S1E3 - Zara Abid - Sexism Even in Death Artwork

Think Like A Lady Podcast

Welcome to Think Like a Lady! A podcast that enlightens tough issues about a woman’s place in a dominantly man’s world. Our discussions intend to stimulate thought provoking perspectives that are rarely the narrative in mainstream think tanks. From how the age of severe economic inequality has undermined women in the workforce to navigating the intricacies of the early suffragette movements who denied women’s rights to women of color.Let’s face it. Women are awesome. We’re not here to talk about us being awesome as just some empty platitude. We have some staggering data to prove it. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, as of 2019, there are now more women in medical school than men. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Education, women outpaced men in earning bachelor’s degrees by 1982, they earned more master’s degrees than men by 1987, and by 2006 they took up the majority of doctoral degrees conferred in the United States.Ok, but enough of us gloating. It seems that even though we’re just now beginning to dominate on so many frontiers, we’re still putting up with ridiculous challenges. From facing harassment in mosques, churches and other places of worship, and of course the workplace to the pink tax, Dua and Afroze talk about their own microcosmic experiences that lay bear on an intersection between their experiences as Muslim women who grew up with one foot in the west and the other foot in the east. Women have managed to conquer vast and numerous frontiers despite not being given the reigns to pioneer. It’s time we knocked men off of their high horse.

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Think Like A Lady Podcast

S1E3 - Zara Abid - Sexism Even in Death

August 26, 2020 • Afroze & Dua • Season 1 • Episode 3

Zara Abid was a Pakistani model who perished on May 22nd 2020 in an air crash on Pakistan flight PK8303. While many religious leaders came to a consensus that everyone on that flight was a shaheed (a martyr or person who dies an honorable death in which they are thought to have been granted heaven upon death); sexism showed its true colors when many in the media and on social media claimed that Zara was an exception because of her career choice in modeling and acting... which they deemed immoral.

In episode 3, we plan to dissect this sort of sexism and re-take Zara’s narrative and honor her in the way she deserves. What many don’t know is that Zara wasn’t the immoral and Godless woman that some portrayed her out to be. She was a determined woman who had a close relationship with God. She was the eldest of 3 siblings and when her father passed away in 2018, she stepped foot in her father’s shoes and fought hard to make ends meet for her family. Indeed she found success and uplifted her entire family as she became the sole breadwinner. She rose to stardom in a very short amount of time. She moved her family into a better home and supported her mom, her two younger brothers and even her aunts and uncles and other extended family members.

In a dominantly male society, she re-defined her family dynamic as she became the pillar of her family clan, showing us that women can do what fathers do. What if this was a male model? Would he have received the same response? Sexism even in death is unconscionable. Zara was a powerhouse of a woman and we will always remember for the phenomenal woman she was.

May she Rest In Peace. Ameen.
1992-2020.

May all the Shaheeds from Flight PK8303 be granted the highest ranks in Jannah. Ameen.