Visible outside, invisible inside: the power of patriarchy on female protest leaders in conflict and violence-affected settings

ABSTRACT

The literature on women’s participation in public protests and movements shows that even when they are prominent actors within these, most women are excluded from the male-dominated decision-making spaces within which negotiations with the state occur. In this article we look at the case of an ethnic struggle for rights in a conservative and conflict-affected region in which women have gained prominence over time, to the extent that they are the face of the protests. We find that this has led to changes in the nature and purpose of the struggle: from male-dominated violent protests focused on expressions of anger, to female-focused peaceful sit-ins holding the state accountable for a lack of security. However, we continue to see women excluded from the spaces within the movement where decisions are made: despite being visible to the outside world, women protesters are invisible in decision-making inside their community and homes. Why are women protest leaders unable to transform their temporary public leadership into more enduring forms of influence? We draw on 13 in-depth interviews with 13 Hazara women leaders, key in mobilising other women in the city of Quetta in Pakistan, to provide some explanations for why protest presence and leadership has not resulted in a greater decision-making role. We find the intersection of patriarchy, identity politics, and social structures playing a key negative role on Hazara women’s influence in decision-making processes. Women within movements cannot be empowered in the absence of wider shifts in patriarchal social norms – even when they actively take on the state – but there are visible changes in their expectations and perceptions of their own role.

Les publications portant sur la participation des femmes aux protestations et aux mouvements publics montre que, même lorsqu’elles figurent parmi les principaux acteurs de ces manifestations, la plupart des femmes sont exclues des espaces de prise de décisions dominés par les hommes et au sein desquels ont lieu les négociations avec l’État. Dans cet article nous nous penchons sur le cas d’une lutte ethnique pour les droits dans une région conservatrice et touchée par un conflit dans laquelle les femmes ont acquis une place de premier plan au fil du temps, à tel point qu’elles sont maintenant la figure de proue de ces protestations. Nous constatons que cela a mené à des changements sur le plan de la nature et de la finalité de la lutte: de protestations violentes dominées par les hommes axées sur l’expression de la colère à des sit-ins pacifiques centrés autour de femmes demandant à l’État de rendre des comptes quant au manque de sécurité. Cependant, nous continuons de voir les femmes exclues des espaces au sein du mouvement où les décisions sont prises: elles ont beau être visibles aux yeux du monde extérieur, ces femmes qui protestent sont invisibles dans la prise de décisions au sein de leurs communautés et foyers respectifs. Pourquoi les femmes à la tête de protestations ne sont-elles pas en mesure de transformer leur leadership public temporaire en formes plus durables d’influence? Nous nous basons sur 13 entretiens approfondis menés avec 13 femmes leaders hazaras qui ont joué un rôle crucial dans la mobilisation d’autres femmes dans la ville de Quetta, au Pakistan, pour fournir quelques explications sur les raisons pour lesquelles la présence et le leadership lors des protestations n’ont pas abouti à un rôle accru en matière de prise de décisions. Nous constatons que l’intersection entre le patriarcat, la politique identitaire et les structures sociales a un effet négatif clé sur l’influence exercée par les femmes hazaras dans les processus de prise de décisions. Les femmes au sein des mouvements ne peuvent pas être autonomisées en l’absence de changements plus larges sur le plan des normes sociales patriarcales — même lorsqu’elles défient activement l’État — mais il y a des changements visibles sur le plan de leurs attentes et perceptions de leur propre rôle.

La literatura sobre la participación de las mujeres en protestas y movimientos públicos da cuenta de que, incluso aunque sean actores destacadas en estas actividades, la mayoría son excluidas de los espacios de toma de decisiones en los que tienen lugar las negociaciones con el Estado, generalmente dominados por los hombres. En este artículo analizamos el caso de una lucha étnica por los derechos realizada en una región conservadora y afectada por conflictos. En esta, las mujeres ganaron protagonismo con el tiempo, hasta devenir el rostro visible de las protestas. Descubrimos que ello provocó cambios en la naturaleza y el objetivo de la lucha: de ser protestas violentas, dominadas por hombres y centradas en expresar su ira, se convirtieron en sentadas pacíficas, centradas en mujeres que exigen al Estado que rinda cuentas por la falta de seguridad. A pesar de ello, observamos que las mujeres siguen siendo excluidas de los espacios internos del movimiento en que se toman decisiones: aun cuando son visibles para el mundo exterior, las manifestantes son invisibles a la hora de tomar decisiones dentro de su comunidad y sus hogares. ¿Por qué las líderes de las protestas no pueden transformar su liderazgo público temporal en formas de influencia más duraderas? Para acercarnos a una respuesta, nos basamos en 13 entrevistas en profundidad con mujeres líderes hazaras, actores clave de la movilización de otras mujeres en la ciudad de Quetta, en Pakistán, quienes ofrecieron algunas explicaciones sobre por qué su presencia y su liderazgo en las protestas no ha llegado a traducirse en un papel más destacado en la toma de decisiones. Encontramos que factores como el patriarcado, las políticas de identidad y las estructuras sociales, confluyen conformando un determinante negativo fundamental para la influencia de las mujeres hazaras en los procesos de toma de decisiones. Aunque las mujeres de los movimientos no pueden empoderarse en ausencia de cambios más amplios en las normas sociales patriarcales —incluso cuando se enfrentan activamente al Estado—, existen cambios visibles en sus expectativas y percepciones en torno a su propio papel.

