Pakistanis Are Boycotting A Detergent For Promoting Women Empowerment In Its Advertisement!
Women around the world are speaking up against gender stereotypes, inequalities and patriarchy. For centuries now, women have been subjugated and the feminist and liberal movements aim at making living conditions easier for women. We, however seem to be going backward in time with the first world country like US passing anti-abortion bills in a number of its states.
The fight for equality is ongoing. When one such voice was recently raised in Pakistan, a bunch of people in the nation decided to shut that voice down.
Pakistan¡¯s is a highly conservative patriarchal society, where protests against women empowerment are not unheard of - a considerable chunk of people term it as being against the Quran. When Ariel detergent released an advertisement subverting gender stereotypes and challenging the conservation notions of womanhood, critics of the country aggressively opposed it, and appealed the people to boycott the detergent for allegedly insulting Islam.
Ariel soap is owned by the US-based Proctor & Gamble and the ad features Bisma, a known face of the Pakistani women¡¯s cricket team. Apart from that, it characters a doctor and a journalist and urges women to step out of their households and pursue different careers. The ad shows the words ¡®chaar diwari me raho¡¯ to be stained, challenging the conservative idea that a woman should only be confined within the four walls of their homes.
The ¡®upholders¡¯ of Islam have taken to the Internet to outrage over the ad, and some even explain exactly why it is wrong. In the video below, the man explains that according to Surah Ahzab verse 33 of Quran ¡°Stay in your homes and do not expose your beauty¡± - so the Ariel ad not only tells the women to not stay at home, but ALSO go out thus exposing their ¡®beauty¡¯.
There is an Internet campaign going on in Pakistan #boycottariel urging people to snub the brand as it is promoting women empowerment! The number of reshares and hype the campaign is receiving even from the women in the nation itself is unbelievable and to be honest, disappointing.
Tweets linked below can be seen holding liberalism and feminism as the cause of ads like this (as if feminism is a disease to be afraid of).
Aerial Surf Boycott is Start Now. #BoycottAriel #nab pic.twitter.com/5bDeeUojvH
¡ª ???? ??? ?? (@Rana_Official92) June 22, 2019
Whats going on in this country, after the xtart of nudity in our filmz xuch kind of adz?
¡ª XaiM_Ali (@Chaxhmixh) June 22, 2019
Any thing can be xhown? Char dewari iz not a qaid itx a protection xuch dexi libralz like thexe Mera jixm meri marzi wali can't know...
The cheap librals then cry#BoycottAriel pic.twitter.com/zKXLvnFlH5
#BoycottAriel
¡ª S??? KhAn ?? ?? (@SabaKhan18sabs) June 22, 2019
After Aurat march another stupidity, goofines,cheapness is here...
Please take action against? these liberals, who promoting liberalism in Pakistan. They destroy the teaching of Islam & promoting fitna. Really the end is near...? pic.twitter.com/scbJROGTeX
This is not the first time Pakistan has campaigned to boycott ads remotely promoting women choice or empowerment.
Some weeks ago, a cab service Careem had to take down advertisement from a billboard in Pakistan as it read ¡®Apni Shaadi se bhaagna ho to Careem karo¡¯. It faced a very similar backlash on the Internet. The ad hints at the culture of women being forcefully married to someone they do not want or without permission.
Most of our society is still patriarchal, women are still living under oppressive outdated codes of religion which have also been internalised. There are nations where wearing a burqa and a hijab is not a choice but an imposition and Malala, one of the women¡¯s rights representative of Pakistan herself does not reside there. And it is not that other Pakistani women are not raising voices.
In March, on Women's day this year, hundreds of Pakistani women took to streets carrying an 'aurat March' asserting their basic rights. It was a tense situation for the men of the country as even Parliamentarian Aamir Liaqat tweeted to Imaran Khan to 'investigate' who was funding the March and why it was happening in the first place. Clearly the powerful men do not see anything wrong with the condition of women in the country and even the idea of their complaining against being constrained seems outrageous.
This is not to say that it is only Pakistan where the idea women empowerment is unimaginable. In many part of the world, the inversion that women empowerment might bring - upsetting the privileged male society - is something to be fearful of.
The question is, in everyday modernizing world, where women have aspirations or the simple want of breaking free from gender stereotypes, are we going to site religion as a reason for holding them back?
