What It’s Like Being a Pashtun Woman on Social Media – Story 5: inappropriate messages from “respected” figures

Continuing our series on Pashtun women’s experiences with social media / what it’s like being a Pashtun woman on good ol’ internet. (The other stories are linked at the bottom of this post. Please be sure to read the Introduction to the series! I’m afraid someone brilliant is going to rise up and say, “But it’s not just Pashtun women who face these problems! Why are you targeting Pashtun men as harassers only?!” Because you didn’t read. READ!)

What It’s Like Being a Pashtun Woman on Social Media – Story 4: when men send you porn to try to silence you

Continuing our series on Pashtun women’s experiences with social media / what it’s like being a Pashtun woman on good ol’ internet. (The other stories are linked at the bottom of this post. PLEASE read the Introduction to the series so you understand why I choose to focus on Pashtuns and not on other people. No, harassment and intimidation have no race, I know that.) Note that one of the following ladies’ harassers has been identified and his Facebook is linked; another of her harassers, a Hamza Jahed, is also linked with his Facebook – and a quick visit to Hamza’s FB page proves the man’s hypocrisy: he’s got pictures of the Qur’an with Allah’s name here and there! I believe in naming and shaming to death all men like this.

Quoting verbatim in italics.

What It’s Like Being a Pashtun Woman on Social Media – Story 3: on public identity, marriage proposals, unwanted requests

Continuing our series on Pashtun women’s experiences with social media / what it’s like being a Pashtun woman on good ol’ internet. (The other stories are linked at the bottom of this post. PLEASE read the Introduction to the series so you understand why I choose to focus on Pashtuns and not on other people. No, harassment and intimidation have no race, I know that.)

What It’s Like Being a Pashtun Woman on Social Media – Story 2: indecent exposures, demands for massages, and orders to be quiet

Source: http://schedule.sxsw.com/2015/events/event_IAP33842

Ramadhan mubarak, everyone 🙂 I hope you’re all having a wonderful and spiritually enlightening month! God be our Light, always, aameen!

This morning, when I checked my Facebook, I was greeted by an incredibly unsettling and disgusting message from someone named Sargand Ghazi  (the link is to his Facebook profile – this is probably not his real name): He had sent me a naked picture of himself (private part) – no face showing, of course, because he’s so profoundly brave – with the message, all caps, “I LOVE YOU.” (?)

What It’s Like Being a Pashtun Woman on Social Media – Story 1: intimidation, indecent photos, and threats of no-husband-for-you

The firs story in the series of being a (Pashtun) woman on the Internet. (Be sure to read this, folks – I’m afraid someone brilliant is going to come up and say, “But it’s not just Pashtun women who face these problems! Why are you targeting Pashtun men as harassers only?!” Because you didn’t read.)

The following person shall remain anonymous. Whatever I am sharing has been approved by her. It is told from her perspective.

What It’s Like Being a Pashtun Woman on Social Media

Source: http://schedule.sxsw.com/2015/events/event_IAP33842

This is going to be a series, and I am not going to promise it’ll be as regular as I’d like it to be. I’ve asked several Pashtun females to share their online experiences with me for this series — whatever stories they’d like to share, however, detailed or un-detailed, whether they use their real name or fake names or remain anonymous, whether they choose to expose the men and women and others who harass them online. Many have responded, and I’m grateful. If you’re a Pashtun woman reading this and would like to share your thoughts, experiences, observations as well, please feel free to do so. You can email me at orbala1@gmail.com.

The Privilege of Sexy Talk – and the expectation to remain faceless on Pashtun social media

Get it?!

In November 2014, while at a panel on authority and Muslim women bloggers at the AAR Conference (dang, I never wrote about that on this blog, did I? Oops. k, no more promises then), I discovered something about myself: Whenever I am inspired and feel empowered, I want to write something provocative. Provocative in the religious and cultural, especially Pashtun cultural, senses. And the moment I realized this, I felt uncomfortable with this response to inspiration. It’s just too sexy for me, for my people (the Pashtuns), to the understanding of Islam that I grew up with (not that I still uphold all of those ideas I grew up with – just that they influence how I carry myself years after having rejected many of them), to many Muslims. Because one of the presentations on this panel I’d attended was on The Fatal Feminist’s blog entries on nail polish during menstruation, I wanted to write something sexually provocative the moment inspiration was gushing through all over me. And then I stopped my thoughts, went back to the beginning of the thread of thoughts that had brought me to this “very un-Pashtun” decision, and I realized what a privilege it actually must be for a woman, Muslim no less, to be able to talk about her body and something considered so intimate and private as menstruation without feeling guilty and without fearing any consequences. It’s a privilege I am denying myself currently but one that I want to enjoy eventually. And, no, it’s not simple like: “You are freeeee! Write on whatever you want!” Shut up, please.