Do your own thing. Just not a hostile flash mob for 'women's empowerment'
Five young Pakistani women wearing fashionable and modern Pakistani clothes travel to a busy street in Lahore’s Anarkali district.
They encounter a typical episode of street harassment and then break out into an impromptu dance session to express themselves in a public space that’s normally off-limits to women.
At the end of the video, we learn that this is an advertisement for the clothing company, whose brand encourages women to “do your own thing (DYOT).”
The video has generated enough controversy to make us question whether it was a great idea or a PR nightmare.
More importantly, it has raised debate about what value we place on the idea of women doing “their own thing.”
Obviously not meant to portray reality — the days when women danced publicly in Anarkali are long over — the flash mob video was meant to go viral in order to increase DYOT’s brand image in a market that’s saturated with bigger fashion names. For a company with a small budget, using social media is the most cost effective way to garner attention.
But going viral is always a risk because you can't control the people's response to it.
Unfortunately for DYOT, the response to the video hasn't been as positive as its makers would have hoped for.
It seems they wanted to put out the video as an oblique statement of women’s independence. But since the message was not clear enough, and because society is particularly sensitive about how women are portrayed in the media, the backlash was almost immediate.
Viewers refuse to accept the video as an example of women’s empowerment (a phrase that’s already starting to sound overused and commercialised), criticise its cynical use of women’s bodies to sell clothing, and bring up Pakistan’s modesty culture as reasons for their dislike.
On the other hand, the activist group Girls at Dhabas (GAD) attempted to engage with the video by analysing the messages they saw in it.
Yes, the ad had an agenda — to sell clothes — and yes, feminism is being commercialised. The ad’s use of conventionally attractive women, as well as its demonisation of men from lower socio-economic classes, is problematic.
But GAD did correctly point out that the ad does portray female mobility and access to public space. They stated, "we often tend to want it to be done in a certain way, in what we perceive to be the most intentional or informed way. But in that process we must not adopt a holier-than-thou approach or start policing other women’s behaviour in public space. We may or may not like it, but this ad too, is an expression of mobility."
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of the ad though is its hostile and adversarial tone.
The first woman enters the scene, her chador slipping as she exits the rickshaw and walks into the bazaar. The men stare, and one man walks close by her, whispering a lecherous “mashallah.”