 Welcome to Islamabad today, another episode of Islamabad Today on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host, Hamza Rifat-San. Today, we're going to be speaking about the future of feminism in Pakistan, what kind of challenges do feminists actually face in the country, which is facing high unemployment, a patriarchal structure as far as the society is concerned, and obviously, you do have some challenging problems, which are socioeconomic and nature. I have with me human rights activist, Pushback Sohail, and we're going to be getting her insights on the future of feminism as both as a concept in practice and what can be done to improve women empowerment, you could say a participation, and equality within a country such as Pakistan. Pushback, thank you so much for joining me on the show. Thank you so much for having me, Hamza. I'm looking forward to it. All right, Pushback, let's start off with this question that has the rise of populism in the developing world, which obviously constitutes Pakistan, had a negative impact on feminist activism. Hamza, I would say absolutely, right? Because I mean, if you think about the common features of populism, there is this sort of construction of a homogenous people, right? There's this sort of idea of an us versus them mentality where, you know, and this us is sort of a beleaguered, well, I mean, in practice, it's a beleaguered majority that feels like because of the way that the world is changing, because of the way that the country might be changing, that they are threatened. And this is problematic for feminist principles, because populism is generally, you know, especially in the way that it's playing out in the world today, right, when populism is by its very nature exclusionary. It often goes back to this, you know, it hearkens back to this imagined past where, you know, there was this idea of this utopia, where everything was great and everything was wonderful, but there were specific roles that were set for men and women in this imagined utopia. And it's not necessary that that, you know, that that ever even really existed, but the importance is this sort of, you know, this imagined sense of unity, this sense of nationalism and so on. And, you know, in the developing world in particular, this is one of the things that the right wing, that right wing populism is predicated on is the relegation of women to the private sphere, right? This idea that women belong in the house, that they don't belong in the streets, they don't belong in politics, they don't belong, you know, outside, essentially, they don't belong in the public sphere, instead, they belong in the private sphere of life in order to perpetuate this imagined past where, you know, everything was all good and, you know, everything was, it was great. And that, and populism, you know, and right wing populism is threatened by this new woman who is emerging, you know, this woman who demands equality, this woman who demands her rights, this woman that wants to go to school, this woman that wants to go to university, this woman that wants to go to work, this woman that wants autonomy, this woman that demands equality and recognition, and this woman that is now willing to go to the streets to demand it. You know, we have these phenomena such as art march and so on in Pakistan and art march for those who don't know is, you know, the women's march in Pakistan, the English women's movement who has come up. Yeah. So, you know, and so we have all of these women who are now and the thing is that women have demanded these things in the past in Pakistan as well, but now we have this increasingly vocal and increasingly larger group of women that is, is, is quite threatening to populist imaginations and populist right wing and populism, you know, by its very nature, by its exclusionary nature wants to pinpoint those that are traders, those that it thinks are, are, are not, you know, that, that don't fall in line with this idea of what the nation should look like. And so these are almost invariably women, but I would take it a step further. I would argue that it's not just in the developing world, but also in the developed world where you have white supremacy. You do have these nativist ideologies which actually confine women to the household or consider to be even in some cases, which is very frightening secondary citizen. Absolutely. And, you know, that's what populism relegates women to women to write these second class citizens. And, and like you rightly said, in the United States, for example, Trump and, you know, casual misogyny and this idea and his derogatory language around women and, you know, and his idea around where women belong in this, in the nation, in the United States of where they should be were quite problematic and quite in contradiction with feminist ideas and feminist principles. So I would say that absolutely, you know, populist movements do have a negative impact on, you know, women's rights, on feminist activism, on feminist politics. You know, there's no space for any sort of voices that are different, any sort of voices that challenge dominant narratives when you have this, you know, this rise of populism. It doesn't, it's not conducive to creating an environment of critical thinking. Populism demands that you obey, that you agree, that you, you know, fall in line, essentially. And what we're having in Pakistan and in other parts of the world is women who are refusing to fall in line. Let's talk about a few difficult conversations there. Now, in Pakistan, the incidents of child rape, domestic violence, asset attacks and forced conversions, especially from the minority groups, are rising at an alarming rate. I mean, you almost on a daily basis, you do see GBV or gender based violence committed against a certain segment of the population. And one could argue that, you know, it's Augustine Corbett segment of the population, but it's pretty much, you know, growing in