LATELY, I’ve been observing Pakistani millennials and Gen Z-ers locked in aggressive and acrimonious argument about the roles and obligations of husbands and wives in the context of Pakistani society, the Islamic religion, and the expectations of extended families versus the independent aspirations of Pakistani women. There are no real winners in this debate, but given Pakistan’s position in second-last place on the Gender Gap Index in 2025, the obvious losers are, as ever, Pakistan’s women.

In this current round, young educated men believe that women who seek careers and financial independence are destroying Pakistani society (many of our grandfathers believed the same thing). Some educated women are aligning themselves with pro-women stances through the political activism of Aurat March, the Women’s Action Forum, and other platforms. Others call feminism an un-Islamic Western invention, condemning colonialism and Western imperialism while signalling that they are the good kind of wife material.

Current Pakistani television dramas are also provoking debate among a young, very online generation that watches clips on YouTube, discusses them online, and raise concerns with the shows’ writers, cast members, and studios, all of whom are online as well. Jama Taqseem has been bravely excavating Pakistani marriages and the politics of the joint family, while Case No. 9 examines the difficulty of prosecuting rape in our legal system. Meanwhile, Mein Manto Nahin Hoon portrays an odd and inappropriate relationship between a university professor and his female student. Mira Sethi caused a stir when she said she’d refused a role in the show because of its writer’s regressive attitudes towards women.

In Pakistan, the popularity of Andrew Tate has declined since the British-Amer­ican influencer was charged with rape and sex trafficking earlier this year. His protégés still embrace the ‘manosphere’, the part of the internet that encourages misogyny and masculinism and opposes women’s rights. In a current American social movement leaning towards gender conservatism, young Americans are favouring traditional gender roles where a husband is the primary breadwinner and the wife is responsible for the home and children. You can even find this under #tradwife on Instagram and TikTok, but in Pakistan, this remains the status quo in the imaginarium of the ideal marriage.

Here, the ideal marriage only survives on the wife’s submission

Pakistani women seeking their Islamic rights in marriage can look up websites that explain the nikahnamah, outline Pakistan’s family laws, and can even consult lawyers online. Advocating for your Islamic rights as a woman is called ‘Islamic feminism’, but there is a line of thought that Islam and feminism are incompatible. This is perpetuated by inaccurate and illogical ideas about how feminism is a branch of Western liberalism that, according to a recent tweet, “maximises personal liberty/pleasure and clashes with the concept of submission”. Therefore, no ‘real Muslim’ can or should call herself a feminist.

Malala Yousufzai has correctly identified that women’s rights require redefining the meaning of marriage; the dynamic of female submission should evolve into a partnership of equality, shared values and respect. But this is unlikely to gain traction in a society where a man who is visibly tender and vulnerable in his relationship with his wife is deemed ‘biwi ka ghulam’. Here, the ideal marriage only survives on the submission of a wife to her husband under any circumstances, regardless of the husband’s behaviour. Even Malala has only been able to speak her opinions about marriage from a safe distance in the UK.

But we must still strive for the outcome where Pakistani women attain the dignity and status that Islam and the Constitution have promised them. Chief Justice Ayesha Malik recently wrote a landmark judgement in the case of Dr Seema Hanif Khan, who was denied the dissolution of her marriage by the Peshawar High Court. Justice Malik ruled that a woman does not need the consent of her husband to obtain a khula, that any accusation of “disobedience” cannot be accepted without evidence, and that psychological abuse is a valid reason for a woman to seek dissolution of a marriage.

This is why it’s so vital that we have a female judge in the Supreme Court. Islam gives women their rights but men have constructed so many limitations and qualifiers that women have been trapped in awful, abusive marriages for nearly a century. It took a female judge to restore a woman’s right to khula and to set legal precedent for future Pakistani women to avail of that right in the 21st century. We could call this a feminist action, even if no woman in Pakistan wants to call herself a feminist.

The writer teaches expository writing at AKU’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Published in Dawn, November 3rd, 2025