Presentation of sociology

Topic:

Introduction

Directed by: Shoaib Mansoor Produced by: Shoman Productions Written by: Shoaib Mansoor

 Cast:
Humaima Malik as Zainab (eldest daughter) Manzar Sehbai as Hakim Sahib (father) Atif Aslam as Mustafa (Ayesha's husband) Iman Ali as Meena Shadoo (Dancer) Mahira Khan as Ayesha (Second sister) Shafqat Cheema as Saqa Kanjar (tout) Zaib Rehman as Suraiya (mother) Amr Kashmiri as Saifi (the brother/hermaphrodite)

 Music by:
Atif Aslam Shoaib Mansoor Sajjad Ali Ahmed Jahanzeb Hadiqa Kiyani

Distributed by:
Geo Films Eros International Ltd.

 Release date(s):
June 24, 2011 in Pakistan. August 31, 2011 in India & United Kingdom.

Country: Pakistan Language: Urdu Punjabi Budget: 15 crore

Overview of the movie

The film starts by showing the protagonist, Zainab is about to be hanged. She decides to tell her story to media right before she is hanged. She grew up with 6 sisters, a mother and a father. The father always wanted a son so that the son could help with the financial issues of the family, since he doesn't believe in women doing jobs.

They end up having a transsexual son, named Saifi. The father doesn't like Saifi because of his gender, but saifi is deeply loved by the rest of his family.

 Zainab's mom keeps giving birth to babies that are born dead, so Zainab get an operation done for her where she can no longer have babies. When Hakim finds out, he gets very mad. One day, Zainab sees Saifi dressed in women's clothes, and gets disturbed. Her friend Mustafa is a singer and is in a medical school. He likes Zainab's sister Ayesha and they both sing and play the guitar together, but they have to hide that from Hakim, since he doesn't like Mustafa's family because they are Shia.

 Hakim owns a small pharmacy sort of place and is approached by a man, who asks Hakim to teach the Quran to children, since Hakim is a very religious man who has bonds with the Masjid. Hakim initially refuses because the man is a Kanjar, meaning that he gets women to dance and to other bad things. Meanwhile the masjid gives Hakim some money to keep, since they believe Hakim is very trustworthy. Mustafa gets Saifi a job at a place where they paint trucks. He is harassed there because of his gender.

 One day he gets raped, and another transsexual finds him on the floor and takes him home. Hakim overhears Saifi telling his mother and Zainab what happened to him. Later on when everybody is asleep, Hakim gets a plastic bag and suffocates Saifi to death. He must bribe the police officer to keep what happened a secret by two lacs.

Hakim is forced to take the money out of the masjid funds.

 Ayesha and Mustafa both go to a concert and both sing and are loved by the crowd.

Mustafa's father approaches Hakim for Mustafa and Ayesha to get married, but Hakim refuses since Mustafa is Shia. The masjid asks for the funds, and Hakim doesn't have enough money.
He is forced to go to the Kanjar's house to get the money back. He washes it thinking that it is dirty, when he gets home.

 Teaching children the Quran isn't giving him enough money, so Saqa Kanjar gives him another option. He must get married to Hakim and have a baby with Mina who is one of the prostitutes and is the Saqa's oldest daughter, since he keeps on having girls and Saqa believes that it is the men who creates the gender. Zainab gets Ayesha and Mustafa married since Hakim found another man at the masjid and wants to get Ayesha married to that man. Simultaneously, Hakim marries Mina. When Hakim finds out about Ayesha's marriage, he is furious but can't do anything about it. Mina has her baby, and it is a girl meaning Saqa gets to keep it.

 Hakim begs Mina to give him the baby so that the baby doesn't have to face a horrible future. Saqa overhears and kicks Hakim out. Later on, Mina comes to give Hakim the baby. When Hakim's wife asks who that women was, he takes her to a room and tells her that he married Mina. She freaks out and starts screaming at him, and he beats her up. The mother tells the kids what happened, and Zainab insists they all leave the house and move somewhere to start a new life.

