In Pashtún culture, women are still largely secreted in the domestic sphere due to the restriction of gender roles. But things are changing, slowly and subtly.
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Dirs District’s village, the usual morning routine, perhaps monotonous, is broken by the cry of a street vendor. “Walay Tuki Walay (Buy fabrics) “, resonates through the narrow lanes and triggers a burst of activity.
As soon as the call, the lifting and the fall of the waves of the song, it makes its way inside the houses and through the walls of the kitchen, the women of Blogagai leave all the tasks to run quickly to their rooms and obtain money from all the hidden places; Cabinets, trunks, shelves.
As the street vendor makes its way through the streets, their calls mix with the grunts of street dogs, creating a cacophony that could wake up even the most lazy of all. The street vendor, tanned and wrinkled with years of truck under the relentless sun, has become accustomed to the clamor reception.
There is a great brightness in him. Your finely embroidered white Topi and the bright beards stunned under the sun. A fabric package is hung on his shoulder, his figure bent down under his weight. The package is balanced to the left and the right with each step, imitating the surrounding wheat fields whispering in the breeze.
Soon he takes over children playing the branch on the nearby earth. “Go tell your mother that I have brought new clothes … cheap and Khaista (Beautiful), ”says the street vendor.
In a few minutes, an outdoor market is established nearby, subtly genre. The daily standards of Purdah Believe in the scene as stealthily as a jackal be sneaked into a barn on night and flees with the chickens.
A roller coaster of emotions
The street vendor is at a respectable distance from the house, of which an old woman, often the ABAI or Babbo (grandmothers), came out. Her old age and familiarity with man have exempted her from Purdahotherwise it is not negotiable. You could say that older women are now more or less “degenero.”
In the absence of these grandmothers, children become messengers, rummaging between street vendors and their mothers standing at the entrance of the houses, half hidden. This arrangement, however, leaves anxious women; What happens if their husbands do?
Fortunately, it is mainly Babbo who leaves the house to meet the street vendor while undoing his package after some turns and pulls. Then comes an explosion of carefully folded and carefully organized fabrics. Proud of his show, the street vendor boasts of the fabric with movements of hands as theatrical as the repetition of slow movement of a wickt.
“I just arrived,” he announces, a safe smile throwing in the corner of his lips. “The house there bought almost everything,” he boasts of the Hawker. “Only some more pieces remain.”
Not immunate for the presumed of man, Babbo leans, his eyes throw themselves from cloth to cloth, a hunter dam. She is an experienced, cunning and calculated customer, obtaining the right thing for the right price.
While the old woman chooses and chooses, the young women who are standing by the door in the nearby houses shout the neck to look at the exchange. His fingers bite to touch the fabric. And when Babbo finally carries some samples to them, they instantly jump to the opportunity, grabbing the tukiFeeling its texture, judging its weight and imagining how it would be sewn.
However, these are not the only factors that influenced the purchase. Ideally, the fabric had to be unique, something that none of his family or friends has. And then, obviously there is the issue of money.
Once the options are taken, the negotiation game begins. The Hawker begins with a high price, testing the waters and their fate. But as negotiations begin, the offers fall. With years of experience and a dominant age, Babbo makes its way through these exchanges, victorious.
When it is time to deliver the cash, it softens a package of notes bent with their palms and, with their lips in silence, tell them twice, three times, just to make sure that there is not a single note.
For some women in Blogagai, payments are not simple. They almost never have enough effective. Therefore, the balance is resolved later or paid in kind, sometimes with chickens or a promised goat to be sold and paid for later.
For others, the visit of the street vendor stimulated anxiety and stress. They pass their fingers on the fabric, living a life that they desperately want in their minds before returning it to the street vendor. “Next time,” women often say, more for themselves. Perhaps, tomorrow it would be a little brighter when their chickens, goats or sheep become slower. Maybe then, they would have enough to buy.
The Hawker, disappointed but empathetic, packs his package and balances him on his shoulder. The weight of their unested fabrics is not light, but it doesn’t matter how many doors are closed, their steps do not hesitate. He goes to the door next door, as he has done for decades, with his call to the song: “Walay Tuki Walay.“
Enter the world of men
The scene described above was the experience lived for hundreds of women since they can remember. In recent years, however, the Tuki Wala It is quickly becoming a relic of the past. They no longer echo the lanes with their booming voice. Nor is they lost a lot.
During the last decade more or less, many women in Blogagai have begun to overcome street vendors. They have been replaced by shopping spaces that are not only spacious, but also give women the agency to buy their choice.
The first female commercial market was established in the early 2000s near the cemetery in Timergara Bazar. And, to surprise, it was not very well received by men, who called him ‘Dozakh market‘ – An accusation and warning; A seedbed of evil influences, a descent to condemnation. The space was seen as a place where the modesty of women and the masculinity of the men who allowed them to go there were called in doubt.
However, these ominous comments did not hinder the growth of shopping spaces. Today, even small bazaars have ranks of specialized stores in women’s clothing and other basic products.
(Re) negotiation of social norms
For women in dir, a shopping trip is often a family excursion, typically accompanied by a man, sometimes a child, other times a husband not so soft. But recently, the people have seen a pleasant rest of tradition: purchase women on their own.
It is no longer uncommon to see university and university girls, with their bags grabbed in their hands, wandering independently through the market without a male escort. Sometimes they venture into groups, testing freedom that their grandmothers and mothers did not have. Most of them are rarely in a Burkha; Instead, they choose to use the much more comfortable Parón – A long chador or Dupatta threw the head, body and face.
These girls take their time sailing and inspecting before making a decision. And while there are some defeat stories to tell later, most buy needs. Women in the town do not return home carrying armed with shopping bags because they still depend on men’s wallets, mainly full of remittances of the Gulf States.
I remember having talked once with Babbo, who has seen society evolve over the years. “Today’s women have so much clothes that their trunks overflow with them, but they want to continue buying more,” he said.
In Pashtún culture, women are still largely secreted in the domestic sphere due to the restriction of gender roles. But things are changing, slowly and subtly, only if you look more closely. An example is to see women in small villages, where the separation between home and public life was once strict.
These women step cautiously, their eyes down and their movements were measured, but now they are in the bazaar. There they are more visible, affirming their presence, making decisions, negotiating, buying and claiming a space in the sphere of the market defined by men. Over time, men have begun to make space in their world for their counterparts; The first acceptance sign.
In cities, headed by the youngest generation of women, this change is much more visible.
More and more girls, with their backpacks on their shoulders, leave their homes every morning for school and university. They dare to imagine a future beyond kitchen, patio, walls and farms. They go up to the ‘male’ territories taking work in schools, hospitals and beyond. Through paid employment, they obtain purchasing power. And with that something much more valuable comes: a voice, a choice and a sense of agency.
Image of heading: Women go through the Shafi market in Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. – A photo
