to raise awareness for their Kickstarter19

19 Platform for crowdfunding.

90 campaign to raise funds. In this takeover Sarah used the Instagram account of the collective to post about G@D’s memorable experiences especially with regard to art-related activism. By redirecting G@D’s audiences to the Fearless Collective, G@D extends their support to the artists at the collective. In both these instances an understanding of the shared context that these feminist activists navigate aids fruitful and effective demonstrations of solidarity. Collaborations on social media campaigns, hash tag activism, attending conferences and coordinating study circles across borders and exchanging knowledge are all acts of solidarity and collaboration that G@D has confidently participated in and furthered in South Asia. These collaborations are not hindered by the openly hostile relations between the Pakistan and Indian governments and amidst the continuous looming threat of nuclear war in the region. Rather, a crucial aim of these collaborations is often to subvert and question this contentious issue of borders that continue to hold Pakistan-India ties hostage under a constant threat of war, especially over the issue of Kashmir which remains disputed territory. These instances of cross-border feminist collaboration complicate my analysis of transnational feminist solidarity because these instances of solidarity are without a doubt cherished and appreciated forms of collaboration between feminists across borders. These collaborations have been used effectively not just to create transnational networks but have also proven to be crucial sources of learning and benefit for everyone involved. These collaborations assert a shared connection and feminist goals that make possible ideas of cross-border solidarity in ways that remain difficult to envision with other regions across the globe, at least for the members of G@D.

THE CRISIS OF REPRESENTATION IN FEMINIST SOLIDARITY Sherry B. Ortner defines the crisis of representation around obstructions to “the possibility of truthful portrayals of others (or Others)” and “the capacity of the subaltern to be heard.” I center this crisis as crucial reason which inhibits G@D from realizing more transnational collaborations with feminist collectives in countries and contexts far removed from the urban Pakistan. The failure of effective border crossing of certain sensitive issues related to women and queer individuals is one of the foremost considerations for G@D

91 members when weighing options regarding collaborations, interview requests or even grant applications. The members of G@D are wary of how colonial images of ‘oppressed third-world women’ are deployed by development and funding agencies when they are inviting donations and funding from the general public, government and other donor organizations. In her interview, Zeenat also links this decision to refuse funding from international donor agencies with a clear stance taken by the members of G@D to not be interviewed by mainstream Western news media outlets such as CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera etc precisely because of how their work and identities get represented as part of larger neo-colonial tropes about Muslim and brown women’s bodies. Yumna elaborates on an experience that another member of G@D had in a particular interview with BBC where a female foreign journalist interviewed and videotaped some of the members having chai at a local dhaba. She recounts the members’ discomfort having to respond to questions such as “how do you feel about these men staring at you?” m In a Facebook post written by that moderator at G@D, Naveen, explores her experience of being interviewed by the BBC. The post, from 23rd March 2016, with nearly 500 likes and 25 comments by Facebook users, talks about the focus of that interview and many interviews to foreign news media outlets preceding it. Naveen talks about her exhaustion at having to repeatedly clarify (within the span of one interview) that the G@D members are confronted with and position themselves strategically to challenge respectability politics. These members are not consciously or knowingly in the habit of endangering their lives and those of their followers, it is not part of their activism. Naveen uses this post primarily to comment on the media’s obsession with the ‘safety’ of these activists in Pakistan and how this coverage is actively seeking out certain responses and ‘concerns’ of G@D activists, concerns of safety and security which are imposed on the narrative of G@D against their wishes. The interviewer repeatedly asked her if they are safe in the streets of Karachi: I know the answer she wants – the answer her viewership perhaps wants to *consume*—but the response in my head is not going to satisfy the subtle insinuations and assumptions neatly packed in the syntax of her question. I have already told her for a previous question that at most we get stares and have never had an overtly threatening encounter so far. (Girls at Dhabas, 23 Mar.)

