CII- Hating women since 1962

[Disir]

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Amidst all the tragedy and confusion, at a time when the nation is desperately seeking answers and guidance in the quest to eliminate terrorism and religious extremism, one group of men decided that they could no longer remain silent. Earlier this week, in a meeting featuring a truly diverse and impressive collection of robes, beards, and hats, the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) decided to comment on the burning issues of our times, providing instruction and direction to a hapless parliament and a rudderless citizenry. Henceforth, counselled the sages of the CII, men divorcing their wives by declaring their intent to do so three consecutive times would be punished, even though the divorce itself would remain valid. Warming to this theme, the CII then reiterated its commitment to polygamy, arguing once again that men could marry multiple wives without the permission of their first, and that this did not constitute valid grounds upon which a woman could be granted a divorce. Buoyed by the strength of their convictions, and possibly mistaking the bewildered silence of their audience for enthusiastic support, the members of the CII then deigned to declare that women could, in fact, become judges in Pakistan. Mindful of the fact that this pronouncement could, prima facie, be misconstrued as an endorsement of the liberal-secular-Western agenda that has been seeking to destroy Pakistan these past seventy years, the CII was quick to clarify its statement; women could become judges, but only if they were above 40 years of age and were fully veiled. Why? To quote the Chairman of the CII, ‘This is a mature age, when women no longer remain attractive or marriageable’. Even then, according to the CII, women could simply not be allowed to rule on Hudood or Qisas cases.

The Chairman of the CII should be given credit for at least one thing; rarely has someone met with such success in encapsulating and articulating Pakistan’s entrenched misogyny so succinctly and yet so comprehensively. In just 13 words, the gentleman in question was able to go over some of patriarchy’s greatest hits in Pakistan; women under 40 lack the mental faculties to pursue careers and should only be valued on the basis of their physical attributes and saleability in the marriage market, women over 40 are of no interest to anyone and can therefore appear in the public sphere without disturbing the sexual order or subverting the virtue of honourable men, all women, regardless of who they are or what they do, must be veiled, and no woman can ever be the equal of a man.

The absurdity of the CII’s statements on women is so self-evident it is scarcely worthy of comment. As demonstrated by its pronouncements last year, in which it endorsed child marriage and forbade the use of DNA evidence when investigating rape cases, the CII is a body that unabashedly promotes and pursues a retrogressive anti-woman agenda.
CII- Hating women since 1962

Useless organizations that will never get it:CII