KEYWORDS:

• Hazara
• protest
• patriarchy
• Pakistan
• accountability
• conflict

Introduction: visible outside, invisible inside

In the past three years protesters in the city of Quetta, Balochistan have twice demanded the presence of Pakistan’s chief of army staff and the prime minister to hold them to account over the killings of Hazaras, an ethnic minority in the region. Twice, the most powerful men in the country came. Key in these protests was the public role of Hazara women demanding answers. Yet, despite being prominent actors in public protests demanding state accountability, most of these women find it almost impossible to be part of the male-dominated decision-making leadership bodies controlling these protests and subsequent negotiations with the state. Moreover, the empowering feeling of holding the most powerful actors in the country accountable publicly does not translate into any emancipation in the privacy of the home for most of these women. In other words, despite being visible to the outside world, Hazara women protesters are invisible in decision-making inside their community and homes. Why are Hazara women protest leaders unable to transform this temporary public leadership into more enduring forms of influence? In this article we study the impact of patriarchy on female protest leaders in fragile, conflict and violence-affected settings, by analysing the backlash and harassment Hazara women protesters suffer. As in other protests elsewhere around the world, we find institutional barriers such as patriarchy, identity politics, and social structures playing a key negative role on Hazara women’s visibility in decision-making processes.

The source, magnitude, and intersection of these barriers though, makes these protests unlike other protests around the world. The backlash Hazara women get for being outside, taking action in public spaces – male spaces – is related to the various ways patriarchy works to marginalise women: in the home; in Hazara social structure; and in politics, with nationalist and religious parties having a particular image of women – a normative femininity – disconnected from reality. The way patriarchy works to marginalise Hazara women even in a struggle that has become synonymous with them, makes us question the extent to which progressive representation in politics still does not lead to the inclusion of women in public spaces, particularly in settings of violent conflict. Through a deeper understanding of why women’s social and political actions that are visible publicly in conflict and violence-affected settings do not trigger larger institutional changes, we aim to contribute to the literature on women’s protest leadership and resistance (Parashar 2010; Scandrett and Mukherjee 2011; Batliwala 2012; Johansson-Nogués 2013; Tripp 2015; Khan and Kirmani 2018; Ray 2018; Okech 2020).

In this article, we analyse a series of interviews conducted with key female leaders, organisers, and participants in protests against Hazara killings for the past decade, to find out what prevents them from transforming their temporary public leadership into more enduring forms of influence in decision-making processes within their community and homes.¹ We divide this article into five sections, in addition to this introduction. In the following section, we present a timeline of Hazara protests in Quetta and women’s participation in these. We posit that over time, Hazara women’s increased participation shifted the character of protests from male-dominated and violent to female-focused and non-violent, as well as their purpose, from venting anger to holding the state accountable for lack of security. In the second section we frame our inquiry within the literature of protests and patriarchy, which we use to structure our analysis of the interviews. In section three, we describe the barriers that prevent women’s presence in public protests from translating into a lasting and meaningful participation in decision-making bodies and leadership roles. We highlight three, namely the stereotyping of women protest leaders, the intersectionality between patriarchy, identity politics, and social structures, and the opposition women suffer both outside and inside the home. In section four we show that the backlash Hazara women suffer within their community is of a magnitude seldom seen in other protest movements. We conclude with the assertion that women within movements in conflict settings cannot be collectively empowered in the absence of wider shifts in patriarchal social norms, even when they actively take on the state. Still, there are visible changes in their individual expectations and perceptions of their own role.

Women’s participation In protests: from drops, to waves, to tides

Hazaras are one of several ethnic groups based in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. While they are a significant percentage of the population of Afghanistan, their numbers are quite small in Pakistan: from 650,000–900,000, mostly living in Quetta, the capital city of Balochistan province (Ahmad Wani 2019). The majority of Hazaras are Shia Muslim, although many identify themselves as Sunni, too. Unlike other ethnic and religious minorities in Pakistan, Hazara Shia Muslims are specifically victims of sectarian violence and terror attacks. The Soviet and US invasions of Afghanistan and the Baloch nationalist movement have not only played a critical role in Pakistan’s politics and shaping the regional and global politics, but also played a significant role in everyday conflict in Balochistan (Gazdar et al. 2010). This has directly affected Pakistan’s religious minorities, where Hazara Shias have become one of the soft targets of several terror groups, sometimes due to their ethnic identity and sometimes due to their sectarian identity. The majority of Hazaras in Quetta are ‘ghettoised’ (Gazdar et al. 2010) inside two townships, namely Hazara Town and Almadar Road Town. The constant targeting of Hazaras has forced many to flee the country, triggering a large exodus over the past two decades. According to several reports (National Commission for Human Rights Pakistan (NCHR) 2018; Ali 2021) in the past 14 years more than 2,000 Hazara Shias were killed in Balochistan alone, and more than 4,000 left Pakistan and migrated abroad for their safety. In response to the constant attacks, Hazaras have been protesting for more than two decades. While the direct victims of such attacks are mostly male members of the Hazara community, they also have had a deep effect on Hazara women’s social, political, and economic conditions. This has pushed them to start participating in these male-dominated protests and, over time, transform them into more peaceful ones.

Table 1: Timeline of key Hazara public protests in Quetta

The history of Hazara protests in Quetta has been traditionally a male-dominated one, with a cyclical pattern of violence: an attack occurs, male Hazaras come out to the streets to protest and riot, and the state responds with more violence, curfews, arrests, and killings. One such event occurred on August 6, 1985, when police opened fire on a crowd a few days before an Ashura² procession, and more than 12 Hazaras were killed (Fuchs 2014). Eyewitnesses at the time state that the trigger was the incitement by a non-Hazara Shia religious scholar who spread the rumour that the government was not allowing the Ashura procession that year, making people protest against the government. It was the first time Hazaras in Quetta engaged in a public demonstration that quickly turned into a violent protest, with both police and Hazara casualties. A few months before 9/11 in 2001, after a long and peaceful period in the life of Hazaras in Quetta, Lashkar-e-Janghvi³ attacked a passenger van killing around 11 people, including women and children (Dawn 2013). Not able to express their anger and grief peacefully, Hazara men joined the protest blocking roads, burning public property and restarting the cycle of violent protests. As a spillover of the Afghan war, banned jihadist groups started populating the region and targeting Shia Hazaras in Quetta in their attacks. For the next decade, the nature of Hazara protests remained male-centric and violent. It was in this context that the first wave of Hazara women joined public protests – more drops than a wave, per se. Their participation was not the result of ideological or organised political motives, but isolated acts by individual women aiming to protect men Hazara from police arrests. As the attacks continued, most Hazaras were finding solace in sabr⁴ and considered the attacks as a test from God, accepting them as part of their fate and not expecting anything to change in response to their persecution (Siddiqi and Mukhtar 2015).

