Pakistan

2013, My first trip

My relationship with the women of the Critical Thinking Forum (CTF) at the International Islamic University, Islamabad began in 2013 when Dr. Munazza Yaqoob invited me to come to Islamabad to screen "Feminist: Stories from Women's Liberation."

2016, They visit Pasadena and I am invited back

Later, in the in summer of 2016, Dr. Yaqoob asked me to be the coordinator of a State Department funded trip to bring eight women Islamic University academics to Los Angeles for a cultural exchange trip. I set up five panel discussions throughout Los Angeles. Dr. Munazza Yaqoob and I discussed and formulated the topic for each venue.

• Los Angeles Public Library: Women in USA + Pakistan: Seeing each other and expanding our vision

• West Hollywood Library: Visual Portrayals of Women: An analysis of Pakistani and American Media

• Cottonwood Canyon in Pasadena: Urban Green Spaces, From California to Islamabad

• Quaker Meeting House: Pakistani Women: Religion and Peace

• Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising: Observing Fashion in the Post-Feminist Era: Global Trends from Pakistan to the US

They stayed in Old Town Pasadena and the trip also included visits to the homes of friends, a personal tour of Fox Studios, Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles and Disneyland.

Again, in  December of 2016, I was asked to travel to Islamabad and be one of their keynote speakers at the Women and the Environment conference, another State Department event. I screened some clips from my new film.

2023, The Project

I returned from a five week visit to Pakistan with Dr. Munazza Yaqoob and Ms. Hina Abidi, past president of the Pakistan Arts Council of the USC Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena. This was my third trip to Pakistan. The trip culminated in a photo and film exhibit at the Pakistan National Arts Council.

In 2018 I received a Fulbright award to teach women’s liberation movement history in Pakistan. (Pakistan was not accepting scholars at that time.) I am a Fulbright Finalist. The foundation of the Fulbright project is in this 2023 project, Women Without Borders.

The aim of "Women Without Borders: A Visual Study of Lives of Women in Pakistan" is to identify the differences and, more importantly, the commonalities between the status of women in Pakistan and the United States. 

Cross-cultural studies carried out by Western feminists often depict women in developing nations as oppressed without any agency. The representation of women in a one-dimensional manner has had a detrimental impact on the advancement of women's rights, widening the gap between Western women and those residing in developing countries.  In the present circumstances, it is imperative to foster collaborative efforts that facilitate the building of meaningful relationships between women from the United States and Pakistan. These connections would serve as platforms for discussing and projecting alternative narratives with regard to their struggles and resilience. Rather than serving as counterproductive saviors of Pakistani women, American women must challenge restrictive patriarchal norms as equal partners and create powerful networks of women who can overcome a variety of challenges and collaborate to build more equitable social structures.

The initiative encourages the inclusion of women from both the United States and Pakistan as equal participants in challenging patriarchal norms and establishing robust networks of women who are capable of addressing diverse barriers and working together to form more equitable systems of society.