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It is noteworthy that what was filmed as an hour long interview was chopped down and aired as a five minute video on BBC’s website, lacking the nuance and detail provided by Naveen and other G@D members present. Yumna explains this decision to boycott foreign news media, “we have drawn this line because multi-national news outlets cater to the white gaze ... [this decision] is about the power dynamic, who is entitled to our time? And who will portray us in what ways?” She characterizes these interviews as being reductionist and lacking nuance and each of the members identify this ploy as a common trope in portraying ‘brown men’ as uncivilized and barbaric, language borrowed from Gayatri Spivak, a prominent post-colonial author. Mahjabeen expands on her discomfort talking about issues women face in Pakistan in her time away at Mt Holyoke where Sarah and Mahjabeen were both studying for their bachelors. “I would get uncomfortable talking to Americans so I would avoid it as much as possible. [...] I would restrict my conversations around these issues to South Asians; I would not talk to foreigners about them at all. They would not understand and I don’t want to go through the bullshit of trying to explain it to them. The crisis of representation of women in the third world, in post-colonial contexts and Muslim countries is a major concern of the G@D members. For example these activists mobilize around a sensitive but relatively safe issue that they do not consider a direct threat to them. Yet emerging stories from interviews highlight certain aspects of the situation i.e. the heroics of these girls operating in dangerous contexts, narratives often vilifying the poorer working class men deploy visuals and certain well established narratives in service of hegemonic neo-colonial regimes (Charania, Will the Real). The fact that this conversation is effectively directed and centered on the ‘safety’ of these activists, in spite of their explicit denial of having to negotiate dangerous situations, is resonant with the idea that private recreational spaces are ultimately the ones considered ‘safe’ for these activists. While the anxieties around the safety of these feminist activists exist on a local level, they are further perpetuated and exaggerated under colonial and Islamophobic tropes about the ‘backwardness’ and ‘conservatism’ of the socio-political landscape of Pakistan. I have had to contend with these Islamophobic and colonial tropes which overwhelm the concerns around the safety of these activists whenever I present on my work or talk about my thesis. On my flight to a conference in Lincoln, Nebraska, an elderly white American

93 gentlemen commenting on my thesis characterized Pakistan as a ‘buttoned up’ and conservative society, particularly with regard to women’s rights in the country. Unsurprisingly he expressed concern for these women as well as an admiration for their unparalleled bravery. In another instance, a white American female professor moderating my panel concluded the panel by reminding everyone of how safe and blessed they were to be women in a ‘progressive’ country like the United States. This expression of sympathy accompanied by admiration follow a standard script when discussing my thesis on G@D and their activism in the United States. I have also received plenty of compliments on my specialization in Women’s Studies because of the value of my degree and the need for feminism in ‘a country like Pakistan’. I have been part of countless such encounters regarding my identity as a Muslim hijabi woman from Pakistan and regarding the work of G@D as Muslim women operating under such harsh and ‘conservative’ conditions. These instances have highlighted this crisis of representation for me. They represent the severe informational gaps that exist around post-colonial Muslim subjects such as G@D and inform the stance of G@D around limiting transnational collaborations. This crisis of representation also lies at the heart of the skepticism of G@D members to explore possibilities of solidarity efforts across transnational contexts. When I inquire about what the members think of feminist collaborations with activists in the Global North or in other Muslim countries, each of the members express hesitation. Sarah does not fully write off this possibility however she does admit that for the foreseeable future G@D will not be engaging in any future collaboration with feminists from the US or Europe. Yumna mentions that such a collaboration would also be conditional on the group’s identities, what context and social location they occupy, if they are from a Pakistani or Indian diasporic community, a queer activist group, women from Muslim or post-colonial countries etc. Similarly Mahjabeen and Asra both state that they would not write off such a collaboration, Asra says that members at G@D are an “unusually optimistic” group and would not write off any possibilities but when prompted about the strategies of making such a collaboration happen she says that the emotional labor of the members of G@D is better spent in collaborating with those who understand the realities of their context instead of perhaps explaining it to a white, able-bodied and cis-gendered person in London who has a