The shift in the nature of protests did not happen because Hazara men learnt to control their anger⁵, but because of an increase of female participants, forcing the men to remain peaceful. As the attacks were becoming more and more indiscriminate against both Hazara men and women, this became a trigger warning for the community as whole that anyone, regardless of gender or age, could be targeted next. Women started organising themselves in small groups, inviting and motivating others to join the protests, initially with two main intentions: to show solidarity with the families of the victims, and to protect protesting Hazara men. Women’s greater presence caused men to behave less violently during protests, effectively reducing rioting. Simultaneously, the impunity with which members of terrorist organisations operated in the region made more and more people start to believe that despite the state’s responsibility to protect their life, dignity, and property from terrorism it was failing to do so (Siddiqi and Mukhtar 2015). As a result, the aim of the protests slowly shifted from expressing anger to demanding accountability. In September 2011, for the first time ever, a group of Hazara women gathered in front of the Quetta Press Club and protested, as discrete group, against Hazara killings (YouTube 2011). The second wave of Hazara women’s protests had started. Their chief weapon: peaceful sit-ins. Inspired by the events of the Arab Spring, many female university students started joining these peaceful protests, intermingling with women activists, female journalists, and female NGO workers. Slowly, they transformed the public places used for protest from battlegrounds of violent rioting into spaces for peaceful sit-ins. Yet, this transformation was not easily achieved, as women’s roles in the protests were not accepted by the (male) frontline leadership and decision-makers of the Hazara community.

In January 2013 the magnitude of terror attacks increased, with a twin-bomb attack in Alamdar Road, which shook the whole Hazara community (Adams et al. 2014). Hazara men accepted the attack as part of their fate and decided to bury the bodies. A group of women did not allow the men to bury the bodies until the government was held accountable, and started a sit-in in Alamdar Road, forcing the men to join the sit-in with taunts ‘they are afraid’ and ‘they have become women’. This triggered the first peaceful sit-in in which both Hazara women and men participated. It was also the first time a Hazara sit-in attracted both national and international attention, making it to the news as ‘Hazara women sit-ins’. As a result, the Chief Minister of Balochistan was removed, and Governor rule was imposed in the province. But despite starting and organising the sit-in, women were again prevented from a leadership role both during the protest, being told to sit behind the men, and after, again not allowed to be part of decision-making bodies. This was also the time when the two main Hazara political parties started to gain recognition: the more liberal Hazara Democratic Party (HDP) and the religious Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM), which emerged soon after this attack (Qayyum 2018). Acknowledging the success of having Hazara women in the 2013 protest, HDP formally announced its Women’s wing. Meanwhile, MWM created strong support among women under the banner of Shi’ism, associating their participation in public protests with Bibi Zainab.⁶ However, the role of the group of independent Hazara women not affiliated with these political parties and key in starting the 2011 and 2013 protests remained unacknowledged. The identity of these women remained that of sister, mother, and daughter - not leader; until Jalila Haider, a Hazara lawyer and rights activist, went on a hunger strike in 2018.

After about four years of peaceful life within the Hazara community in Quetta, the series of targeted killings had started again. As before, many Hazara men proposed restarting violent protests, while many others suggested peaceful sit-ins. Jalila, together with likeminded women activists, started a peaceful protest. Hazara women were again claiming a public space as theirs. This time though, they decided to sit at the front of the protest. In April 2018, when Hazara traders were killed by a terror group, Jalila started a hunger strike in front of the Quetta Press Club, demanding the presence of the Chief of Army Staff to guarantee her community’s security (Women’s Regional Network (WRN) 2018). Despite Jalila being the catalyst for his presence, when the Chief of Army Staff arrived on the fifth day of her hunger strike, the male leaders of the Hazara community went to meet him alone, initially ignoring Jalila and the other female protesters. Jalila’s case is a good example of how the image of Hazara female protests might have changed outside the community but not inside. Women are visible in public spaces, but invisible in decision-making moments. This is due to strongly-held ideas about appropriate behaviour for women, and their connections to family ‘honour’: women who challenge such gender norms and societal stereotypes face both online and offline harassment within the community. Jalila’s case is also a good example of how men did not create spaces for women in the protests or in decision-making; women claimed these spaces through their own struggle. Despite always standing in support of the male members of their community, women protesters face a lot of backlashes, which is rooted in tribal and patriarchal norms. As a result, many women are discouraged from joining further protests.

Protests and patriarchy

Women have always played key roles in protest movements worldwide, strongly influencing gender policies and contributing to the formation of less unequal societies (Molyneux 2001; Tripp 2015). The literature on women’s participation in public protests and movements shows that even when they are prominent actors in these protests and movements, most women are excluded from the male-dominated decision-making spaces within which negotiations with the state occur (Johansson-Nogués 2013; Tripp 2015; Saad and Abed 2020). Women’s position in each society is shaped not only by biological sex, and by gender and sexuality, but also class, ethnicity, and religion (Molyneux 2001). The way these factors and institutional structures intersect affect women’s everyday life experiences. Within the literature on protest movements there is very little work on the leadership roles (or lack of) of women from marginalised communities. Particularly in South Asia, the role of women from poorer and more marginalised backgrounds in protest leadership is seldom studied, with some exceptions (Malik 2018; Parashar 2010; Ray 2018; Scandrett and Mukherjee 2011).

