Weaponisation of morality: Are Bangladeshi women now under attack?

A football match. 

A game that should have been about skill, passion, and the love for sport. 

Instead, it became yet another battlefield for women's existence. 

Time and again, the Bangladeshi society has proven that a woman's body, her choices, and her very existence are up for debate. It's a society that thrives on controlling women in any given scenario. 

This is not an isolated case. It is a symptom of a deeper rot.

Look at Pori Moni, an actress adored on screen, who became a victim of character assassination over and over. The moment she raised her voice against any injustice, she was dragged through the mud, labelled, and vilified. 

Same goes for Apu Biswas and Mehazabien Chowdhury who were prevented from attending public events recently for being an actress, for doing their job apparently. 

Apu Biswas faced social ostracisation for simply making her own choices in marriage and motherhood. Even Mehazabien, an actress who seemingly conformed to societal standards, was not spared the relentless scrutiny of a culture that refuses to let women live on their own terms.

Last night Amy Jannat, a reporter from United News of Bangladesh (UNB), expressed her frustration on Facebook regarding an event attended by the Religious Affairs Adviser, AFM Khalid Hossain, where female journalists were barred from entering. 

She voiced the discrimination she faced as a female reporter, questioning why such restrictions were in place and criticising the organisers for not specifying this on the invitation. 

Despite facing similar issues in the past, she had remained silent but felt compelled to speak out this time as the incident occurred at an event involving a government official.

This only proves that no amount of success shields a woman from societal condemnation.

In response, the adviser's ministry issued a press statement, saying he had no knowledge of the bar on female journalists. 

He, however, said as a guest, he was not involved – as a guest, he could not be blamed. 

The interim government, too, issued a note of concern over the stopping of the girl's football match in Joypurhat. 

It said action will be taken against the perpetrators. 

At the heart of these incidents is the same age-old control that society exerts over women's bodies and lives. 

A female footballer's shorts, an actress's relationship choices, a working woman's ambition — each becomes a battleground where morality is enforced through shame, violence, and systemic oppression.

From schools to workplaces, women in Bangladesh navigate a minefield of gendered expectations. 

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If a woman achieves something, she must still adhere to traditional notions of decency. If she falls victim to assault, society questions what she was wearing, where she was, and why she didn't prevent it. This is not a lapse in morality; this is morality itself being weaponised.

These incidents along with thousands of others that go unreported daily, their suffering mirror the everyday reality of millions of women across Bangladesh, where a girl can be harassed for playing football, where a woman can be dragged through the stress and the media for daring to live on her own terms.

And justice? Police pass the blame to "Tawhidi Janata". And never say, who really is encapsulated under the vague tag.  

The religious justification for oppression

In a country where religion and culture intertwine, morality is selectively imposed on women. While cultural norms shape this landscape, religion has often been wielded as a tool to reinforce it. 

Interpretations of faith are used to justify restrictions on women's dress, movement, and autonomy. 

In many cases, religious leaders preach that a woman's honour is tied to her body, making her the bearer of communal shame and the first casualty of moral policing.

In contrast, the same scrutiny is rarely applied to men. A male footballer's attire is never questioned, and a male actor's personal choices are never debated with the same venom. 

Women are expected to be paragons of virtue while men are allowed to be flawed, even celebrated for their flaws.

A man can commit crimes, yet be excused, and redeemed. A woman merely existing outside the prescribed lines is deemed immoral.

The football incident was framed as a moral transgression, an affront to decency. But what decency exists in a society where women are stripped of their agency, their dignity, and their right to simply be? 

The irony is that when women succeed when they break barriers, they are celebrated — until they step an inch out of line. Then, they are shamed.

The global war on women

This crisis is not unique to Bangladesh. 

Across the world, the policing of women's bodies continues under different guises.

The United States, which takes such pride in championing individual freedoms, is rolling back abortion rights, stripping women of control over their own reproductive health. 

The reversal of Roe v Wade wasn't just about abortion—it was about control. About telling women their bodies are not their own. 

In Afghanistan, women are being erased from public life, barred from education, and silenced. 

In Iran, women risk their lives for the right to remove their hijabs, facing imprisonment and death for resisting state-enforced modesty laws. 

In India, rape survivors face as much societal condemnation as their perpetrators, with caste and class biases worsening the brutality.

Across the world, the message is clear: women must conform, or they must suffer.

The global political landscape is shifting towards authoritarianism, and with it comes a dangerous resurgence of patriarchal control. 

Governments and societies alike recognise that the easiest way to maintain power is to keep women subjugated, fearful, and dependent. 

By policing what they wear, how they behave, and what choices they make, systems ensure that women remain too exhausted fighting for their basic dignity to challenge larger structures of power.

Bangladesh is no different. From policing women's clothes to limiting their freedom in the name of safety, every decision made about women is rarely made by women. 

The attacks are no longer metaphorical. Women are physically assaulted, mentally broken, and emotionally drained by a society that thrives on their oppression.

Despite this, women continue to rise. 

The Bangladeshi footballers, though harassed, still play. Pori Moni, despite repeated humiliation, still acts. Women in Iran still march with their hijabs burning in defiance. And women across the world continue to fight for the right to exist on their own terms.

But we cannot keep normalising this. We cannot keep watching. Their resilience should not be mistaken for tolerance. 

Women in Bangladesh deserve better. Women everywhere deserve better. And until the world stops treating women's lives as disposable, as battlegrounds for morality and power, this war will rage on.

A world that constantly attacks its women cannot sustain itself. The resistance is growing. And one day, the voices that have been silenced for too long will roar loud enough to shake the very foundations of the systems that sought to keep them down.

Zarin Tasnim is an Online journalist at The Business Standard

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard