Thread by @karachikhatmal

Going to bring up a graphic incident to start off this thread, so please be warned.

About 7-8 years ago, I was going to Boat Basin and standing at the signal. There's a lot of port-bound traffic on that road, with large trucks whizzing past. Right in front of me...

...there were a bunch of motorbikes. What happened next is a blur - my mind remembers flashes and I suspect that something like a tangled shalwar or a sudden tip to one end happened - but one of the bikes fell over and ended up being trampled by a passing truck.

The male driver was badly injured but the woman was completely crushed. Again, I can't recall what specifically happened, I am sure my mind blocked out the horrific details. What stayed with me was how that woman was sitting.

Almost every woman who sits on the millions of bikes careening around Pakistan sit side-saddle. They carry children in their laps, they wear billowy clothes and they have at best one hand to use for support. No helmets either jbtw.

Purely from a physical perspective, the amount of core strength required is insane. Add to that how men drive motorcycles like at a GP, tipping bikes to sides and squeezing in narrow gaps at high speeds. It is a completely normalised example of insanity.

The public safety hazard alone is absolutely enormous, ESPECIALLY given how easy it is to prevent.

So how is something so abnormal, irrational and completely fucking crazy NORMAL?

Because of izzat. Ghairat. A women sitting with her legs splayed open is a whore.

As a society, we have normalised this behaviour. It affects the middle and lower middle class women directly and almost none of the elite, and so morality allows this behaviour to be normalised.

We once did a @paceispaceyaar episode where i used this example of how we've normalised women sitting side-saddle to show how fucked up and irredeemable Pakistan is in this way, and used it as an analogy for Pak cricket being similarly hopeless. paceispaceyaar.tumblr.com/post/613569815…

@PaceisPaceYaar At @AuratMarch2019 there was a poster about sitting with one's legs open. The poster, like many others were made by women who already knew what their issues were. For men immune to such issues, the only thing to note was ghairat and the lack of it.

@PaceisPaceYaar @AuratMarch2019 WE COMPLETELY IGNORE THAT GHAIRAT KILLS. SPECIFICALLY THIS GHAIRAT EXTENDED TO MOTORCYCLE SITTING KILLS.

And I'll be honest, the only reason as a man I learnt to care was because I had to see one of those murders happen.

@PaceisPaceYaar @AuratMarch2019 But there are ways to come to this realisation without needing to witness deaths first. And to understand the immense, outrageous social pressure that comes with sitting astride.

Read this by @ZoyaAnwerNaqvi himalmag.com/the-audacity-o…

@PaceisPaceYaar @AuratMarch2019 @ZoyaAnwerNaqvi Zoya's experiences, the multitude of social norms that have to be violated for her to simply be able to afford mobility for her work, are a simple set of reminders for how harmful and dangerous patriarchy is.

We willingly enforce a morality that leads to accidents and deaths.

@PaceisPaceYaar @AuratMarch2019 @ZoyaAnwerNaqvi Every time I see a woman sitting like this, see her fumbling and struggling to hold her child and her purse and her bags, I think of that trampled woman and I get mad at her and the man she's with. But the essay above recounts the fury & disapproval meted out when one defies that

@PaceisPaceYaar @AuratMarch2019 @ZoyaAnwerNaqvi So instead we ask women to break their backs, risk their lives, and die painful deaths just so that we don't think that they're beghairat. Its insane.