The consequences of this training do not just stay confined to women but also to the men.

When a young boy raised in a more conservative environment where they learn women are inherently submissive, rather than having distinct personalities, and their own opinions, they often feel entitled to have a sort of an opinion regarding women’s lives and choices, to these men a women’s choice starts to look arbitrary, as it lacks validation from their patriarchal mindset.

In a patriarchal society, rather than men seeing women as equal autonomous counter parts with independent minds, lives and choices.

A girl can be taught the boundaries of her freedom long before she understands that she has any.

“bhai ko ase kapre pasand nai”

“mamoo ne ghr se bhr jaane se mana kiya hai”

Why are these remarks so normalized in our society?

These are first lessons of obedience for young Pakistani women, delivered to them not through fathers, brothers, but women closest to them their mother, sisters, aunts and grandmothers.

For women in Pakistan, these are not just merely warnings. These are some of the earliest lessons they receive about the limits of their freedom. Before they learn to question authority, they are taught to anticipate it. They learn what their fathers may object to, or what might anger their brothers or uncles, or what their relatives or even neighbors might think and what their husbands eventually permit. All before they even learn to ask themselves of what they want.

And sometimes the person enforcing these limitations is not a man at all.

It’s the mother. The sister. The aunt. The grandmother.

Women often become........

© Minute Mirror