Saving Face
‘Saving Face’ is a short (40 min) award-winning documentary by Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy and Daniel Junge, about acid attacks on women in Pakistan. The film focuses on two aspects of the lives of acid attack victims: their fight for justice, and the process of recovery.
In the span of the film, we follow Dr. Mohammad Jawad, a London-based Pakistani plastic surgeon, who returns to his homeland after hearing news of such violence, to support the fight for justice for the victims and perform reconstructive surgery to help restore their faces and their self-confidence. The film also features the Acid Survivors Foundation, who has been advocating for the parliament to pass a bill on acid violence, to bring justice to the perpetrators. The heartbreaking stories of two victims of acid violence by their husbands were also highlighted in the film.
A short background of acid violence:
The Acid Survivors Foundation has recorded about a hundred of such attacks in a year, and they estimate that the numbers are in fact much higher due to underreporting of such domestic violence. However, most of the perpetrators get away scot-free –sometimes even supported by other women from their own family!
While acid attacks occur in many places across the world, majority of reported cases are found in Pakistan, where there is very high unemployment and very low literacy. It can be clearly observed that it is a deeply patriarchal society where women are objectified. All reported acid violence victims are women, and their attackers are always men – usually their husbands or sometimes even men who wish to marry them.
Commentary: It was very heartbreaking to see how because of the society’s preference for men, women can be treated like such inferior beings, in a way quite similar to acts of violence on animals.
The dynamics of sexual exchange can be witnessed in this film, which are affected by the cultural beliefs and socioeconomic conditions of the Pakistani society. Firstly, Islam allows for polygamy – a Muslim man is by Islamic law allowed to have up to four wives – and this favors the sex drive of men while aiding the objectifying of women as sexual objects to possess. As we see in the video, many cases of acid attacks on women by their own husbands were actually reported to be because their husbands wanted to marry another woman. The acid violence against their wives was meant to make them ‘invalid’ so that it would be justified for them to take another wife to fulfill their sexual desires, which their wives had perhaps failed to do so.
Aside from attacks by husbands, some women have also been subjected to acid violence by other men who they – or perhaps their family – have rejected for their hand in marriage. With the poor socioeconomic conditions in Pakistan, many men lack the extrinsic resources to exchange for sexual access. Since women have the initial advantage, and yet these men lack the necessary extrinsic resources to bargain with, some of them resort to acid violence with the reasoning that if they are unable to marry a woman, no one else should have her. As the man lack extrinsic resources to bargain for sexual exchange, he thus seeks to remove the intrinsic resources –
i.e. her physical appearance of the woman desired, so that she will not be able to find another man.
The clear objectification of women as possessions of men is stark here, and this is not only apparent in the thinking of men. This highly patriarchal notion has been so deeply perpetuated in the society that women themselves believe so. Their looks seem to be truly their only resources – at least in their self-perceptions. A woman who lost an eye from an acid attack said, “It took one second to ruin my life completely.” Another who was attacked by her husband in her own home said, “My life was destroyed in this room.” It is quite saddening how low the self-worth of some of these women is, that once their looks were gone, they viewed their entire life to have similarly been destroyed. It was also a huge shock to me when a scene, as earlier mentioned, depicted how a man’s family, including his mother and sister, actually came together to attack his wife!
On the other hand, we can also see in the film that there are many women who are strongly advocating and leading the fight for the criminalizing of acid crimes. Unfortunately, the only male actor portrayed to be on the side of the acid attack victims is Dr. Jawad, who is well educated and probably undergone the enculturation of westernized ideas of gender equality. It would seem that education for both the men and women in Pakistan would be necessary in order for a shift in the persisting gendered status quo in the society.
I would highly recommend this film, as it really shows us an extreme side of a patriarchal society and how damaging unequal relations – in this case it is gender, but it could well be class, race, etc – can be. Aside from raising awareness to the world about acid violence in Pakistan, the film also started ‘Saving Face’ campaign to eradicate acid violence worldwide. You can show your support for these women too! Visit http://savingfacefilm.com/the-campaign/get-involved/
(You can access the full 40-minute video here! It is amazing to view gender through a sociological lens after going through a gender studies module in school. I thoroughly enjoyed it and learnt a lot from it. There are many more videos on gender, just let me know and I can share what I know!)