Several feminist scholars focus on motherhood and maternalism as the motivating identity for women’s action in public protests (Carreon and Moghadam 2015: Mhajne and Whetstone 2018; Ray 2018), where women draw on their reproductive roles to claim rights, peace, and social provisioning for their families and communities. For instance, Mhajne and Whetstone (2018) focus on maternal activism as a way of bargaining with patriarchy in Egypt’s Arab Spring. Calling it ‘political motherhood’ they state that maternal framing of women’s identity legitimises their role in political participation. Considering women’s experiences in the Egyptian movement they consider it a useful strategy used by women, as Egyptian society values motherhood.⁷ However, political motherhood also undermines the role of many women who are not associated with any such identity but participate in protests and movements just as women. As Domingo et al. (2015, 37) state, ‘women’s roles as wives and mothers, while providing a focal point for both formal and informal collective action, are often the largest impediment to their participation.’ This is due not only to how much time the fulfilment of such gendered roles takes in women’s lives, but also due to the rigidity of local social norms that confine women to those roles. One such example was seen in the Sandinista movement: as Montoya (2003) discusses, for Sandinista activists in the village of El Tule, the integration of women in collective struggles was as important as the survival of revolution itself. Yet, men’s task was to battle the enemy on the war front, and women’s was declaring that they were proud of their sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers. In other words, women’s contribution in war was ancillary to men’s. As Montoya shows (2003) this privileging of men’s role in the revolution failed to acknowledge women’s conscious participation in any roles other than those of supportive female family members.

Most of the women taking part in the Hazara protests initially did so not because they identify their power as women, but to shield and protect their men from any state aggression, such as arrests and use of force. Yet, that does not preclude some women from aspiring for more and claiming a collective agency. Even within highly patriarchal religio-political movements across South Asia, women’s engagement legitimises these movements, gives them a mass base, and provides women with agency and access to public spaces – even though they are often de-legitimised and silenced in male hegemonic discourses devoid of any reformist or feminist agenda (Parashar 2010). For instance, in Indian Kashmir women make private mourning public as a strategy, providing a new political cohesion to their political community while creating a more progressive role for themselves (Malik 2018). Kuttab (1993) highlights the different forms of protest that Palestinian women organised during the Intifadas, not limited only to taking part in peaceful marches, but also joining protests, sit-ins, and even militant demonstrations to protect men in different situations. The nature and magnitude of oppression is different across different social-political dynamics, even in the same locations. For instance, as noted by Johansson-Nogués (2013), while the Arab Spring encouraged women activists in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya to voice their demands and claim public spaces, the fall of the authoritarian regimes limited their political participation further, with violence and attacks by the state and patriarchal forces against women increasing in all three countries. In Bhopal, the women survivors of the Union Carbide gas tragedy sang feminist songs and held up banners with feminist slogans, but none of this existed outside the movement protesting against Union Carbide; at the end of the day, they went back to their violent, patriarchal homes (Scandrett and Mukherjee 2011). Equally, the oppression that Hazara women face during protests is visible in the discrimination, harassment, and backlash they experience both in the public spaces of protest and for some, inside their own homes.

Barriers to leadership visibility

The strong male control embedded in tribal and patriarchal mindsets does not allow Hazara women to take a lead in decision-making processes. As Batliwala (2012) shows, even peaceful movements that are often women-centric include women’s participation instrumentally, creating an image of a more inclusive movement when, in reality, women do not have real leadership roles or meaningful decision-making power. The same is true of Hazara protests. Zainab, a consultant with various development agencies who played an active role in several protests, highlights that:

‘There is a discrimination on the basis of gender. Women make the protests successful. They make it successful when the call for protest is made by women and everyone from the community and outside comes out all across Pakistan. But every time when it comes to negotiations, when it comes to decision-making, we rarely see any woman in the meeting. Within the community and outside of the community, women are misused. I think they are exploited; they are only used for the sake of the protests and only a few people benefit from these protests. But not the women; the women are used as a tool to make the protests successful.’

In our conversations with Hazara women protesters we could see at least three key factors blocking them from leading the public protests in which they actively participate. First, there is a strong stereotyping of women participants always as someone related to the (male) victims: as mothers of, wives of, sisters of, or daughters of men. Women are invisible as women, unless they portray a normative femininity accepted in Hazara culture – and leading public protests does not fit that role. Paradoxically, women protesters are also stereotyped as protectors of men, and therefore allowed to participate; but cannot lead the protests as leading in public life is a role men undertake in order to ‘protect’ women from having to be in the public sphere. Second, the invisibility of women leaders is also the result of gender intersecting with class, strongly hierarchical social structures, and deep-seated religiosity. Women protest leaders are not only prevented from a decision-making role because they are women, but also because they are women and of a lower class, or women and of a lower-ranked tribe or sub-tribe, or women and not pious enough. Third, the opposition to women organising and leading protests happens not only outside the home but inside, with the perpetrators of this opposition often being close relatives.

