The Pakistani Spectator

Karachi and a busy round of work and social engagements – and a little time to relax. Thursday saw the sampling of a recently opened coffee shop on Zamzama. All very smart and expensive, spotlessly clean cutlery and tables, slightly intrusive music, excellent coffee and snacks and disappointing cookies – especially at the price. My female colleague and I spent a pleasant hour discussing everything from Scandinavian culture to films – and she shared the information that Avatar was still playing at the Karachi Cineplex and I, film buff that I am, resolved to see it on Saturday – except that I won’t. Checking the timing of screenings on Friday morning there was an unwelcome surprise at the top of the Cineplex website – single males are not allowed into the cinema. Attempts to call the cinema to see if this applied to visiting goras proved fruitless and opened up a range of thoughts and discussions.

First off… what if I was a foreign tourist? At the moment you can probably count the numbers of foreign tourists in Karachi on your fingers and still have a few left over – but there is a sprinkling of expatriate residents who presumably might like to watch a film in a cinema now and then rather than on the cramped confines of a TV screen. Does the ‘no men’ policy apply to all men or only Pakistani men (and here I recalled a recent mini-furore about a Pakistani man and his wife denied access to a restaurant located in the diplomatic enclave in Islamabad)?

Secondly, this is not the first time I have found the way barred courtesy of my gender. An attempt to walk in the rather fine gardens that have replaced the tatty but characterful stalls that once made up the Playland area was rebuffed by a very surly guard. ‘Families only’ was the policy and no matter that I am a man in my sixties, obviously a foreigner, there was no getting around it. Access denied.

Discussion in the office revealed a whole swathe of places where men are no longer welcome… or not welcome at certain times or in groups. Most of the prominent coffee shops and trendy snack bars that have sprung up seem to have a policy of either excluding single males completely or limiting the time of day during which their custom is welcome – and it seems their custom is never welcome if they are in a group. The reason behind this is to prevent the male customers from harassing the females – which speaks volumes about the behaviour of males in female company and how it is perceived by those who operate a retail outlet that has a social aspect. Clearly, there is a female demographic that has sufficient disposable income to make it worthwhile protecting by those who run coffee and snack houses, likewise cinemas.

The men who are being excluded are not the hoi-polloi, the riff-raff; they are men in the same demographic as the women who are allowed in – relatively affluent or downright rich. They are presumably ‘educated’ but not yet sufficiently socially developed to be allowed into the company of women safely. Having seen and heard the behaviour of men in cinemas and other places of recreation I am disappointed but unsurprised to find myself not seeing the film of my choice. Perhaps the good news to come out of this is that women are for a change being discriminated against positively rather than negatively – the downside being that men are having their egos bruised and a negative stereotype of women reinforced. Now… if we could just clarify the question of ‘tourists’…?