I stop a man and ask if this is the right road to DG Khan. After realising he has no idea himself I try to move on. But he`s grabbed the front of my bike and wont let me move, shouting angrily in Urdu at me . I stay calm, slowly moving back and keep smiling until I see a car I can flag down…he immediately shoots off when the car pulls up and off I go again…That was my first negative experience with anyone in Pakistan, having found nothing but warm hospitality and respect wherever I go…yet perhaps this was just my unlucky day as a few hours later I also have two guys pull up beside me on their motorbike and molest me whilst all the other men in the street have a good laugh. However, I got the impression it was less of a sexual thing and more of a punishment for breaking so many social taboos as a woman cycling alone. I just shouted `police`when they came back for more and shook my fists as best as I could without falling off my bike. They were completely arrogant and just drove off laughing…and I carried on. And almost I didn`t include this on the blog, feeling a little embaressed to be talking about this publicly. But I know it is precisely this fear or shame that perpetuates the culture of acceptance of these acts of sexual harrasment. I said I wanted to understand and experience how it is for a woman take this journey alone, and I learned that sometimes it really is still a mans world that frustrates, restricts and intimidates me. As a woman on a bicycle I am already transgressing social norms, woman do not ride bikes or motorbikes as it is considered too sexual. And as a woman alone I am also breaking the social conventions that woman should be protected and guarded by a man. But more than anything else, I found the rejection or disapproval of other women the hardest to accept. Women stared at me in fear or horror sometimes as I passed on my bike, others thought I was insane to be alone without a man whilst some just looked incredibly dissaproving that I wasn't married and was alone…more than any of the male cat calling, lude jeering or groping, getting the cold shoulder from another woman hurt the most.
But there are women against the grain, there are women who have blazed a firey trail through Pakistans history. And whilst on the road two women also pull over and insist on taking photos with me. They say I'm a brave woman and I`ve inspired them…I tell them I think any woman in Pakistan is brave just to exist in this mans world but I take these words to heart and hold onto them, letting them keep my head high at the next lude jeering session from more bike boys...
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