Ofmen⁸: Hazara stereotypes of women protesters

Gender-based stereotypes block women’s professional advancement and limit their voices in policymaking (Domingo et al. 2015). The same applies to women’s role in movements and protests, which explains why some women decide to ‘bargain with patriarchy’ to access the political sphere (Mhajne and Whetstone 2018). Swati Parashar (2010, 449) describes women involved in South Asian religio-political movements creating and endorsing a normative femininity based on virtue, obedience, and domesticity acting ‘as support systems in a highly masculinised and patriarchal nationalism.’ According to her, these women often actively participate in and reinstate a patriarchal agenda. Despite the wishes of many Hazara men, the women organising and leading protests in Quetta do not fit this profile. The stereotyping that Hazara women face within protests focuses not only on their actions, but also on their bodies. Jalila highlights this when quoting the history of Hazara women’s struggle and their role in war:

‘In Hazara folklore and history, during eighteenth century when the soldiers of the Afghan king Abdul Rahman attacked the Hazara, 40 Hazara girls jumped from a mountain and committed suicide. I always ask why women should die? Why can’t they fight and live? This is how they still want women leaders to be: they should die to protect their bodies. Men associate their honour with their women’s bodies. (…) Religiosity, tribalism and patriarchy have deeply affected Hazara women. In our tribal system they have portrayed and glorified Hazara women just as maa, behen, beti [mother, sister, daughter] – and we men are here to talk for you. When we were protesting, men were saying ‘I am here to talk on your behalf, I will convey your message to them.’’

Saba, a journalist who took part in the protests, reflecting on the historical normative femininity thinks Hazara female protesters find it hard to consider themselves leaders because they are ‘women who have historically been suppressed, who have historically been put to go through so many layers of suppression and so many layers of discrimination that, you know, we actually don’t idealise ourselves. Even in our imagination we don’t put ourselves in those kinds of frames.’

By ‘those kind of frames’ Saba means thinking of themselves as leaders and influencers. Saira, a local politician, puts the blame of invisibility in leadership positions on both men and women. According to her, often it is women who are not interested in taking part in decision-making. Both Hazara men and women stereotype women’s participation in protests, including even some women who themselves organise the protests. Zahra Khanum, despite being a key organiser, professes not to be a leader, stating that she only makes tea for the organisers, ‘and those who chant slogans because they should drink green tea, so their throats won’t be dry. I also arrange blankets for some people who stay at the protest at night.’ When probed more deeply on why it is so difficult for women protesters to lead those protests, she interjected saying, ‘Oh bachai [child], we don’t want leadership as a woman. Leadership suits men, and we are not literate, so we don’t know how government things work. That is why we should not be leaders. We should sit behind them; our men make better decisions.’

Fatima, who identifies herself as a housewife and member of the main Shia religious party, despite being a key protest organiser also agrees:

‘We women are not brought up as leaders. As you know our society thinks that women’s place is at home. To some extent they are also right. You know that if our men are there to talk and make decisions so women should not intervene. The job of women is only to support the men and if there is no man so women should take charge. You know men make good negotiations and decisions, they know better than us what is for the benefit of us Shia community and what is not.’

There is a certain irony then, that while men see themselves as the protectors of women – the foundations for a hegemonic narrative – women started to attend public protests to protect men: preventing them from rioting and being arrested or shot at by security forces. Fatima stressed this reason for joining protests. She felt that Hazara men were alone on the frontline and so women were compelled to join, but not necessarily to lead. ‘You know they [men] need us now; without us they can’t make their voice heard that is why I take part fearlessly.’ According to her, women participate in protests not to take hold of the streets or to be recognised as leaders; they are compelled to do it to shield their male family and community members and for justice. Comparing their struggle to the historical role of Shia women in joining resistance movements, she highlighted that ‘Bibi Zainab challenged Yazid [only] when all men were martyred. If Imam Hussain was alive so Bibi would not need to.’ The word most often used by her and other women protesters to explain this compulsion was majboori, which can be translated as both obligation and helplessness. Raziqa, a politician with a mainstream political party who in the past acted as a mediator between government and protesters, brings out this compulsion when trying to explain why, according to her, women are invisible in leading the protests and decision-making bodies:

‘They [women] did not choose to be a part of these protests. But since members of their families are killed, they have to be present in the protests. It is somehow a double struggle for them because it is not a choice; rather they are compelled to participate in the protests. Chances for justice are already very slim, but if they do not participate, they will further have no one to present their case and fight for them.’

Intersectionalities

In the case of many Hazara women protesters, discrimination happens not only because of patriarchy alone, but because of the intersection of patriarchy and class. Domingo et al. (2015) argue that the normalisation of politics often results in the exclusion of poor women from platforms for voice and influence. Similarly, class and social standing within Hazara society play a big role in whether women’s voices are heard or silenced. As Zainab, the consultant stated, ‘There are many factors that hijack the protest every time. And then they [men] don’t let common people – the common protesters, the families – to go and interact with the decision-makers.’ Malika, a cultural activist living in Islamabad, expressed similar feelings when comparing her struggle to be identified as a leader to that of other wealthier and more upper-class women within the Hazara community.

‘Women leadership is hard to accept for a man’s ego, to follow a woman, especially those women who are struggling. If there is a well-established woman like Benazir [Bhutto], people will follow. People will think high because she has a rich background. Rich in all terms: politically, she was strong. She had a great father, great leader. I’m not pro-PPP at the moment but I’m just referring to one individual woman. If a woman is strong, people will follow. (…) Dr Saira is a strong woman and she belongs to a wealthy family, so people follow her. But women like us, who are from lower-middle class, we are struggling when we come out. We make mistakes, of course, we are human! For them leaders are supposed to be ideal figures. But we from very common families, we make mistakes, we fall we rise, we experiment and then we make our space.’