intensity. How do you think just ministers can be tackled through feminism in a country like Pakistan? Yeah, let's come in with right with the heart with the difficult questions, right? Yeah. So, you know, in Pakistan, in Pakistan, these instances are rising, you know, and they're being reported a little bit more, especially with the sort of 24 hour news cycle with this idea that now anybody can report these with social media and so on. And I think that they can, they can be tackled through feminism, because I see that the roots of a lot of these problems lie in the hyper masculine patriarchal society that we live in, rape, domestic violence, asset attacks, forced conversions, all of these have something in common. And what they have in common is this sort of appropriation of power at their core, it's about power and about dominance, right? When we have men who are committing these acts, it's about asserting that power over women, essentially, you know, and this idea that women are our property, essentially, they're nothing more than something to be owned, something to be controlled. And the thing is this makes me really, I mean, it's really sad, and it's really depressing also to live, you know, in a time where we have all of these cases, this, you know, we have, we have this case that was that is just ongoing, a Fatma, you know, that that that child worker who was raped by a very powerful man and in sin, we have the cases where, you know, in, and this is a cross, I mean, sexual violence, rape, child, you know, child rape, child sexual assault, all of these things are popping up in every kind of society. I think you know, harassment would also fall under GBB, because sometimes the harassers could actually, you know, employ violent means to get their own way. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, absolutely harassment, all of these things at their core stem from a patriarchal and a patriarchal society that accepts misogyny as, you know, as something that is just normal, right? It's what we have is this normalized, you know, this normalized, masculine, hypermasculine toxic patriarchy, essentially. And we have this, you know, and we have these cases popping up in urban centers, you know, in Islam, but that woman who was raped in F9 Park, you know, we have, and there have been so many cases of sexual violence and that happened in the summer that happened all over the country. And these are just the reported cases, you know, because there are so many more that are not reported, as you know, you know, it's sexual violence is something that is so under reported in Pakistan, because of this shame, the stigma that is attached to it. And how I think that feminism can help tackle these issues is because feminism, at its core, it demands the recognition of the humanity of women, and the humanity of girls, right? So well, and not just of women, but also the humanity of men as well. I think the sort of common, and I'm going off into a tangent here, but I think the sort of common misconception is that when, you know, feminists hate men, absolutely not, right? Like we think that the patriarchy actually harms men as much as it harms women, right? Because it perpetuates these ideas of toxic masculinity, these ideas of hyper masculinity, and which create in which this environment is created. But largely what feminists are doing for is this recognition of the humanity of women. The reason why all of these things happen is because women are relegated to the space of second class citizens. And women aren't considered, you know, human beings in these instances, but rather property to be, you know, to own and to exert power over. Once you recognize the inherent humanity of women in these situations, it's a lot harder to have these sorts of instances that go forward. I mean, and this is not to say that that that, you know, once you recognize the humanity, everything will be will be fixed. But rather that we need to change the culture, and we need to change the conversation around this. Feminists in Pakistan have been demanding, and you know, to sort of take it to the next level, feminists in Pakistan have been demanding, demanding equal access to justice. You know, as you know, for example, rape and sexual violence, I mean, there's so few convictions, right? That when even when you go through the legal system, there are so few convictions, it's so under reported. And when it is reported, women are prevented from speaking up and often victim-blanked, slut-shamed, you know, and the idea is that there must have been something that that woman did to deserve it. And I want to bring you, you know, I want to remind our viewers, which I'm sure they heard of, the motorway rape case of last year, right? When we had this woman who was, you know, driving and this was it was late at night and she was driving on the motorway with her two young children and she ran out of fuel and she was gang-raped by two men on the side of the motorway in front of her children. And if you remember the first reaction of our, you know, of the police, for example, we had the C.C.P.E.O. Lahore, you know, the Capital City Police Officer, Lahore, when she say that what was she doing outside? What was she doing out so late at night? Why was she driving at night? He was actually castigated for that. He was, you know, the criticism was pretty severe. Yeah, absolutely. But that criticism came and was largely perpetuated and propagated by feminists. You know, I mean, this man said it's not like this is France that she thought she could go outside alone. My question is why does it have to be France? What is the state? What's the point of the state? What is the reason for the state if you can't guarantee the safety of your citizens? Unless you want to say that women are not citizens and aren't accorded the same safety that is promised by the state, the whole concept of a republic, the entire, you know, the entire political treaties is dependent on, OK, I