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I come from a family that firmly believes in the importance of
education and good values. My father's side was landed gentry from
villages around Lahore, the area now known as New Garden Town. My
earliest childhood memories are of digging up carrots and vegetables
with my cousins in the fields. My mother's family is middle class.
My maternal grandfather was a railway station master. It was a nice
blend.
As is usual in middle class families, my family focused a great deal
on the children. From the beginning, I learned to negotiate spaces.
Children are not very powerful in any case and girls have even
narrower spaces. Fortunately, in our family, questioning,
discussions and negotiations were allowed. Because of my own
yearning to do many things at the same time, I was always
negotiating permissions with my parents; my grades being my
bargaining chips. Once I even managed to convince them to send me to
television to work as an announcer while I was still a student.
Those were the early days of black and white television in Peshawar.
I even managed to get permission to go to USA for my higher
education. After I returned from the States, I came under a lot of
pressure to get married. People were already talking about how I had
missed the right age to get married and I didn’t have the right
education. My PhD was in fact considered a hurdle to find me a good
match. My parents gradually became very supportive and shielded me
from this pressure from our larger family and friends.
Unlike many other girls, marriage was never a
fantasy for me. Even in the States, I was deeply involved with
organizations focusing on violence against women. I witnessed more than
my fair share of the ugly side of marriage. I used to think of marriage
as a cage, in which I would be trapped the minute the door slammed shut
behind me. I was very confident that this was the reality. Because I was
preparing myself to achieve so much, I couldn’t afford to gamble with my
life. Since I feared that marriage would make me dependent on my
husband’s whims and on whether or not he would allow me to pursue my
career, I got into the habit of pushing men away.
I will state this in a crude manner though it is a
very subtle truth. The only reason that most families don’t allow their
daughters to indulge in activism is because they fear that it will lead
to them having an affair, and consequently bringing down the family
honour. I had told my family in so many words, ‘You will never have that
complaint against me’, and because I was doing so many activities with
that as my negotiating chip, I never let my thoughts, fantasies, or for
that matter, real guys, get in the way. By sacrificing something that I
thought was trivial, I was able to create space and freedom for myself.
Even when I was in the States, I was a leader, totally into student
politics, mobilizing men and women and organizing activities on the
campus. It was almost like abandoning my womanhood and moving into a
gender neutral zone. I was a person, and I was so adamant to be a person
that I lost touch with my being a ‘woman’. Many of our girls do that;
they just block off that part of themselves for fear of parental
disapproval. We have such narrow spaces that we’re happy to give up
anything in exchange for more opportunities. |
 Author (far right) with parents Saeed Ahmad & Farhat Saeed, and siblings Kamran Ahmad & Maliha Husain |
 Fouzia Saeed with her husband Paul Lundberg at their wedding
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 With her in-laws, Arthur and Isabelle Lundberg
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 With her nephew Sagar
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 Comrades in love – Fouzia Saeed and Paul Lundberg
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Women marry to gain a sense of security and to get into that socially approved category. After I returned to Pakistan, I lived for ten years in the ‘disapproved’ category. Everyone thinks that single women are desperate
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We’re repressed when it comes to showing affection.
Honor killings and bombing of mosques are acceptable but showing spousal affection in public is considered scandalous
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When I came back from the States, I had to downplay my strengths. Even though I was very confident, I felt that I needed to make other people comfortable so that they wouldn't feel threatened. I am very comfortable with taking charge, mobilizing people, decision making and being a leader. My most comfortable position is behind the steering wheel in the fastest lane. But sometimes, as a strategy, I learnt to be in the passenger seat and drive in the middle lane. I had to work a lot on myself to be able to do that.
When I came back, regardless of my personhood and my skills, I was always seen primarily as a woman. It pointed to a gap in my life that I needed to explore. So I set out to explore some aspects of my womanhood. Growing up, I indentified very strongly with women and women's rights issues. What I needed was to relearn the dynamics of gender relationships in the Pakistani context. I was very used to being around men and could effortlessly connect with them as professional as well as platonic friends. I felt that though I was used to being with men, men weren't used to being around women, especially if they couldn't see them as people. Many a times I felt that I was pushed in a stereotypical role of a woman. They would assume that I would be scared, hesitant, unsure of myself, and wanting help, and mostly it was the opposite case. I had a hard time dealing with it.
I had to relearn many things, such as how to hold my body and carry myself. I didn't realize that many of my non-verbal gestures were giving very wrong signals! And in my head, I, Fouzia Saeed, was still a person. I turned this relearning into a socio-cultural project for myself. Research was my passion and because I had obtained a minor in anthropology in my PhD program, I turned my frustrations into an interesting research study. I learned about socialized behaviour of men and women with a new perspective and this deepened my knowledge of human behaviour and Pakistani society.
