Aurat March: The act of taking space is both tactic and victory.

NOTTINGHAM -- International Women's Day (IWD), taking place on 8th March every year has been a day of protest for more than a century. With roots in socialist movements, IWD was started as a day for women to collectively organise and speak out for their rights, drawing attention to injustices of the time.

From women's suffrage in the early years to equal rights, economic, social and cultural justice, reproductive freedom, bodily autonomy, and many other issues over the years, IWD has been a call to action for women around the world.

Aurat March has carried on that tradition, rescuing International Women's Day in Pakistan from the capitalist clutches of lawn sales, restaurants and corporates, and restoring its purpose. In Pakistan, while civil society organisations had continued to use 8th March to raise awareness of gender inequality, the mainstream understanding of the Day had been reduced to wishing women a 'happy women's day' with flowers and gifts - most ironically epitomised by workplaces that exploit women the entire year gifting them chocolates for IWD. '

Aurat March has taken control of International Women's Day and given it back to women. It has become a rising cry against all kinds of injustice faced not just by women, but by all those who are othered and discriminated against by society, whether that is religious minorities, home workers or transgender people. Maybe it is that which is so threatening about groups of women peacefully carrying placards - the rising up and standing together of all those whose subjugation those in power benefit from.

After Aurat March 2019 the organisers received death threats on their social media accounts, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly passed a resolution against the March, and a complaint was filed about the 'vulgarity' of the March. This year so far the organisers have been targeted with rape and death threats on a poster calling for volunteers, at least two petitions have been filed against the March, in Lahore High Court and Sindh High Court respectively, and posters advertising the March were torn down less than an hour after being being put up.

It has, however, been heartening, and feels like a sign of progress, to see both institutions and political parties standing for the rights of women to exercise their right to demonstrate. The Courts denied the petition against the March and senior members of ruling political parties - Shireen Mazari from PTI and Sherry Rehman from PPP - have both...