The ‘common people’ that Zainab was referring to and the ‘common families’ such as Malika’s are the same: working class, without dynastic political backgrounds, and belonging to lower-ranked or even middle-ranked sub-tribes within the rigid hierarchical Hazara social stratification system. Many of our respondents see the discriminations they face as being not only connected to patriarchy, but to their families’ social status within Hazara tribal society. Politics further intersects with religion, or more precisely with religious parties claiming to represent the Hazara’s plight. For instance, in our interviews several activists complained that people from religious parties force them to dress and behave in accordance with their interpretation of Islam and an ‘ideal’ Shia Muslim woman. Those women not following these defined standards of pious Shia womanhood are discriminated against for not being ‘proper’ Shia women. Sajida, who runs an NGO in Quetta, mentioned how Hazara women were excluded from a Karachi sit-in which was held in solidarity with Hazaras of Quetta, when 11 Hazara coal miners were killed in the Mach area of Balochistan in January 2021. Even though the organisers were members of non-Hazara Shia religious party, because Sajida and other Hazara women were in Karachi at the time, they thought to join the sit in in solidarity. However, they felt discriminated against by the religious party members, even though they, as Hazaras, were the actual aggrieved party.

‘In the recent attack on Mach coal miners, I was there in Karachi. There was a solidarity protest organised by MWM. When I requested as a woman of Hazara community the actual victim to address the protest, the maulvi refused it and said women are not allowed. However, when Shehla Raza, a senator of Pakistan People’s Party, joined they allowed her to make a speech, and no one said that she is a woman. There I felt that there are differences between women of different classes as well. Since Shehla Raza is a senator so her gender was ignored and as an affected community our gender was an issue. (…) This behaviour of religious and our so-called progressive people within our community and sect is very discriminatory. They discourage their own women and the victims. They are classists; if someone from a strong background come and speak they happily give them a platform to express their views.’

Fighting outside and inside the home

Women protesters who did not think women should lead, did not think male family members were wrong in preventing them from leading protests. In fact, in their opinion leadership was a male role both outside and inside the home. Zahra Khanum, a public school cleaner, stated that ‘Inside the house I make decisions because the father of my children is also not alive, and you know controlling children is not easy. If my son was alive, he would have been our head. Now I make decisions and I am compelled to do that. No woman happily takes charge of the house if she is not majboor [compelled] and the circumstances make them do it so.’

Living under the stronghold of toxic patriarchy, tribalism and religiosity, Hazara women – like Palestinian women in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (Kuttab 1993) – fight on two fronts: they fight the state, demanding security and accountability; and fight patriarchy from within their community. That is why even though they actively organise and participate in the protests, their lead roles are always discouraged, discredited, or ignored. Ray (2018, 437) states that women living in conflict zones and militarised regions also face intensified forms of violence within their own intimate spaces, with women’s bodies both sites of contesting cultures and repertoires of national collectivities. Their bodies are regulated and so is their public presence. Just as gender is performative, so is collective political action — what Butler (2015, 11) calls performative assembly — when bodies assemble in public spaces ‘exercising a plural and performative right to appear, one that asserts and instates the body in the midst of the political field and which, in its expressive and signifying function, delivers a bodily demand for a more liveable set of (…) conditions no longer afflicted by induced forms of precarity.’ Throughout South Asian classic patriarchy, women’s identity and bodies are linked to the honour and shame of the family as well as of the community. This explains why opposition to women organising and leading protests happens both outside and inside the house, and why often the harassers are close relatives. Under a strong patriarchal hold, women are not only controlled through religious and nationalistic ideologies in public, but also through everyday practices inside the home. Several of our respondents stated that the nature of harassment and backslash they faced affected their family to a point where family members asked them to stop their activities. Isra, who runs a beauty salon, was one of them:

‘I and my mother were going there [to protest] because it was about the blood of innocent people, safety of our community. My father was not happy that we keep going to protest daily, as he was saying that we have not cooked or cleaned the house and were sitting outside in the protest. The protest continued for days. My father didn’t appreciate us coming home late at night as women. My father fought with my mother and stopped talking with us for whole month because he was thinking my mother can go alone but should not take girls with herself. He believes that once girls or boys learn to remain outside of the house for long they will be out of control. (…) In a patriarchal society, women are considered cooks and only expected to produce offspring.’

In the case of Zahra Batool, studying for her degree in Lahore and whose brother was killed in one of the attacks, her father’s request was more subtle: ‘In my family I have only my old father. He is not stopping me from any activity, but he tells me that our only asset is our izzat [honour]. If I take bold steps, the men of our community attack on our izzat. This does not mean to rape, but character assassination and calling us bad names. When parents are old, if we pressurise them a bit, they will die of heart attack.’

Parashar (2010) states that the femininity which many men seek implies a rejection of women’s sexuality, as men often perceive it as threatening to their masculinity. One strategy men within the family use to tone down female protest leaders’ sexuality is by asking them to observe purdah and cover themselves so they cannot be recognised outside the house. In Pakistan, the purdah system is an important informal institution that regulates how women and men behave, especially in public, playing a central role making women almost invisible in everyday public life (Loureiro 2019). As part of that system, a woman’s honour and seclusion is a measure of their (male) protector’s status. Therefore, it was not surprising that the men of the house were asking ‘their’ women to cover in public. Fatima brought this out when explaining how her husband eventually allowed her to participate in protests:

‘We Shias of Ali are purdahdaar⁹, no man ever heard our loud voice inside the house. Imagine, we were chanting slogans on the road and calling the authorities for justice! Initially my husband was against it the first time I said I am going for a protest. Later he agreed, but he asked me to cover my face fully that no one should know my identity.’

