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It has become almost routine — a public figure, often with a microphone and a misplaced sense of authority, spews misogyny under the garb of wisdom and expects society to clap along.

Fiza Ali, the actor-turned-host currently hosting Ramazan transmission Noor-e-Ramzan on 24News, felt it was a good idea to use her recent episode to talk about the “rights of a husband” and remind us all why internalised misogyny is alive and kicking.

In a clip posted to her Instagram, Ali unleashed upon the world a monologue on how women — specifically working women — need to sit down, shut up, and never, under any circumstances, believe they are equal to men.

“Let me tell you, women, a man gets irritated by what? A woman’s tongue,” she said, referring to it as her ‘lallo’.

“A man, what does a man do? Do you ever see a man spending on himself? I feel a man can survive even if he doesn’t earn. But he works hard in the scorching heat of the sun, drives rickshaws, and sells fruits on the streets. A woman can never be stronger than a man. A woman was made out of a man’s rib, and the rib is close to the heart, so the woman needs to be close to a man’s heart — not try to get inside his head and make him go crazy,” she added.

According to Ali, the real problem in men’s lives isn’t inflation, it’s women’s tongues. And here’s the best part: she believes this is why hell will be filled with mostly women.

“I have seen so many men working hard and getting sick and tired of the tongues of the women in their lives,” she continued. “These women, they use such bad language that they have done a PhD in. How can you ruin someone’s life with your sick tongue? You know, hell will be filled with mostly women because of their tongues.”

As if that wasn’t enough, she then moved on to demonising women who — gasp — question their husbands. “This is why men don’t want to go home! This is why they keep a distance from their wives. They only show love before marriage, and as soon as the wedding happens, they come after men, constantly inquiring when he’ll come home, why he isn’t picking up his phone, searching his coat for another woman’s hair, checking his pockets. Stop it! This is your auqat? This is you decreasing your value. They have turned their husbands into dogs and then say, ‘let him bark.’ I have heard women say these things.”

Yes, women are the problem here, not men who cheat, manipulate, or act shady enough to warrant suspicion. Not men who abuse their wives and expect them to run their houses and raise their kids alone. But you’re right, if only wives just stopped asking why their husbands never come home, everything would be fine.

And just when you thought she couldn’t get any worse, she referenced the wildly misunderstood slogan ‘mera jism, meri marzi’ or my body, my choice to villainise independent women. “These women who chant mera jism meri marzi, they refuse to wash dishes, they tell their husbands to wash dishes, to wash clothes.”

The mera jism, meri marzi slogan is not some anti-domestic-work campaign. It is about bodily autonomy — the right of women to make choices about their own lives, their own bodies, and their own futures. It is about rejecting harassment, abuse, forced marriages, and violence. But people like Ali, and many others before her, love to hijack this slogan to make it sound like a rebellion against household chores. It’s lazy, dishonest, and frankly embarrassing at this point.

The real cherry on top came when a woman called into the show to challenge her. The caller, a working mother of three, explained how she earns, looks after the home and her children, and yet is abused and humiliated by her unemployed husband. She asked what Ali had to say about that.

Ali, naturally, doubled down. “See, not all women are the same, not all fingers are the same. I’m saying that women need to obey and respect their husbands because they are ordained by God to do so. But some women, who start earning a little, start behaving like they are their husbands’ equals. Some of them even start thinking of themselves as the man of the house because they bring the bread and butter.

“If the husband is unable to earn, you need to support him instead of giving taunts like ‘I am earning and he is not.’ Because after all, he is your husband. God has made your husband your boss, that is clear. So you must give him his due respect. Try to bow down. But even after that if he continues to abuse you and humiliate you, then Islam has given you the right to separate from him, leave him” she added.

Let’s unpack that, shall we?

The notion that women should ‘bow down’ because their husbands are their ‘bosses’ is nothing short of disgusting. Marriage is not an employer-employee contract. And the idea that women who earn should tiptoe around their unemployed husbands’ egos instead of expecting equal partnership is a slap in the face to every woman who has ever taken care of a household.

What is clear is that Fiza Ali is not just airing personal opinions — she is perpetuating systemic misogyny and reinforcing the kind of thinking that keeps women trapped in abusive relationships. The repeated hammering of ‘obedience’ and ‘respect’ for undeserving, exploitative men is what fuels a culture where women are conditioned to suffer in silence.

Instead of holding men accountable for their failures — whether as partners, fathers, or providers — women are made to carry the burden, bending over backwards to accommodate egos that have been fed centuries of entitlement.

This is not just one problematic statement. This is part of a broader, insidious mindset that is continually normalised in mainstream media, where the rights of men are always exalted and the suffering of women is either dismissed or justified. And that is why this cannot go unchallenged.

Ali may believe she is delivering divine wisdom, but what she is really doing is perpetuating the idea that women exist to serve men. But women are not subordinate beings created to withstand abuse in the name of patience and love. And they certainly do not need lectures from Fiza Ali — or anyone else — on how to quietly endure oppression.

The saddest part? Ali thinks she’s uplifting men. In reality, she’s just ensuring that fewer men will be held accountable for their behaviour. She’s giving abusers excuses, encouraging fragile male egos, and making it even harder for women to demand basic respect.

If anything, the real PhD here is in internalised misogyny, and Ali is on track for summa cum laude.

At the end of the day, the real problem isn’t working women thinking of themselves as equals — it’s the people who insist they shouldn’t. Women standing up for themselves, refusing to shrink their ambitions, and demanding respect in their own homes aren’t a threat to society; they’re the reason it progresses.

So, instead of scolding women for speaking up, perhaps Ali should hold abusive and exploitative men accountable. Because if there’s anything Pakistan doesn’t need more of, it’s another woman preaching submission while men continue to do as they please.