94 different and removed understanding of public space access than most women or queer bodies in public spaces in urban Pakistan. The concerns of each of the members seem to converge and revolve around the issue of how discussions on public spaces and value and experiences of loitering in a city like Karachi translate when communicated across borders and regions. These concerns have arisen out of the way their interviews to foreign media have been taken and mis-taken out of context, how their conversations with foreign academics have to be qualified and contextualized and how certain realities continue to be difficult to qualify and verbalize. Their positioning on the margins of the neoliberal and neo-colonial world order makes them a valuable epistemic resource while also leaving them vulnerable and prone to the erasure of their identities, agency and activism. The inability to capture and represent the lived realities of those who are marginalized in knowledge production processes are central to the field of post-colonial studies and occupy a focal point of discussion in feminist epistemic studies (Narayan, Dislocating Cultures; Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders; Said). The resultant ‘crisis of representation’ (Ortner) that has emerged out of this issue of border-crossing, one where information coming out of a ‘subjugated’, often post-colonial, context is filtered through the lens of colonial and hegemonic subjectivities, has shaped many feminist research and fieldwork practices. It is a central concern of the field and a continuing conversation in transnational feminist thought.

CONCLUSION The reason why I have chosen to focus on these broad areas such as development discourse and academic feminist thought is because of connections that influence how feminist solidarity is enacted or imposes limitations that prevent a fruitful expression of solidarity. These areas are interrelated and interlinked processes which are deployed under neo-colonial hegemonic regimes. These regimes affect the lived realities of women in post- colonial and developing countries and are processes that members of G@D and I collectively identified as broad areas and interlinked sources of oppression. By centering a ‘crisis of representation’ and the perceived and practical obstacles that it poses around transnationalizing the work and narrative of G@D, I pose that expressions of feminist solidarity across regions that are truly effective and productive remain difficult to

95 envision from the site that these activists occupy. Colonial and neo-colonial production of images of Muslim women’s bodies as sites of oppression and subjugation interrupt holistic and complete narratives emerging out of the region, of women’s and queer struggles as well as stories of resistance and agency. I also complicate understandings of the term ‘transnational’ in the case of these individuals who are readily able and willing to engage in cross border collaborations however are hesitant to reach out and work with feminist activists in other parts of the world where they find an absence of a shared context. The crisis has lent to the skepticism with which the members calculate and plan how they will interact with or respond to invitations for interviews, publications, funding opportunities and grants and collaborations with those who are far removed from the context and realities of urban Pakistan. Given this crisis of representation of women and queer issues in the global South, the reach of the NGO-industrial complex and Pakistan’s precarious entanglement with the War on Terror the G@D members remain skeptical of true solidarity and effective cross- border collaborations with feminists from the global North.

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CONCLUSION

“The democratization of that right, and the construction of a broad social movement to enforce its will is imperative if the dispossessed are to take back the control which they have for so long been denied” (Harvey 40). In occupying dhabas, loitering in public spaces, in documenting their activism and initiating conversations around their respective cities, members of G@D are vying not just for a right for women’s access to the public spaces in Pakistan but also for many disenfranchised and marginalized groups. In the neoliberal hegemonic city, where those without the social or the economic capital are excluded or written out of the narratives and the citizenship of the cities, G@D represent a small feminist movement that advocates an intersectional vision of accessing their rights to the city. In my thesis I analyze and exploring the activism of G@D and the central conversations members of G@D are engaged in with each other. It highlights the concerns of a small feminist collective positioned in urban Pakistan, the struggles that G@D members face in their day to day working and the obstacles that prevent this collective from realizing or harnessing its full potential. Under the challenging circumstances in which they operate, members of G@D have utilized social media as a way to seek out and have important conversations regarding women’s rights and access to public spaces, perceptions of feminism and to publicly navigate their feminist politics. Social media provides them a space to archive and practice their activism and to magnify women’s and non-binary individuals’ occupation and engagement with public spaces in urban centers in Pakistan. In responding to the research questions in my thesis I explore the lived realities and the oppressive power structures that G@D members negotiate in their day to day navigation of their feminist goals and activism around making public spaces more accessible for women and queer individuals in Pakistan. I explore these challenges in depth as well as the nature of their activism and the various strategies that G@D members deploy in order to negotiate these realities. In their resistance of hegemonic structures of power such as capitalist