Another strategy men within the family use to control women’s sexuality is to ask them to behave less like a woman and more like a man. Saira suffers from this rejection of her sexuality on an everyday basis as a politician of a Hazara nationalist party:

‘I hear most of the times from my close friends and family members that ‘we like that you are behaving in a manly way. You dress up simple and it does not attract men towards you as typical women do.’ I like wearing colourful dresses and putting make-up on my face. When sometimes I wear lipstick my male family members and colleagues say, ‘We like and respect you as a mardana khatoon [masculine woman]; lipstick is not for you, you should not act like a woman.’ They don’t realise that they insult my gender by associating me as a mardana khatoon and respect me because I should act like a man. I hate this alienation but in reality, I have sometimes followed it because they will resist me if I follow things according to my own will. I sometimes tell them that you respect me as a political activist why you determine my struggle with my chador namaz.¹⁰’

Zainab summed up the reason for the male backlash within the house as fear of losing control:

‘The most important factor that keeps a woman away from her rights is that everything is decided by the family and not the individual. Men’s fear is that ‘What will people say?’ They are afraid. They have this fear that if they give more privileges and rights to their women, then they will have a bad name in society. And society may isolate them. So you know, there is this burden for the whole family to save your honour to save their face. And for social status they keep denying their daughters’ rights, because they fear that people will talk about them. And if they give rights to their daughters, then others would also follow the same path. (…) They think you’re not a good woman, you are not a good girl if you claim that ‘I know all my rights should be given to me, and I should have the power, and I should be equal enough to be treated as a man, or as a boy.’ So those girls who demand such rights, they are bad girls.’

Magnitude: enduring backlash

Johansson-Nogués (2013) equates the aftermath of the Egyptian anti-colonialist struggle, the Algerian independence war, and the Iranian revolution – where women fought and died beside men but were not given a seat at the negotiating table –with the aftermath of the Arab Spring – where Tunisian, Egyptian, and Libyan women’s demands for dignity and equality suffered a strong backlash. To their shock, Hazara women have experienced the same: despite organising protests focused on peace and security for the whole community, and specifically to protect male members against terrorism, they had no idea they would face a backlash and harassment from those for whom they were protesting. When we consider all the challenges that Hazara women face within their community – the harassment both at home and in public, the naming and shaming – we argue that the magnitude of the backlash for organising and participating in protests is much higher when compared to that for other women taking part in public protests elsewhere. Women are constantly shamed and harassed for participating in protests, not only by strangers within the community but by their own family members and close neighbours. As Zahra Khanum said, ‘when my own son was not the victim [of an attack] and I was attending the protests my relatives and neighbours were saying that I am a beysar woman¹¹ and they were thinking I go there for entertainment.’

The nature of shame decreased only when her identity changed from being a woman protester to a protesting mother of a martyr. Within protest spaces, women who participate for justice are not respected unless they are associated with specific social identities related to the victims: as mothers, wives, sisters, or daughters of martyrs. The expectation is that Hazara women should endorse a normative femininity portraying them as ‘virtuous, docile and domesticated and act as support systems in a highly masculinised and patriarchal nationalism’, as Parashar (2010, 449) finds in radical religious movements across South Asia. Even holding a sanctioned affiliation to a political party representing the community is not enough to prevent from being harassed. Raziqa, a politician from a mainstream political party, told us how the social naming and shaming affected her teenage son,

‘My son in the recent Mach incident¹² said I should not join [the protests] because people will name and shame him that he has no control on his mother. Because of him this time I participated less, or secretly going there in the name of meeting a relative. He is now growing up, so I don’t want people tease him by taking my name¹³ in front of him. In 2019 he was saying ‘I feel suicidal as everyone takes your name or show your picture and ask me is she your mother?’ That is why now I am careful; I don’t want to hurt my son as he is part of our society.’

Saira, the politician from a local party, reflected on why even men from her own party opposed her public appearances, in the name of honour.

‘I asked many [men] why your honour is attached to us? Your honour is so fragile if you attach it with my clothes, my chador and my dupatta, I request you to keep it away from me. (…) People say I belong from that party and family, so I should not put on make-up because the other girls of the community also learn the same which is not good. I told one that my make-up is not something that you need to discuss or worry about.’

The extent of toxic, tribal patriarchy is such that even women ‘sanctioned’ to take part in protests because they are directly related to the victims feel the pressure not to stand out. Zahra Batool, the student in Lahore, highlighted this point. She feels more freedom to protest outside the community for whom she is claiming accountability and justice: ‘as far as Lahore is concerned, yes, I participated in many protests. There people have freedom of speech, and there are not many Hazaras that is why we are free to participate in the protests. But here in Quetta I can’t take the lead role because I am afraid of our own people and my reputation. I can’t get involved openly here.’

Of the different tactics of shaming and harassing women protest participants both during and after the protests, the most common is character assassination on social media. The use of social media is ever-present among the Hazara community. During protests, Hazara men take pictures of women protesters to later name and shame them. Sareer, a government schoolteacher, reflecting on the backlash she suffers as a protester said, ‘women were always made to sit behind the men. If someone tries to come in front, the men used to make their videos and pictures and shaming them publicly: ‘see the behaya [immoral] woman sitting among men! Her dress is not good! Her hijab is not right!’’ While sharing her experience, Malika who actively organised several protests outside Quetta, said that it is men from her own community that name and shame her, ‘especially on social media, I had to face a lot of problems. People used to talk a lot against me. I had to face character assassination; people used to talk about me in a very bad manner.’ Jalila, recalling the nature of abuse and propaganda she faces, stated that men ‘still make wrong statements against me, they malign me, they take it as a challenge. They start conspiracies against our women’s movement, attacking my personality, ‘She’s not wearing dupatta and is very liberal’.’ Even when working with male allies, women face being sidelined. Zulikha, a university student known for organising protests, described how women mobilise and organise to then be prevented from protesting:

‘I would say that it was a collective effort of a lot of young, intelligent and vigilant women, it wasn’t just me. There were young women who used to be part of women scouts, they took the responsibility of management. They asked women to take the lead, male supporters were in the back. (…) When we give a call for protest, we have a plan, speeches to follow. But sometimes it doesn’t turn out the way we wanted: most of the protests were hijacked by male allies, with their misogynist and patriarchal mindset that women cannot lead a delegation, that women can’t take the decision without being emotional and can’t give rational answers.’

