Gender, Mobility, & Touchy-Feely Men In Pakistan

Posted on January 7, 2008 by Zosha

So, tomorrow we’re leaving for Islamabad, God willin’. My husband’s stomach is all Pakistanified—he’s having the true experience, poor guy. I’m wondering if we should cancel our delayed Northern travels altogether, but he’s really keen to go.

Yesterday, after much repeated insistence, we were given enough liberty to go out around town with Dinu Bhai. Everyone’s terribly protective and feels responsible for us, so sweet as it is, it’s a bit difficult to act like an adult. Also, this idea of going out wandering without a particular purpose has limited currency here. The idea is that you (women or mixed gender groups) go out with a particular purpose. Only men seem to just hang around in public space in Hyderabad. It’s pre-feminist revolution: men own the public sphere. Even fairly overt and dramatic affection between men is tolerated in public, while even minimal affection between sexes, even spouses, is just not seen and, I’m told, not tolerated in public. This is generally accepted as an appropriate exercise of modesty. I suppose affection between women is generally alright here, but because women are generally only in public with some business, you just don’t see it.

The masculine public has an almost harem like atmosphere in some of the town’s squares. Yesterday on the way to Nani’s house I saw several young men on a stoop, one lounging in the lap of another. I saw the same thing in Karachi, young men with their arms wrapped around each other, not casually, but sensually. I find it ironic how rhetorically homophobic Pakistanis and Muslims can be, and how there’s this whole deep homo-erotic culture that functions here. Whether it’s out in the open or hidden away, it’s obviously there and an integral part of the social structure and function of society. I find it particularly weird that no behavior of men in the public sphere, however intimate, seems to violate the code of modesty, while the behavior and movement of women in the public sphere is so heavily restricted.

Women have far more mobility and liberty in the public sphere of the larger cities: Karachi and Islamabad; I’m not so sure about Lahore. I’m curious what we’ll find if we are actually able to travel North. I wonder if what I find will make repatriation (one generation removed) seem feasible….

–Zosha