Life in Karachi, Pakistan: Patriarchy & Anxiety

Описание: Moving from Islamabad to Karachi in December has been ROUGH! Normally the patriarchy doesn’t touch my life here. My Pakistani friends are global citizens, most having lived in at least one or two other countries. My business partner is a gem who is an expert in what he does and one of the most standup guys on the planet. And since I work remotely online, I don’t engage face-to-face with anyone but friends or folks in shops.

Learning that as a WOMAN I was irrelevant to my relocation process as I apartment-hunted in Karachi came as a shock. The process had been so easy in Islamabad, with reasonable move-in requirements, and agents on both sides (owner & tenant) that were easy to work with.

But things are different in the south 😉

A “male body part” seems needed to rent an apartment in Karachi for some reason, which I will never understand. I genuinely thought they had 1 overarching use so it never occurred to me that one was required to negotiate a tenancy agreement. One agent wouldn’t work with me ‘til he met my brother in Karachi. Another wouldn’t speak to me at all, only to ANY OTHER MAN (didn’t even have to be my agent, just a man).

THE WORST PART
It was so bad that I had to engage a lawyer to speak on my behalf to simply stand up for my rights, otherwise I would have been ignored and taken advantage of.

I’ll share a video this weekend of that full story on YouTube. No names / I'm not outing anyone ... but I will detail the full saga and how I used the legal system in Pakistan, so please do stay tuned.

FINAL THOUGHT
This morning FINALLY feels like a bright new day again, not limbo. The apartment I fell in love at first sight with, now feels like it’s my new home. No more stress.

Time to get back to doing what I love: promoting Balochistan, writing about this wild life in Pakistan, and sharing videos.

NOTE TO Pakistani women DMing kind words & your own stories: Until now, I’d never been negatively impacted by patriarchy in Pakistan, which I understand now is a privilege. IN SOLIDARITY WITH YOU, please know I am glad to have experienced this very tiny, small thing to understand for even a moment what many of you deal with daily.