Sareer, a government schoolteacher, tried to explain why parties exclude women from decision-making:

‘We live in a male-dominated society, and they only consider women as a commodity who have no role. During elections they use women to campaign for them and cast votes for them, but they don’t support women’s political roles. They underestimate the women (…) If we see the political manifesto of any political party, we hardly see any women agenda in it, neither their participation, nor their role (…) They may be afraid that women will take over their power, or they fear that women will expose their corruption or their planning, or maybe they fear strong women and their ego may hurt working under women.’

Zahra Batool, the student in Lahore, links women’s reticence in coming forward to lead protests to male representatives’ adverse reaction:

‘The [protest] leaders are not women because of fear of character assassination (…) women don’t want to come forward to take the lead role. And if there is no one to protect them so they don’t want to come forward. That is why I myself was also reluctant to lead the main protest, because even if we stand our male leaders point out something bad about us or defame us. Maybe they fear that if a woman takes the lead role, she may take their place in politics or other things. Even though we have no such intention to replace them, but they feel scared of us.’

Conclusion: A ray of hope

The character of Hazara protests has changed over the past decade. Once known for being male-dominated and riotous, and to which security forces responded with curfews, arrests and killings, Hazara protests are now identified as female-focused and non-violent. Their purpose has also changed, from avenues through which to vent anger, to sit-ins for holding the state accountable for a lack of security. At the same time, more than 2,000 Hazaras have been killed in different attacks, and seldom has the state brought any of the perpetrators to justice. As a result of the change in nature of the Hazara protests, and the continuing lack of security, public opinion has softened and several non-Hazara communities have started joining their demonstrations. Today, when people think of Hazara protests, they think of Hazara women’s peaceful sit-ins. Yet, despite being prominent actors in public protests demanding state accountability, Hazara women still find it hard to be visible in protests’ leadership and in influencing decision-making. The stereotyping they experience, together with the intersectional nature of the discrimination they face – in which patriarchy, identity politics, and social structures overlap — and the backlash they suffer both outside and inside the home, all contribute to their inability to transform their temporary public presence into more enduring forms of influence. Even though they actively take on the state with some success, Hazara women protesters cannot be collectively empowered in the absence of wider shifts in patriarchal social norms. Collective political action is very hard to achieve, particularly in conflict and violence-affected settings, and especially for women in such patriarchal societies, as it is always a public endeavour, characterised by full freedom of human activity (Arendt 1958 in Loureiro 2019).

Still, there are visible changes in women protesters’ individual expectations and perceptions of their own role, from young feminists and activists to more conservative and religious-minded ones. We asked Fatima, the housewife member of a Shia religious party, if she felt she had changed as a person after participating in all these protests:

‘I don’t think so; I join these protests not to make myself strong but to make my Shia community strong. You know since the first dharna till now my anger increased and I feel I should do something for my Shia community to end their killing, but as a woman I am bebas [helpless, lost]. As far as myself is concerned, I feel myself strong when my people are strong, and if my people are weak, we are weak. I see myself totally changed, I am not afraid of police or government or anyone else. For me I feel even alone I can do everything. Hmm yes, I am changed.’

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jalila Haider

Jalila Haider is a human rights lawyer and political activist from Quetta, Pakistan. She was named in BBC’s 100 Women of 2019 and in 2020 was a recipient of the United States Department of State’s International Women of Courage Award.

Miguel Loureiro

Miguel Loureiro is a research fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. He works at the state-citizen interface from both a citizens’ perspective, examining accountability and empowerment relations, and the state’s perspective, identifying opportunities for state responsiveness.

Notes

1 We conducted 13 in-depth interviews with 13 Hazara women, recognised in the community for their role in organising and leading protests for the past decade, loosely following a semi-structured interview protocol. Almost all were conducted by one of the co-authors, herself a member of the Hazara community and leader of several protests, acting as a gatekeeper. We interviewed activists, politicians, NGO workers, businesswomen, students, schoolteachers, and housewives, with a range of ages from early 20s to mid-50s, with different levels of education, and across different social classes. We did so to make sure we did not fall into the binary trap of understanding Pakistani Muslim women’s subjectivities as either pious subjects or secular feminists (Khan and Kirmani 2018), as well as to ensure a range of perspectives across a wider cross-section of women, and to control for any unbiased positionality of the authors. Through our purposive snowball sampling we were also able to ensure that we spoke to women who identify themselves with a range of ideologies. The interviews were conducted on Zoom in English, Urdu, Hazaragi, and Dari and took on average one hour each. Each interview was transcribed and translated into English, anonymised and given pseudonyms. We analysed the 13 transcripts in NVivo Pro using the literature on women and protests and key themes that appeared in the interviews iteratively to develop a coding protocol with thematic networks (Attride-Stirling 2001).

2 Occurring on the tenth of the month of Moharram, Ashura is a holy day during which Shia’s mourn the death of Imam Hussain, the grandson of prophet Muhammad.

3 A banned Deobandi Sunni supremacist and jihadist militant organisation.

4 In Arabic ‘endurance’ or ‘perseverance’. One of the two parts of faith in Islam.

5 The violent tendencies displayed by the protestors — burning tyres, blocking roads, damaging public property — remained part of their behaviour.

6 The granddaughter of Prophet Muhammad and sister of Hussain, who played a lead role in the battle Karbala.

7 There were other, more radical engagements by younger feminists during the different waves of Egypt’s revolution (see Saad and Abed 2020).

8 Reference to Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, in which women are subjugated within a hegemonic patriarchal society and named/identified according to their relationship to men.

9 Women who cover themselves for religious reasons.

10 The large veil Hazara women wear to cover their body when going outside the home.

11 A woman who loves staying out of house.

12 The killing of 11 Hazara coal miners in Mach, Balochistan on 3rd January 2021.

13 In Hazara culture, as throughout most of South Asia, naming a woman in public is considered shameful.