give up some of my liberty in exchange for security that is guaranteed by the state. If the state isn't... Exactly, the social contract is predicated on this. So if you can't guarantee this, and in fact, you're going to shame women and you're going to be like, what was she doing out at that time? Why was she out in the first place? What was she doing? You know, it's beyond me. And I just want to give you another example. Yeah, please go on. So a few years ago outside my house, you know, in Assamabad, and there was a school. And, you know, my husband was going to work and he saw that there was this woman who was being beat up by her husband in broad daylight. I mean, this is school time, right? So this is like 8 a.m. in the morning. It's sunny outside. There are lots of people. Everyone's there in school. And there's a police officer right there. And this woman is being beat up in public by her husband in front of all these people. And everyone's just walking by. And the police officer is just walking, watching from a distance. So my husband intervened and he went to the police and he was like, why aren't you stopping this? And he goes to Yigarkamanda, which translates into this is this is between the husband and the wife. This is this is a matter of the home. My question is, if a man was assaulting another man in public in front of the police officer, would he have said that this is this is something that is, you know, this is their internal matter. This is a matter that is relegated to the home. We have these kinds of problems in our society and they start from this very small thing, this very small thing, this idea that if there is, if there is, you know, if there's an altercation between a man and woman, that especially between a husband and wife, that it should be relegated to the home, that it is their internal matter. It's a private matter. Why is it a private matter? Why should domestic violence be a private matter? And the police officer then tried to convince the woman to make up with her husband. So, so, so, you know, and it was just beyond me because she went to the police officer then and she tried to report her husband and he was like, you know, why are you doing this? Why are you trying to ruin your, you know, your family? Why aren't you just going home, just make up with him? You know, he's sorry, let it go. It's not your place to do this, right? I mean, when we have, yeah, I mean, it's absolutely, absolutely ridiculous. And this is something that is not just with the police, right? The police are, are, are part of the system that we live in. They're part of the society that we live in. In our society, we believe to some degree or another that this is a part of life, that women's subjugation is a part of life, that that's the price that she must pay, you know, in her, as a member of the family in the society that we live in. And so, and I, and I really think that this sort of dehumanization, this idea of a woman who should suffer as being the only good woman, as, as the only, the good woman is the one who is silent. You know, if you think about it, like even the way that we, we view women, those who speak up, those who are loud, those who take to the streets, those who speak up, those who, who say something are bad women, you know, like, so to speak. And I say this in parentheses, in quotation marks because they're considered, you know, like, let's say, I'm sure you must have, you heard the word fast woman, you know, because they, they're considered. Yeah, it's considered that why are they claiming about it? Progressive, she knows her right, she knows how to speak up, she knows what justice is about. And they're considered to be fat, which is very unfortunate because that is precisely to find a woman that could actually initiate social change in the country. Yeah, and we have this idea of a good woman is only the one who suffers in silence. And the second she, she speaks up about her suffering, then there's something shameful, then there's something shameful about her. And we have, you know, and, and, and this, it's this sort of atmosphere that leads to this sort of impunity by men, this impunity of sexual, you know, this impunity where we're meant to commit sexual violence without any sort of real consequences where they know that the first thing that will be asked is not why men rape, but what she was doing there in the first place, why she was out at night, what was she wearing, who was she with. And the F nine park incident where a woman was raped, she was with her co-worker, she was walking in, in the park a few months ago. The first question that was asked was not who raped her or why she was raped. And by the way, this was around 6, 7pm if I'm not wrong. So it wasn't even late at night. Yeah, around 7, 7, 15. Yeah. Yeah. The idea was, what was she doing with a male co-worker? What was she wearing? Why was she in the park? I mean, these kinds of questions. To the point was one of the perpetrators had one of the perpetrators had the audacity to go up to the victim and say you shouldn't be here at this time. Exactly. The idea was that because you are here, you deserve to be raped. And I mean that when you have a society that believes this, that women are only safe in their homes, that's when we have these problems. And the worst part is, I mean, this, you know, and the worst part is that simply the simply isn't true. When we're talking about abuse, when especially when we're talking about child sexual abuse, but not just child sexual abuse, but you know, rape, abuse, so on, it's usually in most cases someone that you know, it's not, you know, these cases that I've I've I've pointed out to you have been by strangers, but in most cases, it is by people that you know it is there's so many cases where we have sexual abuse by family members inside the homes. So when you're a home isn't safe, where are you supposed to go when women don't even have the ability or the autonomy or