Girls at Dhabas
Girls at Dhabas is a multi-city feminist initiative in Pakistan that raises a conversation on women’s access to public space. Dhabas is a local term for roadside tea-shops that are traditionally male-dominated domains in South Asia. The efforts went viral in 2015 and gained significant traction from women across South Asia who were encouraged to photograph themselves at dhabas and upload the pictures on social media using the hashtag #girlsatdhabas, sharing their personal narratives, reflections and stories re-examining their relationship with public space. The viral campaign led to organized gatherings and offline events, from cricket playing in the streets, bike rallies in Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad, and various community-building dialogues.
Background
The collective began in 2015. Sadia Khatri photographed herself at a dhaba and then uploaded the image on the Internet. Sensing that this could become a larger, urgent conversation challenging the traditional role of women in public spaces, she teamed up with her friends Natasha Ansari, Sabahat Zakariya, Najia Sabahat Khan, Amna Chaudhry, Mehrbano Raja, Sanayah Malik, Yusra Amjad and Sara Nisar and launched Tumblr and Facebook online pages for the growing community.Other initiatives
#GirlsPlayingStreetCricket and #GirlsOnBikes Campaigns
In 2015, based on Natasha Ansari’s suggestion to expand efforts to cricket and cycling, Girls at Dhabas launched the #GirlsPlayingStreetCricket initiative through which women were encouraged to play cricket outside in the streets. Street cricket is a popular form of physical activity amongst the Pakistani youth. In 2018, at the Jumma Hafta Art Bazaar outside t2f, Safieh Shah organized a mixed-gender, intersectional cricket match in the streets, with Anam Amin to encourage women and girls to take on cricket and reclaim public spaces.In 2016, a woman named Aneeqa Ali was harassed and injured while riding her bicycle out in Lahore, Pakistan. In response to this incident and as an act of condemnation and solidarity, Girls at Dhabas organized a bike rally called Girls on Bikes aimed at encouraging women to embrace cycling and two-wheeler transportation, which continues to be taboo for women. In Lahore, Noor Rahman joined the Girls at Dhabas chapters and organized weekly bike rides following the rally.