On August 5, 2017 an English Daily of Pakistan, posted a picture of a female wearing a hijab riding a bike. The picture captioned “A girl rides a motorbike in Saddar Peshawar”. It was later shared on the Facebook pages as well.
When I saw the picture and read the caption; I asked myself why is this a news? What is news, a girl riding a bike or a girl wearing a hijab riding it? I have no clue to why, when a woman does something it becomes a big deal or when a woman cannot do something and is manipulated becomes another deal.
Yes, I agree that a woman is created differently from a man. However, a woman is free to choose and potentially able to do whatever she chooses or wants to do. It is not a debate that a woman is equal to a man. There is no competition and I feel there is no reason for a comparison as well. Men and women sometimes can do same things and other times have the ability to do it differently or better than the other gender.
Humans are free to choose. The freedom of making a choice should be liberating. The decision to wear a hijab and ride a bike should not be made a huge deal. Women have gone to space, they fly airplanes, drive cars then why riding a bike make a woman any different. Our mentalities have this confined ideology of intolerance that is when we publish pictures like this or similar ones we actually limit and confine ourselves. We are trying to convince ourselves that it is not permitted or possible, however we are allowing and permitting it to be acceptable and possible now.
A human does not need permission to exercise their choice. Nobody in this universe has the power over the other. The only power one can practice over the other is the mental power. Therefore, individuals should keep their mental powers free and liberated from social confinements and environmental restrictions. Individuals should enlighten themselves for their own good and for the good of the society. We should allow the process of freedom from bondage of self-judgement and judgement of confining individuals based on their identity as far as religion or gender is a concern which ultimately could be debilitating.
Suzzanna Javed