they're not even safe in their homes and you know, this entire idea that women will be safe in their homes. It's not true or women will be safe and let's say certain types of cold things. I want to know are women and burkas not raped? Is it just women who are out there in jeans and tops that are raped? It's absolutely not true. It's not about what you're wearing. It's not about where you are, but it's rather the sickness that is pervasive in patriarchal societies, not just our own, but especially our own where we have this shame and stigma surrounding women and that even when a woman fights, even when a woman speaks up, even when a woman puts forth a complaint. She's not believed. The question is, what were you doing? Why were you there? And and did you do something to deserve this? Did you disobey? Did you not listen to your father, your brother, whoever? It must be on some level your own fault. And I think that's what's most heartbreaking. Alright, so first off, absolutely powerful words there, but you know, just to be the devil's advocate here, there'll be some who would argue that feminism is, you know, a largely idealistic theory in environments where, you know, they're more serious problems. I mean, again, I'm just trying to say, these are not my views. I'm just trying to be the devil's advocate here, where job there's joblessness, there's poverty, there's extremism, and all of these, you could say, it was around the rise. So how do you think feminists can contribute to addressing these harrowing realities? Because a lot of people would actually claim that fine, women's rights is important, but so is the right to employ. So is the right to be secure. So is the right to have access to justice or property, right? So how do you think feminism can actually fit into this? So I don't think that these are contradictory. I think that, for example, access to justice is a feminist issue. I don't understand why it has to be either or when we're talking about women's rights, we're not talking about women's rights in a vacuum, right? When we're talking about freedom from poverty, freedom from fear, freedom from insecurity for women, because these sorts of problems are multiplied for the most vulnerable who in this case are women. And you know, when we when we talk about, let's say this, the newer crop of feminists in the country, but also, you know, feminists that have and feminists that have been in Pakistan, throughout Pakistan's history, they're not just talking about women's rights in a specific vacuum. They're talking about women's rights across the spectrum. If, for example, you look at the arc marches, you know, if you look at these women's marches that have cropped up in all of the urban cities in Pakistan since 2018, and you know, they have these and they comprise of these younger feminists who are just out there out on the streets demanding their rights. If you read their manifestos, if you read their charter of demands from each city every single year, you can see that Pakistani feminists believe that women and actually men too, for that matter cannot be free until we are all free. And what I mean by that is when we talk about freedom, freedom just doesn't just mean freedom from violence, right? But it does also mean freedom from violence. But what kind of violence? Violence in all its forms, sexual violence, gender-based violence, also extremist violence. If you look at all of their manifestos, you know, all of the arc marches in Pakistan have made the connection between the rise in militancy and also the rise in violent extremism and the subjugation and crackdown on women's rights. How can we say that extremism isn't a feminist problem? If you look at our neighbors, you know, in Afghanistan, the Taliban, one of the first things that they do when they come into power is restrict the rights of women. So how can we say that these things are not counter? Universities not have jobs and to be properly covered up. So yeah, I mean, the travesty of all of that is that this is the same Taliban that was there in the 1990s and suddenly they come into power in 2021. And their ideology hasn't changed. Yeah, absolutely. And you see, I mean, there are still there are still people also there, you know, we have right wing elements and we have extremist elements in Pakistan as well that believe the same that also believe that, you know, let's say all of society's ills can be resolved if women don't work or if women don't go to school or, you know, women don't need education. So and this is just one example. Extremism is a feminist problem as well. Poverty is a feminist problem. When we think about poverty, who is most affected? Of course, men and women both are affected, but who bears the brunt of that? You know, in in situations of poverty, for example, there is, you know, domestic violence rises as well and sentences of domestic violence rises. Psychosocial, you know, women have more psychosocial issues when they don't have in poverty in joblessness, when women don't have financial autonomy, when they don't have the ability to go out and have that sort of financial freedom. There are also more vulnerable to sexual violence, to violence in general to the restriction of their rights. So I think I think when we when we sort of separate women's rights as something that's out there, that's separate from the rest of the problems that plague Pakistan, I don't think that's true. I think that all of these problems are interconnected. All of these problems are a result of patriarchal and capitalist structures that are predicated on the subjugation of women. When we talk about, you know, when we talk about increased domestic violence, when we talk about increased instances of sexual violence and so on, I mean, all of these things are interconnected. So I just don't see, I just don't see them as separate things. I don't think they contradict one another. I think in order to solve these problems, you have to solve all of