97 organizations and for profit ventures or mainstream international donor agencies, one of G@D’s biggest losses has been losing potential funding sources which can be crucial means of survival and mobilization for small groups like G@D. As the pool of reliable funding sources shrinks to the occasional grant or trustworthy donor organization, G@D has not been able to secure sustainable sources of funding. This has marginally affected the role and scope of G@D today. The fierce contestation and backlash they often receive for their feminist stances and activism also represents an important obstacle in their everyday work. Owning the label of feminism in a post-colonial context like Pakistan, where this movement is largely viewed with suspicion and in relation to US imperial hegemony, has served to undercut the validity of their work amongst the more conservative factions of society. Overcoming rigid class barriers is another key challenge they have faced in their activism. According to my interviews, this critique of their work is one they assessed to be more valid than other claims that have been made regarding G@D. Members feel they have been largely unable to reach across class lines and shore up support and alliances with various working women’s groups. When I interviewed members one by one, I came away with very different, often opposing, ideas of what G@D meant to each member and how they individually viewed the role of G@D, the nature and purpose of this initiative. Some members such as Mahjabeen and Zeenat criticize the limited scope of G@D today and feel unsatisfied with what G@D is doing presently. Asra cites funding as a key impediment to the work of G@D, “If we could have a small working space, even if it was public, I think we could do much better as a group.” Mahjabeen’s concerns around G@D’s performance are more grave, she questions the very role they play in affecting ‘real’ change in public spaces in Pakistan. G@D’s self- imposed limitations disallow the collective from affecting any long term concrete changes such as working with local governments for public toilets for women. She considers G@D’s stance ‘idealistic’ on many issues, stances they can well afford to take as members of privileged classes whose survival and safety is not dependant on safe public space access. Zeenat is interested in looking at ways to expand the conversation to be inclusive of women from various walks of life. She is critical of G@D’s capacity as a collective right now, that it is insufficiently inclusive. Sarah’s approach to assessing the work of G@D is vastly different and lends to her relative comfort with G@D’s work. While she is aware of the group’s limited outreach, she thinks that G@D has established itself as a platform and amassed some

98 recognition as a feminist collective. This allows them to be a voice weighing in on various issues in the country. She also values the unintentional side product of this recognition: cultivating a community of like-minded activists and feminists across Pakistan. While they have not been able to effect large scale changes in the lived realities of women in Pakistan, an ambitious undertaking on all counts, they have achieved one of their primary goals of initiating and contributing to conversations around public spaces and many women’s issues. Each of these individuals, apart from being active members of G@D, are involved in other projects, collaborations and professional efforts to contribute towards social justice and feminists issues in various concrete ways. I think this is partially because, in spite of G@D‘s growing recognition as well as the time consuming and uncompensated labor that goes into sustaining its work, these member also recognize its various limitations. G@D for many, is a valuable side project, that allows various members a supportive and emotionally meaningful space to execute events and start conversations on issues that matter the most to them. The diversity in assessments of G@D’s work and competing voices within the group have led to some critical and important conversations over the years about the direction that G@D should take as a collective, what the group can reasonably and effectively tackle, its responsibilities as a feminist collective. As a member I have been privy to some of these in- group discussions that happen on their private Facebook group but I only have partial access while I am in the US. To me these discussions appear as constant negotiations that G@D members have to undertake, with other each, to establish shared values that align with their own politics, values anchoring their activism. These discussions and active self-reflections have been a source of growth and active learning that members undertake for themselves and to teach fellow G@D members. Furthermore, in this thesis I trace the roots of transnational feminist conversations happening in the North American academia as well as the Pakistani women’s movements. I explore the lineage of the politics of G@D and the relationships of G@D to these movements. While my interviewees appear to be skeptical on the matter of effective transnational collaborations, they do associate with a broader feminist movement and claim a lineage with both the local and the ‘western’ feminist movements in their activism as a group and on a personal level as well. However the crisis of representation and the significant knowledge gap that exists between a post-colonial, predominantly Muslim state like Pakistan

