I write this piece after the gruesome murder of Sana Yousaf, a 17 year old child influencer, in Islamabad. Her crime? Rejecting a man who later shot her inside her own house. According to Islamabad Police, the perpetrator had tried to contact her multiple times to try and “become friends” with her. For now, the murderer has been identified and is in the custody of the police but this begs the question,
When or if women will ever be free?
Free to choose,
Free to travel,
Free to smile,
Free to live without looking over their shoulder every single day.
What was truly shocking to me was the initial reaction to the news of her murder. People applauded the killer and actually praised him for ” stopping vulgarity in society”.
What vulgarity? God. I hate this word so much because it is almost ALWAYS hurled at women in the media. And from the use of this word, you might imagine a half naked woman starring in an explicit movie, not a child posting funny tiktoks and selfies.
But our society has reached a point where the reaction to this is rejoicing upon the death of a child.
Don’t we love to judge other sinners for sinning differently?
How low do we have to go in order to celebrate a murder?
This culture of victim blaming isn’t a recent development at all and the hypocrisy behind it is astounding. I remember when Noor Mukaddam was murdered, people questioned why Noor was even at the house of her murderer and why did she willingly go there, before and even after further details of the case were released.
And the motorway rape case, where a mother was gang raped in front of her child on a motorway, and the Lahore Police Chief questioned why she hadn’t taken a safer route.
For the patriarchy, which happens to be majority of the world nowadays, no female victim is ever perfect enough to be worth defending.
Because she won’t be perfectly covered head to toe, travelling by the perfect route, in the safest part of town, having the perfect company yet having no social presence, and knowing no men.
Men like to think it’s very easy to live like us and I’ve reached the conclusion that debating men on this topic is useless. Not because they’re dumb, but because they will never feel what its like to have your heart rate spike when passing a group of men. They will never feel what it’s like to adjust your scarf around you tighter despite it already choking you ,despite the heat, just to avoid stares which you’ll get either way, to try being the perfect victim before you become a victim. Men will never have to re-repeat every conversation, every joke made by the opposite gender in their heads, just to see if the compliments were actually back handed or if we’re just overthinking it.
It’s time we start caring about bringing up educated, well mannered sons, strong enough to lower their gaze more than we care about “protecting” our daughters by telling them what to wear, who to talk to and what to do because murders are not caused by clothing, company and posts. Murders and rapes are caused by murderers and rapists ,simply put, small men with big egos. No human being is perfect, not me and not you, and our tiny imperfections which harm no one, should not be the reason someone spits on our graves.
A victim does not have to be perfect to be worth defending.