note: i wrote this for the kiddos who might be experiencing the same and i want you to know you’re not alone. or for our inner children who felt pervasive fear and needed to feel seen. many women/afabs in Pakistan cannot afford period products or to even go to the pharmacy, so please make note of your privilege and that this piece of prose is about a young woman in Pakistan who was materially and socially very privileged.
(trigger warning: misogyny, mention of sexual violence)
Feeling surveilled? Unlikely there is a camera nearby. We live in a country too poor for that, I’m told. Instead, my father’s driver will ensure I’m on my best behaviour when I’m out of the house, and on the streets where I am a symbol of my patriarch’s pride and honour. He’ll make sure my legs are closed and that I am maintaining a safe distance from thirsty wolves (not blood-thirsty though, no no, make no mistake). Social distancing? I’ve known what that is since the first time I was surprised by blood coursing down my thighs, staining my school uniform, a white shalwar kameez with crimson stains of disdain. Does my blood give you the right to control my body?
Ugh, I hate being a woman in this country. Allah if you can hear me, you’ve cursed me with this thing. Thirteen-year old me thought power came from masculinity. And how could I disagree, knowing that God, whom we worship as the Almighty, is referred to as “He”? This damn period, I don’t want to go to the pharmacy. “Why?” my single-parent father asks me, too ashamed in my quest for pads to accompany me. I can’t buy tampons, because I know they’ll all stare. They’ll all look at me. They’ll think I want penetration. So I have to stick to the most un-sexy thing, yes. Pads, they make me itchy, but not as squeamish as the man who works at the pharmacy, the one who winks at me as he packs my pads in a brown paper bag so that no-one will see. My honour has been maintained by a brown paper bag. Thank you very much sir jee.
Fast forward and I’m sixteen. I’ve been having sex in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and I still feel squeamish and itchy. This time, I’m itching to be free and I thought sex would do that for me. But he refused to wear a condom. Why do they want to mimic our colonizers? The violence, the misogyny and the whiskey. Ugh, no please I don’t want to. Why can’t you go inside? Again, another man was ashamed that his masculinity would decrease. Fast forward and I’m twenty-two. Now he can’t go in and get it by-law, even if I wanted him to. Hyperventilating outside the pharmacy, palms sweaty, knees weak… (slim shady?). Fear penetrates my insides and my shoulders scramble towards my ears. I’m covered up but I know they’ll still stare. They’ll still try to see what’s underneath. They’ll sexualize me, because now they’ll know I’m buying ECP*. But this time, I’m surprised, because now he’s looking at me with disgust.
This time, I have been reduced to an object, a mere embodiment of shame.
This time, I’m tainted, like my shalwar’s bloodied, crimson-coloured stain.
*ECP: Emergency Contraceptive Pill
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