99 and parts of the ‘developed’ world poses a serious challenge to transnational collaborative activism, according to G@D, that it does not have the means to address. However G@D members are not the only ones concerned about this issue. Conversations around this crisis of representation and gaps in knowledge generation continue to be central in transnational feminist thought but they have not foreclosed possibilities of researching across contexts and borders and various authors grapple with this obstacle in their work. In her latest book, Muddying the Waters: Coauthoring Feminisms Across Scholarship and Activism, Richa Nagar revitalizes these conversations and offers reflections on possible ways of bridging these gaps in knowledge production. As opposed to shying away from research, as has been the response of Western researchers (82), Nagar suggests a reframing of how we approach knowledge. She disrupts ideas of hegemonic research by posing questions around how to distribute and democratize the act of storytelling, encouraging researchers to celebrate and collaborate on projects, undertaking coathorship across divides and fissures, “Coauthoring stories opens up rich possibilities for such creative intervention, especially in alliance work where academic knowledges intersect with knowledges that are produced in and through struggles in sites that are not bound to the academy” (161). Nagar also asks researchers and academics to reflect on how stories are told and retold, within institutional paradigms and circulating constructs of power. Reflections on these paradigms may yield a conscious decision to move away from these tropes and will necessitate a greater engagement with geography and associated “configurations of material and cultural conditions” (161). In spite of these impasses in research related concerns and discussions, Nagar’s voice is one reminding researchers to not fixate on resolving this crisis. She does not sell these as complete solutions to the issues of collaborating across divides; instead she poses that ascribing ‘solutions’ effectively ends what is a multipronged and complex issue that needs consistent engagement from various ends (168). My thesis captures this nature of collaborative work. Admittedly my positionality is very similar to my interviewees which gave me certain insights I would not typically have had, however my thesis centers the work and voices of these activists in an attempt to bridge gaps and spaces that I have found lacking in the North American academia.

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FUTURE RESEARCH Keeping these suggestions in mind, for future research, collaborative projects between activists and academics that actively center the voices of activists in Pakistan offer the opportunity to create radical alliances as well as knowledge on the subject of women’s public space access as well as on the nature of feminist activism in the country. There is much that we stand to gain from the strategies, projects and challenges that feminists in the Global South and post-colonial countries negotiate. These projects add to narratives of active agency and negotiation with oppressive power structures and give insights into how these groups and individuals can be assisted by various means and from different social locations in the world. Research projects which undertake the exploration of how public spaces are shaped and negotiated by a whole host of marginalized identities and various groups of women, contribute not just towards ‘solutions’ to these complex interrelated issues, rather they create a reliable starting base for new scholars conducting research on this issue which remains largely underrepresented in in the Global South as well as the field of Gender Studies in Pakistan.

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APPENDIX

FACEBOOK POSTS USED FOR TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

1) Girls at Dhabas Facebook Page, January 25th 2017 : https://www.facebook.com/girlsatdhabas/posts/601902326686019:0 Somedays the prospect of spending another hour sitting inside staring at a laptop is enough to make me cry and today was one of those days. So I decided to step out and search for a cup of chai. Today as I walk out and am greeted by the usual - stares, some smirking and jeering - I wonder if my lipstick is too dark or my jeans are too skinny. But I shrug the thought away for now and enjoy the sunshine. Somedays I successfully blend in maybe a little better than other days. But on a fundamental level I also cannot help looking the way I look, dressing the way I dress and walking the way I walk. As I approach a dhaba, I am made painfully aware that I am the only woman here looking for a cup of chai. I have to assure the men around me that I am not looking for the family room. I drag a chair out and sit, reading and waiting for my chai. Loitering alone (sitting around for no good reason) in a commercial area definitely means I am making a spectacle of myself and this is a thought that makes me self conscious. But why should it? I remind myself that I also deserve to be here. In a small way, this is also an effort to be a part of the ordinary scene of the city. To negotiating public space- not by barging in and demanding the space- but by engaging with it (and this includes the things that may annoy you- begging, flies, numerous cats and yes, even people staring) Also, reading outdoors is great. I recommend everyone try it.

