It is not often that I get spoken to by unaccompanied adult women traveling on the same bus as myself – it’s just not the done thing. But it happened last week as I traveled to Lahore and was sufficiently significant for me to explore why it was that – sometimes- women felt able to talk to me without prior acquaintance or familial relationship. It came down to trust. What follows may make uncomfortable reading for those of you who are men, for which I make no apology. The conversation with the woman on the bus was sparked by her curiosity – what was a gora doing here in these dangerous days, moreover one who spoke broken Urdu and seemed at home? We exchanged pleasantries and family details for a few minutes and went our separate ways. It was an unremarkable exchange between adults – except that it was not.

This was not the first time such a thing had happened, and it has happened with increasing frequency over the years partly because of these columns – and being recognized. But there was more to it than that and here we edge into the sensitive area of how women are perceived by men in Pakistan – and treated by them - not all, but many. I mentioned the conversation over dinner in the evening with my family members and asked them why they thought it was that women talked to me in this way. ‘Because you are safe’ offered an elderly aunty. ‘Women know they can trust you because you are a gora and will not mistreat them or think bad things of them if they talk to you’ said this fount of elderly wisdom. I pointed out that goras did not have a monopoly on politeness and that I knew plenty of men here who treated women with the appropriate courtesies.

The conversation was joined – in sign language – by our oldest foster-child here on a visit. She is twenty now, educated and independently minded. She is without speech or hearing but the rest of her senses are acute. ‘They look through your clothes’ she signed. It took me a second or two to decode what she had said and I translated for those who did not sign. There were nods from the women around the table, and muttered agreement from the men.

Sharing this perception later with several men and women I know and work with there was a remarkable congruity in their opinion, and it matched that of my family members. Men (not all men I have to stress) are perceived to see women disrespectfully, as sexual objects first and as women and societal members secondarily. Goras, it seems, are thought to see women differently, not to view them in a predatory way and therefore ‘safe’. It is safe because the men around will know while observing an interaction between a gora man and a woman that it is less likely that anything untoward or ungentlemanly in going on in the mind of the gora thus engaged. Women will be aware of this (not always accurate) perception of safety and proceed accordingly.

There is a danger in taking gross generalisations such as this as immutable truths, but I sense that at least in part there is a grain of truth in it. Outside of the family most of my personal interactions here are with men. I hear and see them in their unguarded moments and understand enough of what I am hearing and seeing to know that yes, my Pakistani foster-child was right. ‘They look through your clothes’. Uncomfortable for any woman, anywhere.

Published in ‘The News’ 7th December 2009