Pakistan, March 30 -- She walks fast, eyes fixed on the ground, her dupatta pulled tightly over her head-not for modesty, but as armor against the unrelenting gaze of men who claim the streets as their own. At the bus stop, she stands cautiously, calculating her distance from the staring eyes, the leering smiles, the 'accidental' brushes. She boards the bus, only to find that even the so-called 'women's section' is not free from intrusion. At work, her competence is questioned; at home, her ambitions are dismissed. At every stage of life, she is reminded-through words, through silence, through laws and customs-that she exists in a world not built for her but against her.

It is the lived reality of millions of Pakistani women, whose lives...