them together. If you try to solve poverty without addressing gender, you're not really ever going to be able to solve poverty when 50 percent of this population is female. When 50 percent of this population suffers under that, right? When you try to solve, you know, gender, you can't address that without also addressing extremism. You can't address these things in a vacuum. Absolutely. So do you think women remain largely disenfranchised in developing countries such as Pakistan? And if that really is the case, then why? Yes. I would think so. I mean, so if you mean disenfranchised in terms of, you know, women being able to vote. So sure, legally, you know, women have that all over the developing world, largely all over the developing world. But even if and I'm going to talk about disenfranchisement in general as well. But even if we're talking about what's the political difference. Oh, OK. So so when we're talking about disenfranchisement in general as well, absolutely, I do think that because we have these sorts of norms, these values, these patriarchal mindsets that actually, you know, that act as a multiplier. And what they do is they act as a multiplier for gender equality. Most of the, you know, when we have all of these issues in developing countries, you know, when we have, like, for example, a lack of access to education, when we have a lack of access to health care. This is true for the majority of the population, but it's worse for women, right? So when we talk about these problems that developing countries have, they're always exacerbated for women. When we talk about economic autonomy, this is the problem across the board for a large majority of Pakistan, for example. But this is exacerbated in the case of women. Women are underrepresented in the decision making process. Women aren't privy, often times, to the decision making process. They don't have autonomy. They don't have in a lot of cases, you know, they are unable to exercise that autonomy because of the patriarchal forces that exist, you know, in our society and largely in the developing world as well. So what we have is, is, you know, what we have is if we have a problem of access to justice, for example, if we have a problem of rule of law, all of these things are exacerbated for for women. If we have, you know, if access to justice is the and and and and I'd like to sort of clarify here, right? So when we look at when feminists are looking at these problems, you have to look at it not just through the lens of gender, but also through the intersections of gender, class, you know, gender, class or economic background, your race, you know, your social background and so on and so forth. All of these things work together to create these inequalities. Yeah. Yeah. And your religion as well. Absolutely. Especially when you have, you know, majority of religions, your ethnicity, your race, your class, all of these things, your education, your social, cultural capital, all of these things influence that. Yeah. OK, so first box since we're running short on time. Final question is that do you think that the march has had a significant impact on mobilizing change in Pakistan and is there like this palpable effect that you actually see? Or is this more of an elitist venture? Because a lot of people would claim that the Me Too movement is being and again, I'm being the devil's advocate over here because I think that the Me Too movement is absolutely fantastic. It's high time to call out sexual harassment cases. It's high time to call out people who do commit these crimes against humanity. But there is also this view that, you know, all of the masses in a country such as Pakistan where the majority of women actually live in poverty remains an elitist venture. Do you subscribe to that view? So no, I do not ascribe to that view, but I'm glad that you brought up this question because I think that this is a misconception that is, you know, that is rampant across a lot of I mean, a lot of circles, right? So I do think that the art marches have absolutely changed the view and the landscape of women's rights in Pakistan because what the art marches have done is that they started a conversation that did not previously exist, right? So what we have is now finally in the public sphere, we have these, we have women who are on the streets who are demanding autonomy and not just autonomy. They're also talking about all kinds of things. Like I mentioned, you know, in my previous thing in my in the previous question that you asked, they're talking about gender, but they're also talking about militancy. They're also talking about rising extremism. They're also talking about climate change. They're also talking about poverty. They're also talking about joblessness. Yeah, yeah, they're all they're talking about all of these things, right? And and one of the, you know, one of the slogans from the art march is, you know, Jotum na doge ham shingelinge azadi. And the idea is, if you don't give it to us, we will snatch this because it's all right. Yeah. Yeah, if you don't if you don't give us this freedom, we will snatch it from you if we have to, right? And and and in, you know, and we have in this idea, I think that that the art marches in the movement to address that, I think that there's two things that I want to address. First, one thing that's undeniable is that the art marches are so far in urban movement. So what we have is that these art marches have popped up since 2018 and urban centers. Initially, they were in Karachi, Mohor, Nisambad. They spread in some form or another to Multan, to Fesaba, to Kuwaita, to Peshawar, right, to Hedrabad. So we had all of these other cities also, but still relatively urban centers where women are, you know, speaking up in somewhere or another and coming out on March 8th to demand, you know, their rights and to demand the freedom that is due to them. So one thing I think that is that's undeniable is that it is a largely