Despite campaigns to end rape culture, Pakistani drama industry today still fails to overcome its tradition that promotes rape culture and sexism against women.
I didn’t set out to contribute to rape culture. Like all sensible people, I’m a feminist. Granted, the brown, privileged kind who’s gone through life with easy access to education, well-paying job, sexual liberation, freedom of speech and the right to trash men. In short, I never felt particularly personally oppressed. Until I started watching TV dramas, the point at which my complacent-feminist innocence was violently taken away from me, leaving me feeling exposed and violated.
The most common scene that we see in our dramas is man from the family sneaking into the room and raping his unsuspecting cousin in a well-planned fit of jealous rage and then tearing himself up with remorse.
My question to all these dramas is why are we promoting that women are not save in their own houses? Why are we emphasizing that men can’t be trusted.
Why none of the rapist in the dramas are charged or prosecuted, and why the female victims who are dehumanized by the sexist plot, don’t do anything about it?
Are these dramas the result or the cause of an ignorant society? Either way, it doesn’t help in cultivating the awareness on women’s right.
If you can’t deal with the subject properly, go back to your saas and bahu scripts; just stop making fun of victims… I beg of you.