 At night, Saqa comes to take the daughter, since Mina was not supposed to give it to Hakim.

Hakim tries to kill the daughter to keep the daughter from a horrible future, but he is killed by Zainab by a fatal knock on the head. They hide the baby and Zainab tells Saqa that Hakim killed the baby and threw her out somewhere, and that she killed Hakim, which is why she is being given the death penalty.
Now back in the present, a reporter keeps trying to prove she is innocent, but is unable to.

 Zainab ends by asking that why is only killing a sin? Why isn't giving birth one? Then she is hanged. The president sees the reporter's newscast that ends with that question and schedules a meeting with the topic the same as the question. In the end, the daughters open up a restaurant called Zainab's Cafe, which becomes very successful. They also raise their new sister, Mina's daughter.

Literature review
Transgender Rights in Pakistan and the Criminal Law Origins of a Constitutional Case:
In the summer of 2009, the Supreme Court of Pakistan ordered the Government of Pakistan, and also the governments of Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan, and the Northwest Frontier provinces to better provide for Pakistan's transgendered citizens.

 This intervention by the Supreme Court into the social situation facing Pakistani transgendered citizens came as a surprise to many casual observers of Pakistan's political and legal landscape, albeit one that was welcomed by many. For others however, including many progressives, the Supreme Court's intervention resulted in as much puzzlement and consternation as it did relief.

 The Court's finding, for example, that transgenderism is a kind of "gender disorder" - as a predicate for the Courts action on behalf of transgendered individuals was just one of several aspects of the Courts 'benevolence' that gave people cause to worry about what the Court was up to.

While the legal and social issues raised by the Supreme Court of Pakistan's recent actions transgendered individuals can be examined in many different ways and for many different purposes, in this chapter I will analyze how and why different conceptions of gender and identity circulated in the events surrounding the Supreme Court's actions.

 Specifically, I want to examine not only how state actors involved in this litigation articulated, at various times and spaces connected to the events surrounding this litigation, different conceptions of Pakistans transgendered citizens' gender, but also why these conceptions changed across time and space.

Even more specifically, I aim to analyze how and why the gender of the transgendered individuals whose welfare was at issue in the Supreme Court changed from the time they were arrested in a police raid on a wedding party in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, until the time they and their brethren were 'liberated' by the Supreme Court in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Women's rights in Pakistan:

Education: The literacy rate of females in Pakistan is at 39.6 percent
compared to that of males at 67.7 percent.

The objectives of education policies in Pakistan aim to achieve equality in education between girls and boys and to reduce the gender gap in the educational system.
However, the policy also encourages girls, mainly in rural areas of Pakistan, to acquire basic home management skills, which are preferred over full-scale primary education.

 The attitudes towards women in Pakistani culture make the fight for educational equality more difficult. The lack of democracy and feudal practices of Pakistan also contribute to the gender gap in the educational system. This feudal system leaves the underpowered, women in particular, in a very vulnerable position. The longlived socio-cultural belief that women play a reproductive role within the confines of the home leads to the belief that educating women holds no value.

Regional differences:
Women in elite urban districts of Pakistan enjoy a far more privileged lifestyle than those living in rural tribal areas. Women in urbanized districts typically lead more elite lifestyles and have more opportunities for education. Rural and tribal areas of Pakistan have an increasingly high rate of poverty and alarmingly low literacy rates. In 2002 it was recorded that 81.5 percent of 15-19 year old girls from high-income families had attended school while 22.3 percent of girls from low-income families had ever attended school.

 It was recorded that 96.6 percent of Pakistani boys ages 1519 coming from high-income families had attended schooling while 66.1 percent of 15-19 year old boys from low-income families had attended school.

Government: Pakistans constitution places no constraints on female participation in government, more than 50% MPs are women and law in forces that women must have equal opportunity in Parliament.