urban movement rather than a rural movement. However, you know, this idea that it's an elite movement is not true because even in urban centers, we have so many women from different social classes that are represented in the art marches. However, that said, because of the way that, you know, digital media works because of the way that social media plays out and because of the way because of the language of social media, those women that are most often highlighted both in the news and in social media are those who have access to these tools and to these and understand the way that the game works on social media to understand how hashtags work, to understand how which, you know, which pictures are going to get, let's say, most traction and so on. And also because it is often those women who have relatively more privileged that are able to use that privilege to appear in public spaces, whereas a lot of other women don't have that luxury, right? However, that's not to say that those women are part of the process. All of the art marches have, you know, basically mobilized within and also have connections to working class women throughout the country. So all of the art marches are connected to, let's say, home-based workers. They're connected to nurses. They're connected to folks in the slum areas. You know, they're connected to women in the slum areas. If you look at all of the manifesto, yeah, of domestic workers, absolutely. If you look at all of the manifestos, if you look at, and you know, each art march comes out with its own manifesto. I think there's this idea that the art march is some sort of centrally organized NGO, but it's absolutely not, right? Each city has had its sort of spontaneous movement pop up in a way that it seems like it's coordinated, but rather it's a very loose coordination. It's rather where each city, in each city, there's this sort of, you know, movement that's popped up to address all of these problems. And each city comes up with its own manifesto, own charter of demands. And all of those demands, that manifesto is not just aimed at women, privileged women, but rather it addresses the problems of domestic workers. For example, affordable housing has been one of the major demands of all of the art marches since their inception. Affordable housing is a feminist issue, because as we talked about, you know, when women, who are the ones that suffer the most when they don't have affordable housing? It's women, of course, men suffer as well. But when we're talking about writing incidences of domestic violence, when we're talking about women who are then put in exploitative labor conditions, it's women who bear the brunt of that. All of the art marches talk about freedom, the idea the ability to express themselves both publicly and politically. So what we have is in these demands also environmental demands. So we have demands for students as well. It's not just about, it's not just elite women's demands, it's instead demands that are aimed towards bettering the conditions, the material conditions of the majority of women in Pakistan, which are, of course, working class women. The majority of women in Pakistan. So if we're talking, for example, minimum wage, a livable minimum wage, it has been a demand throughout all of the art marches throughout, you know, throughout since our march began in 2018. Who does this affect? Livable minimum wage is for those women who are out there as domestic workers who are exploited in the homes of the elite, right? So it's not just, you know, it's absolutely not true that it's just elite women. We have working class women, and you know, there's this, there's, if you look at the speeches that happen at the art marches, you will have women from all kinds of communities. You'll have women coming in from slums talking about their issues. And their issues are, for example, you know, from last year, there was a woman who came in at the Islamabad one, or it was the year before that there was a woman who came in and she talked about basically the CDA raising the slums and how that was a feminist issue and that was her biggest issue right now, that she doesn't have a place to live, that her children don't have a place to live. That, you know, and she told us, you know, she told us that she spent her blood, sweat, and tears building this house, you know, and it's a mudhouse, but it was something that was her own. And even that cost her so much. And then when it was knocked down, she had to start from scratch all over again. This is a feminist issue for her as well. You know, so it's about the rights of all women. It's about the rights of working women. It's about the rights of domestic workers. It's about the rights of nurses. It's about the rights of lady health workers. It's about the rights of students. The arithmarches are, by their very nature, inclusionary or they try to be to the best of their ability. They try to be inclusionary in order to make sure that the largest number of women and the issues that are faced by the largest number of women are addressed in the demands, in the manifesto. But I think especially with the way that sensationalist television works, you know, especially in our country, those sorts of things aren't highlighted. And what I find is that a lot of people just don't read the manifestos, but instead just see, you know, you see pictures of a couple of women in Western clothes and it's like, oh, okay, this is some sort of a foreign agenda. When that's not the case, we've had so many indigenous women pop up. Yeah, I'm sorry. I know that we're running out of time. I could keep, talk about this, but I'll hand it over to you. No, it's absolutely fantastic. Human rights activists with West soil. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much. So that's all that we have for Samba today on Think Tech Hawaii. You can follow us on our social media pages and do provide us with your valuable feedback. Until next time, take care.