Maliha Abidi is an artist interviewed on the podcast. She compiled portraits of 50 inspirational Pakistani women in a book called "Pakistan for Women" last year. She feels happy when she gets messages from people who have read the book and seen representation of brown girls. Some surprises were learning about minority communities in Pakistan and how different women's stories connected through helping each other with issues like human rights.
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Our today's guest is Maliha Abidi. She is an artist who
uses her work to shed light on critical social issues and
celebrate the women who are leading them. Last year,
she compiled these portraits to honor 50 inspirational
Pakistani women from various walks of life in a book
titled, Pakistan for Women.
3. Saadia Khan 0:15
As a human rights activist, my work is driven by the desire to
implement positive change in our societies that advocate for the
marginalized. As a woman and an intersectional feminist, I know
firsthand that our societal structures still lack the adequate
means of protection, liberation and equality for women. As a mom
of two daughters, I often think about the type of world that awaits
my daughters as they venture out to discover who they are and
who they want to be.
4. Saadia Khan 0:15
Will it give them the same opportunities as their white male
counterparts? Will it embrace them, with all their flaws? Will it
celebrate their womanhood as a strength or will it weaponize it
against them. These are the questions that I constantly struggle
with and think about. But I find myself equally inspired by the
women who bring these same concerns to the public sphere.
These are the women who disrupt spaces that were never meant
to include them.
5. Saadia Khan 0:15
The women who reject calls for being passive and instead choose to use
their voices to champion for our continuous liberation. These women
remind me that we have come a long way, but there is still more to be
done. It gives me great hope to know that among them, my daughters and
I are in good company. Our guest today is one of these amazing women.
She is an artist who uses her work to shed light on critical social issues and
celebrate the women who are leading them. Last year she compiled these
portraits to honor 50 inspirational Pakistani women from various walks of
life in a book titled Pakistan For Women. Please welcome Maliha Abidi.
6. Saadia Khan 0:15
So Maliha, I will start with your book, Pakistan For Women, which was
published almost a year ago, and then you took it on the road. Now that
it's been a year, how do you feel?
7. Maliha Abidi 3:04
So it doesn't feel like it's been over a year. Firstly, and oh, actually,
thank you so much for having me on your podcast firstly. I should
thank you first. Answering the question and then yeah, it doesn't feel
like that it has been a year because, yeah, it's just, it's a constant
adventure with the book because, like I get messages from people, you
know, who have read the book, who have heard about it and I just feel
really happy every time I see any comments related to the book or a
message.
8. Maliha Abidi 3:04
Sometimes young girls, they take out time to write you know,
messages to me or emails to me. They're so happy to see
representation. You know, brown girls like them are represented in
the, in a book, like Pakistan For Women, so I absolutely feel so
happy about it.
9. Saadia Khan 3:54
Maliha, were there any surprises along the way? Did you discover
anything that you weren't expecting you would discover about
women in Pakistan?
10. Maliha Abidi 4:04
So I grew up in Pakistan, so I never kind of took Pakistan for, you
know, obviously, I didn't take the media's word for it, even when I
moved out of Pakistan. So I already knew my country pretty well.
You know, I was born and raised there. But honestly, I didn't know
about some of the communities within Pakistan because Pakistan is
a very diverse country. We have people from all different
backgrounds. So I was really happy to learn about different people
from different backgrounds, but at the same time, some of those
people, they were mistreated by you know, the majority because
they're a minority in Pakistan.
11. Maliha Abidi 4:04
And an amazing surprise that I, you know, when I was researching story of
Veeru Kohli, she went to the police first and the police didn't help but then
she was directed towards the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and
Asma Jahangir, who was another woman in my book and she's a, she was a
human rights activist and a human rights lawyer. She was the one who co-
founded the Human Rights Commission in Pakistan. So it's incredible what
one woman did and it helped another woman and that woman was able to
help other people in our community. So it's incredible, like how our stories
connect to one another. But yeah, there was a lot I didn't know. There was
a lot I learned through this entire project.