Mobility has always been very important to me. My close family relations had to come to terms with this aspect. I am a free soul. I just get up and go wherever I need to. If I can't do that I feel imprisoned. My parents had a hard time dealing with that because they were very concerned about my safety, but they had to become comfortable as I could not live with being chauffeured around. I was driving to Lahore by myself long before I started my travels for Taboo.
I am very close to my family. We are kind of intertwined with each other. My parents, my siblings and my nieces and nephews are my main support network that nurtures me. I also have a circle of close precious friends, in Pakistan and in the States. I have been among the most fortunate persons when it comes to family and friends.
I was working for UNDP when I met my husband. He is from the United States. For me, it really matters how a person thinks and what his values are. It was not love at first sight for me, though my husband says that it was for him. For my part, I don't know how a person can love another person if their political ideas, approaches and values don't match. I still have a hard time understanding how a person can love someone just because of their looks or because he or she has been chosen by their parents. Let me make this clear that I am not against arranged marriages, but I don't think it could work for me. I just cannot imagine being married to a Zia ul Haq fan.
When I initially met Paul, he was my colleague. I was heading the Gender Unit for UNDP Pakistan. I noticed that we were on the same side in discussions. Our relationship started as comradeship. We could see that we were thinking along the same lines. For instance, Paul and I would always argue that people are very smart and can decide for themselves. We had a very similar approach for social change. It gradually became a very warm friendship. Eventually we could see that we were made for each other.
When you choose somebody like that, you gradually let down your guards and allow yourself to get to know the other. It used to be that if any guy looked at me in a certain way, I would cut him up into pieces and throw him out of the window. The solidarity and comradeship with Paul lowered my defenses. We could always communicate very clearly and that has continued throughout our lives.
Many of our colleagues at the UN actually thought Paul was in trouble because he married me. They empathized with him for marrying a women's rights activist. Working women have to face several issues, especially if they decide not to get married early. Firstly, no one believes that they can choose to do so. They always think that no gracious man has proposed to them yet. Sometimes I also feel women marry to gain a sense of security and to get into that socially approved category. After I returned to Pakistan, I lived for ten years in the "disapproved' category. Everyone thinks that single women are desperate. Even if you say "no' to men, they just don't get it. They think it is always the man who has the right to choose. They think that a woman who refuses them is merely being coy or polite..
When I married Paul, first of all I encountered a wave of shock that I had eventually decided to get married. The second shock wave was that I had married an American. The third was that I had my wedding in a very traditional manner with all the ceremonies. I wore a lacha , with a paranda , red glass bangles and traditional khusas . I feel that weddings are occasions when one reverts to their own traditions. My relatives would ask me whether or not my husband was a Muslim. When I would answer in the affirmative, some would praise me for being so virtuous and fortunate to earn the "sawab' of converting him and others would inquire why I still call him Paul. Our people are very funny at times. I would respond that Paul is a lovely name, why should I call him something else.
Relationships have a life of their own. Many people think that it's about two people. But I think that within relationships there is a third space which is in between the two, almost like a living thing that needs to be nurtured and cared for. A lot of people talk about adjustment with the partner. It has always been such a pleasure to live with him. Adjustment is a very basic term. You adjust with your hostel roommate, not your husband.
On that note, I just want to add that I am very sorry to disappoint so many people who thought that Paul and I would break up in the first month after getting married. We have been happily married now for eleven years and intend to celebrate our silver jubilee at Niagara Falls.
I always say this to young people: don't miss out on your relationship with your spouse. And don't listen to people who tell you not to walk down the street hand in hand with your partner. In this society, people don't protest against the violent murders yet they frown upon my holding my husband's hand in public. The environment is so stringent, even in family life. Showing affection within a family is only allowed with children or perhaps within the same gender. The rest is all tabooed. When I say to someone "Oh I miss my husband", they are shocked to hear it. The social space is just not there. We're repressed when it comes to showing affection. Honour killings and bombing of mosques are acceptable but showing spousal affection in public is considered scandalous. We are very romantic people. Look at our history and folklore. Creativity and romance are part of our culture, but some factions in our society are adamant in making us non humans, more like robots.
In general, I am a very happy person and quite romantic about life. I come face to face with ugliness and the dark side of human nature on a day to day basis because I work with human rights violations all the time. But what keeps me going and protects me from being bitter is my romance with life. I enjoy the plants I have around the house, I enjoy the morning, I love rain, the full moon, music, dancing, Margalla hills and I enjoy the colours around me. I love my relationship with my husband and other family members. There is not a single day I take anything around me for granted.
This piece was compiled with the assistance of
Kamil Ali Rextin who lives in Islamabad |
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