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This Girl Talks About How Being A Highly Educated Female In Our Society Is Treated as a Threat

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In a society like ours, people never take pride when a woman chooses to study higher. Implications such as, “Shaadi k baad parhlena” (study once you are married) or “Kya karna hai itna parh k?” (What is the purpose of studying this much) are implied on women with the idea of how higher education would never really benefit them.

On the other hand, when a man chooses to study higher, it is deemed as a proud moment for the family. A man being highly educated would get him good marriage proposals, good reputation in the society, but when a woman chooses to do the same, she is treated as a “burden”.

Rabia Anjum, A Pakistani Ph.D. Student, Couldn’t Have Explained the Mentality of Our Society in a Better Way

In a status Rabia shared on Facebook, she mentioned how people have questioned her desire of doing Ph.D. along with how the society implies that her education won’t get her any marriage proposals because she will cross the certain age the society “allows” a woman to marry.

Here’s what she wrote:

After a fun, lighthearted conversation with family, I’d like to have a fun, lighthearted conversation with an unseen audience too. In case you missed it, I’m being sarcastic af.

If I had a rupee for every time I was told not to pursue a PhD, I would be still pretty poor, but at least I’d have evidence of our bastardization of culture, religion and women.

Jab larki ziyada parh likh jaati hai, uss ki shaadi nahi hoti (a highly educated woman cannot get married)– and you know what, you’re absolutely right. A highly educated woman can’t get married — she can’t get married because she no longer subscribes to an antiquated concept of self-worth. She no longer associates her worth and value with men in her life, she doesn’t need society’s approval to feel valid. She has seen a world where men, women and other genders have an opportunity– though a work in progress –to find value within themselves, within their own actions rather than of others.

Tum zindagi mein bohat barri himakat kar rahi ho (you’re making a big mistake in your life)– and yes, I might be. I might look back ten years later and wish I had relented, I had married an idyllic suitor and settled down while I was still marketable. But you don’t know that. No one does. In fact, you are so bothered by my choice that you point it out to me several rupees a time, but why don’t you tell a woman she’s making a mistake when she marries out of societal pressure? When she is trapped in a loveless, abusive marriage? When she tells her son to stay out late but hides her daughter in the house? When she tolerates a sexist, toxic work environment because that’s what women deserve for trying to make it in a man’s world? You want to control women, we know that. But is being educated the worst she could do to herself and others?

Apnay maa baap ka socho, unn ko tumhari zaroorat hai. (Think of your parents; they need you) Yes, my parents are amazing, and in spite of our differences there is nothing I could do to repay my debt to them, there could be lifetimes upon lifetimes of service and I wouldn’t come close to it. I believe all parents deserve our love and respect, which is why we make them raise sons who treat all women, including their mother, as means to an end –a maid, a prostitute, an incubator. We raise girls who are stripped of agency and bred to breed.

We tell her, shaadi aurat chalati hai (the woman sustains the marriage), aurat ko hi compromise karna hota hai (the woman has to compromise), aadmi nahi badal sakta, aurat ko hi badalna hota hai (the man cannot change, the woman has to change). It is our love for these parents that we tell them, after they have a third daughter–koi baat nahi, Allah phir nawazay ga (it’s alright, Allah will bless you another time). Our parents need us, so we tell our sons that the world is their oyster so they can take what they want, including women, and we tell our daughters that being married and bearing children is the most they are capable of.

I’m not going to lie –I used to believe a scantily clad woman was asking for it, an abusive, controlling man is kinda sexy, a highly educated woman is a societal burden. I’ve been there and beyond, and I’ve come back to realize this is all putrid hate and fear.

If you’re still reading, tell me, why? Why as a society, do we refuse to choose and let others choose? Why is the responsibility of a choice so damning? Why are we afraid of a kind, affectionate man and a career-oriented, “awara aurat”? Our ghairat— honor–dies at a rambunctious woman or effeminate man, but lives at molestation and rape, child abuse, lack of access to sexual and reproductive health resources, and family homicides. To that kind of bullshit honor, I say bhaar mein jaey (go to hell). We have no shame or honor. We are just hypocrites.

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