Why Qandeel Baloch?

It’s not about what she did. It’s about the sociopolitical atmosphere in which did it.

We are aware of the controversy surrounding Qandeel Baloch, and that her presence on iO’s wall may offend some visitors. Why, though, are we so offended by what one woman does or doesn’t do with her own body? That is part of the dialogue we’re hoping to have at our community space.

Male actors or models are rarely, if ever, asked to justify their ‘indiscretions’ in the service of art and entertainment. Male actors do not appear shirtless in videos out of desperation to feed their children or buy medicine for their ailing fathers. They do it simply because they want to, or that it’s part of their job as entertainers. There are not many questions to be asked when ‘indecent’ images of Hamza Ali Abassi or Ali Zafar litter the internet. Those questions are reserved for women like Qandeel Baloch.

Qandeel Baloch was a woman who ignored the limitations imposed upon her. Many people forget that the these limitations even exist because we’re afraid to test them. Many of us ‘choose’ to stay within our confined space, because it’s easier than pounding away at the walls or trying to kick the door down.

It’s not her performance that makes her a revolutionary figure; it’s her performance in the face of an oppressive patriarchal structure that makes her revolutionary.

On the third anniversary of her killing, we find no better way to rebuke the honour-killers terrorizing women into submission, than the smirking image of Qandeel Baloch staring her beholder right in the eye.