Abstract
Aurat March [Women’s March] is an annual event organised in various cities across Pakistan to observe International Women’s Day. Since its inception in 2018, the March has been condemned by conservative religious and political segments of society for reasons relating to propriety. This commentary explores how placards predominantly form the object of censure in the movement’s backlash. By reflecting on discourses on mainstream and social media, I first assess the use of placards in constructing networks of feminist voices. I then assess the (re)production of anti-feminist discourses, sparked by commentary on (select) placards and doctored images to promote dis/misinformation campaigns through the convergence of networked misogyny. Placards at Aurat March have therefore constructed a space for resistance—both by the movement and in retaliation to it—shifting the placard to a site of networked struggles over feminist and women’s participation in public spaces.
Highlights
Aurat March [Women’s March] is an annual event organised as part of a socio-political movement for equality and gender justice in Pakistan
By situating Aurat March within Pakistan’s broader women’s movement, I first reflect on the relationship between media and networked feminisms
To draw out the significance of this, I map the struggle between networked feminism and networked misogyny in the digital age by assessing the discourses sparked by and in retaliation to placards carried by participants at Aurat March
Summary
Aurat March [Women’s March] is an annual event organised as part of a socio-political movement for equality and gender justice in Pakistan. By situating Aurat March within Pakistan’s broader women’s movement, I first reflect on the relationship between (new) media and networked feminisms. In 1983, women’s rights activists marched towards the Lahore High Court where they were met with police violence (Yusuf 2013) This was the first interaction between the media and Pakistan’s women’s movement, the former of which referred to the protest as vulgar, anti-Islamic and “imposed by the West” (Ahmed-Ghosh 2008, 108). It is pertinent to question how new media in Pakistan interacts with feminist activists in the digital age Such mobilisations give rise to networked feminisms, which call for a new form of feminist ‘publics’ organising both virtually and on the streets
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