2) Girls at Dhabas Facebook Page, April 1st 2017 : https://www.facebook.com/girlsatdhabas/posts/634642690078649 What about a girl sitting by a chai dhaba at 3pm on a busy Karachi street is it, that says: Hey, come approach me, I'm selling sex? What is it about the shape of her body under the sky that makes her different from all the other shapes of all the other male bodies in the same street? Is is that she's wearing sleeveless, and that somehow qualifies her as a ‘loose, awaara woman’ who will welcome any stranger's approach? Is it that she's laughing and talking loudly, and that must of course be some kind of call to attention? Is it that she's engrossed in conversation with a rickshaw wala, talking to her from his seat, leaning towards her with an occasional laugh, and that both of them are drinking tea --

107 together it seems -- and this sight can't possibly mean they are friends, and he must be some kind of a customer, and she must be some kind of a sex worker? Or is it simply that any girl outside in the middle of the day cannot possibly have ventured for any other purpose? Must have a purpose? Dear men. I mean the ones in my immediate circles, the ones who often leave comments brimming with moral outrage on our Facebook posts (you know, the ones about smoking). Dear men who speak English and move around the same spaces I do-- the two assholes who came up to me to ask ‘Hi, How much?’ , while I was having chai with my friend, who happens to be a rickshaw wala, when I was clearly busy and caught up attending to Majeed bhai, they appeared not as shalwar- donned men walking on a street, but two cool looking bros in a sleek car. They drove right up to me, didn’t bother to get out, and with comfortable smirks directed towards both me and Majeed bhai, asked, How much? My immediate, irritated reply was, What the fuck do you want? To which they said, Kya de sakti ho? These boys, you have to understand, spoke English, looked and talked like me, they could have walked into any of my social spaces and no one would bat an eyelid. They weren’t -- as women are repeatedly warned -- some street hawker, some guy on a motorbike, some rickshaw wala looking for the first opportunity to whisk me away and either harm me or fuck me. No, these were two ‘respectable, educated’ boys -- probably already on their way somewhere -- who had seen a girl, me, sitting in broad daylight, and some logic in their head had snapped into place, they’d decided whatever else that had to be done could wait, right now they would drive up to this girl and ask her if she was free to come over. It is the audacity that shakes me most. Shakes me to my core. Even as I asserted myself (through only my voice, my body couldn’t move much) and told them to get the fuck out of my sight, I was thinking: I almost envy these boys. Imagine being able to take the streets around you for granted to such an extent that, with an absolute disregard for consequence, you can stride up to a perfect stranger (simply because she is a woman unprotected by any visible male guardian), you can intrude this stranger’s space, even declare your sexual interest in her while others pause and give you way to do so, that you do all this without once having to pay thought to the mad ways your actions might alter this woman’s day, even ruin it. The ways you might shift her comfort on the streets, suddenly making unsafe a space she has spent days and months learning to exist in without fear. That these thoughts -- which are all at once rushing through the woman’s head while you simply tell her to ‘calm her language’, do not have to surface anywhere near you, not once. How can I not envy you men? And when I meet the likes of you, and tell you about my curiosity of the streets, about wanting to feel more in my skin in the alleys and corners around my house, what do you say to me? Nahi yaar S, it’s not about you, it's the men on the streets! They won't *let* you feel comfortable. You never say anything about the men in cars--- * Later in the day, I narrate what happened to a friend, who shares a similar encounter, hers while on the move, in a busy bazaar, men pinched her ass and she was not going to let them get away with it. While frustrated, we revelled, smiled at our shared victories -- we had stood up for ourselves, not allowed men to get away with treating our bodies as public property. And then instantly the question presents itself to my mind: why do we have to fight for this right, yaar?

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3) Girls at Dhabas Facebook Page, 3rd October 2017 : https://www.facebook.com/girlsatdhabas/posts/726266340916283 What is the point, you may have wondered, of plastering across our timelines photographs of ourselves having chai at dhabas, lounging in parks? They’re all replicas of the same pose and frame: smiling women, some public space background. Think about how social media functions as an extension of public space. Out timelines are saturated with the chronicles of our lives—memorable events, career successes, our gym progress, even the food we eat. The things we do for pleasure, the spaces we occupy. And especially on Instagram, the most ordinary sights from our everyday. What happens when the same timelines that announce our engagements and beach vacations suddenly also include photographs of our bodies comfortable in open spaces? Something shifts in our idea of what is part of a woman’s every day. Something shifts in our idea of what it is we record, and archive, and tell the world that we do. Something shifts in our own sense of ownership – here is pleasure without purpose, the most intimate form of our own.