Workforce:
In 2008 it was recorded that 21.8 percent of females were participating in the labor force in Pakistan while 82.7 percent of men were involved in labor. The rate of women in the labor force has an annual growth rate of 6.5 percent. Out of the 47 million employed peoples in Pakistan in 2008, only 9 million were women and of those 9 million, 70 percent worked in the agricultural sector. The income of Pakistani women in the labor force is generally lower than that of men, due in part by a lack of formal education.[8]

Sociological analysis
Director Shoaib Mansoor uses this family as a paradigm to address almost every concern correlated with the community. The film primarily objects to the idea of reproducing human beings into this world without taking complete responsibility of their existence. Concurrently it also highlights the regressive attitude of a male-dominated society that offers no liberty to woman in choosing life-partner, refusing reproduction, gaining education or working independently.

 The concerns are very much contemporary with the film set in modern-day Lahore. At the same time, the film never stereotypes the state or its citizens but attempts to represent the intellectual illiteracy of a vast majority who haven't upgraded with times. Almost all the issues are brought to light by the conformist characterization of the father figure. And with the outlook of the film focused only on domestic issues, the director refrains from giving any political overtones to Hakim's characterization and attributes his extremism to his orthodox upbringing and bigoted beliefs.

 His fanatic philosophy makes him renounce his earnings. We hate his chauvinistic attitude as much as you pity his penniless state. While he is the only breadwinner of an extended femaledominated family, his ancestral physician profession is losing charm and clientele in an era when medical science has much evolved. So while on one hand you detest the fact that he doesn't allow his daughters to find employment, you also sympathize with him for having to stoop to the panderer's demands.

 At several instances, the narrative smartly underscores the irony of life. While we have often witnessed woman getting into the flesh trade for survival, here the male species falls prey of the situation. The fact that all his offspring were only girls, which had always been his biggest weakness, turns Hakim's strength when he gets money to impregnate a courtesan with a girl child. So while on one hand his second daughter gets secretly married to the boy-next-door , on the other hand the father surreptitiously ties the knot with the courtesan.

Conclusion
Shoaib mansoor wanted to highlight was how wrong application and lack of education has led the people to create their own version of Islam. That the Hakeem was confused where he practised religion but married a prostitute, but the concept that was being highlighted was how people use religion to their advantage and apply it in the most biased manner. . The Hakeem asks everyone to pray but he curses his children, kills his son and hits his wife and daughterseverything is against the teachings of Islam and somehow Islamic rules don't apply in such circumstances.

 That aspect isn't a flaw in the movie, but this is what actually happens in our country.
We think so that, for the case of transgender we not just rely on the govt. We should talk with the heads of our schools and universities to admit such people so that they get what is the fundamental right of all human beings- Education!!!!

We should talk to our families to let these special people study and work with us. Simultaneously, the govt. should pass a law that no such babies should be given away; parents should treat them as an asset and not as an ignominy. Its time for us to rise above all stigmas as a liberal nation. God Bless Pakistan. Ameen

References
"Shoaib Mansoors BOL breaks box office record in Pakistan". Pakistani Ultimate Media. 14 July 2011. Retrieved 2011-07-12. "Bol beats My Name Is Khan record". Geo News. Retrieved 1 July 2011. "Bol sets another historic record at box office". The News International. 11 July 2011. Retrieved 2011-07-12. Lloyd, Cynthia Rural girls in Pakistan: Constraints of policy and culture, Retrieved 2010-01-16. Qureshi, Rashida. "1" (Hardcover). Gender and Education in Pakistan (1st ed.). Oxford: University Press.

 Lloyd, Cynthia. Rural girls in Pakistan: Constraints of policy and culture. Retrieved 2010-01-16. Jeff Redding ,Saint Louis University School of Law, Date posted: August 05, 2011 ; Last revised: September 28, 2011. Hayat, Malik. "Pakistan Employment Trends for Women". Labour Market Information and Analysis Unit (Ministry of Labour and Manpower). Retrieved 2010-01-13.