‘Saving Face’ is a short (40 min) award-winning documentary by Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy and Daniel Junge, about acid attacks on women in Pakistan. The film focuses on two aspects of the lives of acid attack victims: their fight for justice, and the process of recovery.
In the span of the film, we follow Dr. Mohammad Jawad, a London-based Pakistani plastic surgeon, who returns to his homeland after hearing news of such violence, to support the fight for justice for the victims and perform reconstructive surgery to help restore their faces and their self-confidence. The film also features the Acid Survivors Foundation, who has been advocating for the parliament to pass a bill on acid violence, to bring justice to the perpetrators. The heartbreaking stories of two victims of acid violence by their husbands were also highlighted in the film.
A short background of acid violence:
The Acid Survivors Foundation has recorded about a hundred of such attacks in a year, and they estimate that the numbers are in fact much higher due to underreporting of such domestic violence. However, most of the perpetrators get away scot-free –sometimes even supported by other women from their own family!
While acid attacks occur in many places across the world, majority of reported cases are found in Pakistan, where there is very high unemployment and very low literacy. It can be clearly observed that it is a deeply patriarchal society where women are objectified. All reported acid violence victims are women, and their attackers are always men – usually their husbands or sometimes even men who wish to marry them.
Commentary: It was very heartbreaking to see how because of the society’s preference for men, women can be treated like such inferior beings, in a way quite similar to acts of violence on animals.
The dynamics of sexual exchange can be witnessed in this film, which are affected by the cultural beliefs and socioeconomic conditions of the Pakistani society. Firstly, Islam allows for polygamy – a Muslim man is by Islamic law allowed to have up to four wives – and this favors the sex drive of men while aiding the objectifying of women as sexual objects to possess. As we see in the video, many cases of acid attacks on women by their own husbands were actually reported to be because their husbands wanted to marry another woman. The acid violence against their wives was meant to make them ‘invalid’ so that it would be justified for them to take another wife to fulfill their sexual desires, which their wives had perhaps failed to do so.
Aside from attacks by husbands, some women have also been subjected to acid violence by other men who they – or perhaps their family – have rejected for their hand in marriage. With the poor socioeconomic conditions in Pakistan, many men lack the extrinsic resources to exchange for sexual access. Since women have the initial advantage, and yet these men lack the necessary extrinsic resources to bargain with, some of them resort to acid violence with the reasoning that if they are unable to marry a woman, no one else should have her. As the man lack extrinsic resources to bargain for sexual exchange, he thus seeks to remove the intrinsic resources –
i.e. her physical appearance of the woman desired, so that she will not be able to find another man.
The clear objectification of women as possessions of men is stark here, and this is not only apparent in the thinking of men. This highly patriarchal notion has been so deeply perpetuated in the society that women themselves believe so. Their looks seem to be truly their only resources – at least in their self-perceptions. A woman who lost an eye from an acid attack said, “It took one second to ruin my life completely.” Another who was attacked by her husband in her own home said, “My life was destroyed in this room.” It is quite saddening how low the self-worth of some of these women is, that once their looks were gone, they viewed their entire life to have similarly been destroyed. It was also a huge shock to me when a scene, as earlier mentioned, depicted how a man’s family, including his mother and sister, actually came together to attack his wife!
On the other hand, we can also see in the film that there are many women who are strongly advocating and leading the fight for the criminalizing of acid crimes. Unfortunately, the only male actor portrayed to be on the side of the acid attack victims is Dr. Jawad, who is well educated and probably undergone the enculturation of westernized ideas of gender equality. It would seem that education for both the men and women in Pakistan would be necessary in order for a shift in the persisting gendered status quo in the society.
I would highly recommend this film, as it really shows us an extreme side of a patriarchal society and how damaging unequal relations – in this case it is gender, but it could well be class, race, etc – can be. Aside from raising awareness to the world about acid violence in Pakistan, the film also started ‘Saving Face’ campaign to eradicate acid violence worldwide. You can show your support for these women too! Visit http://savingfacefilm.com/the-campaign/get-involved/
(You can access the full 40-minute video here! It is amazing to view gender through a sociological lens after going through a gender studies module in school. I thoroughly enjoyed it and learnt a lot from it. There are many more videos on gender, just let me know and I can share what I know!)
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