4) Girls at Dhabas Facebook Page, 1st April 2018 : https://www.facebook.com/girlsatdhabas/posts/7262632430916283 As a woman who usually has to provide constant explanations for where she is, who she is with, and what she is doing there, loitering makes me feel invisible, like I have merged into a landscape where nothing is expected of me. The illusion only lasts for a while. Then someone looks a bit closely, or asks me the time and I am forced to reveal my feminine voice, or maybe it is a day when I don’t have my male garb on, and I am reminded once again that a woman cannot actually expect to walk in the city unquestioned or unbothered, that my action is unusual and out of place, and therefore must be rectified. When it is discovered that my loitering is not anchored to purpose, men on the streets rush to my rescue. The shopkeeper offers the comfort of his air-conditioned store. A guard gets up and pulls out a chair where I can wait. A rickshaw-wala slows down, asks if I need a ride. Some man my father’s age parks his fancy car abruptly beside me, rolls down his tinted window, asks if he can take me home. Under the guise of concern or curiosity, each man does the same: attempts to stop me from doing nothing, in order to ascribe some reason to my presence, in order to pin upon me the “tyranny of purpose.” I first came across the term in Why Loiter?, a life-altering book by Shilpa Phadke, Sameera Khan, and Shilpa Ranade, about the politics of loitering and occupying public spaces. The tyranny of purpose, they explain, is a shackle that limits all women. It demands that we justify our expeditions into the wild world of thoroughfares and khayabans, especially if we wish to undertake the journey on our feet, and especially if we wish to step out alone. Like when a widow starts walking everywhere for errands because her husband can no longer fetch groceries for her, that is a good reason. Or when a woman starts driving because her

109 children are older and someone has to pick them up from school. Or when a domestic worker or an ayah walks to the bus stop because it is the cheapest commute. Only actual need or urgency can justify a respectable woman’s presence under open air. But if the same woman has the privilege of money or man, some way to access a vehicle or a Careem, or some brother or husband to drive her around, then there is no reason for her to step outside at all.

5) Girls at Dhabas Facebook Page, 23rd March 2016 : https://www.facebook.com/girlsatdhabas/posts/469176973291889 We are sitting at a dhaba – four women and camera crew. The reporter from one of the most globally viewed [read: western], mainstream British outlets looks me in the eye and asks, “So how safe do you feel at the moment? We were just surrounded by a group of little boys [because of the cameras], do you think the situation can ever turn on you?" I stare back blankly at the reporter. I feel exhausted. I know the answer she wants – the answer her viewership perhaps wants to *consume*—but the response in my head is not going to satisfy the subtle insinuations and assumptions neatly packed in the syntax of her question. I have already told her for a previous question that at most we get stares and have never had an overtly threatening encounter so far. “I don’t have an answer to that” but before she can turn the mic to someone else, I add— “you need to understand, us intentionally sitting outside is not radical. These are baby steps, but important steps for fuller participation in the public sphere” Safety is not the issue usually on my mind. Safety is not often even the issue at hand—no one is really bold enough to confront someone randomly, violently, in such a crowded, busy part of town. The disobedience or the “threat” that can actually amount to any (self-inflicted) damage—is from my parents, relatives and their social circles, and the construction of that threat is a loss of respectability. Not safety. In another question she asks “So what is it about the tradition or culture that results in the exclusion of women in public?” Me: “I am unsure to what extent it is the result of our own tradition/culture—but I often wonder to what extent the class dynamic that results in upper/middle-class women being shuttled from one private space to another is inherited from our colonial experience, when white women of the British Raaj were shuttled from one private space to another, to “protect” them from the local, “native” man?” I don’t know if I managed to get the weight of the nuances across in those few seconds/words. I doubt if they will even make it to the final edit of the interview. But I did lose sleep over her questions last night.