Hiba Bukhari, Armeena Khan: can we stop moral policing pregnant women and let them live?

Mahnoor Jalal

Mahnoor Jalal

Sub-Editor

Hiba Bukhari gets trolled by the internet for attending the Hum awards while heavily pregnant

Once again, men have started engaging in their favourite activity: lecturing women about how they should dress up. It’s lovely how in Pakistan, nothing attracts more condemnation than a pregnant woman who is still openly living her life rather than hiding away her body like its a matter of shame.

Case on point, actress Hiba Bukhari was spotted at the red carpet of the Hum awards where she was seen heavily pregnant and looking quite gorgeous in a silk green dress. A man on the internet by the name Qaisar Ahmed Raja decided that every Pakistani’s biggest fight isn’t inflation or employment, or even the rising cases of child abuse! It is banning pregnant women from stepping outside in public ever again?

 

Please Qaisar sahab, explain to us that what crime did Hiba Bukhari commit that makes it such an enormous sin compared to child abuse? For a nation that glorifies marriage and babies, why are we so ashamed of the fact that a pregnant woman is outside enjoying her life and looking gorgeous while doing so?

We shame women for not having children, we shame them for choosing to have them and enjoy their career at the same time. Perhaps it is less about the bump, and more to do with the fact that men want to keep policing women’s bodies.

Pregnancy isn’t a matter of shame, and nor should any woman think she becomes ugly once her belly starts swelling up. Hiba Bukhari owes no man an explanation for choosing to dress up how she wants and live her life the way she wants to. And we’re so glad that people on the internet were quick to shut down the misogynist remarks.

Lawyer Muneeb Qadair slammed the trolls for thinking treating pregnancy like a disease. He wrote:

“I really don’t understand. What’s the ‘beghairti’ in being pregnant? Why should a woman hide herself away for 9 months just to please insecure Pakistani men? Why are Pakistani Awaam losing their sh1t over something as routine as pregnancy & childbirth?”

 

Hiba Bukhari is not the first actress to be trolled for displaying her pregnancy

Sadly, this is another day of Pakistani men refusing to understand that they do not get to lecture women about their bodies. Previously, it was Armeena Khan who was subjected to intense backlash by the internet after she posted pictures of her maternity shoot on her Instagram account.

Read more:Motherhood & pregnancy is beautiful, nothing to hide: Armeena Khan schools trolls to stop sexualizing women’s bodies

Pakistani men: please get a hobby aside from being on the internet all day. The world doesn’t stop because you asked it to. Pakistani women won’t be ashamed of their bodies because you think so, and it is no woman’s responsibility to stop her life because she got pregnant.