Stuck Between Survival and Modesty: How an Earthquake Revealed Bangladesh’s Gender Fault Line

This story by Abhimanyu Bandyopadhyay originally appeared on Global Voices on December 3, 2025.

On the morning of January 21 this year, Bangladesh was shaken by a devastating 5.7-magnitude earthquake that killed at least 10 people and injured many more. Offices had just opened, while some people were still at home preparing for the day, when the furniture and hanging articles suddenly began to shake at around 10.38 a.m.

From Narsingdi to Dhaka, Mymensingh, Khulna, and Sylhet, people rushed out of offices and homes in panic as the tremors rippled across the country. Many said they had never experienced such intense shaking in the heart of the capital. Social media quickly filled with posts describing the fear and confusion of those moments.

But it wasn’t just tectonic plates grinding against each other; Bangladesh’s gender politics soon began to rupture, too. As buildings swayed and the whole nation scrambled for safety, the country’s collective online conscience decided this was the perfect moment to ask a truly urgent question: Should a woman put on her hijab or headscarf before running for her life? “Yes” was the response from some quarters. While the ground was cracking open, a section of the country was more concerned about whether women were sufficiently “covered” as they evacuated collapsing structures. Within minutes, Bangladeshi social media had split into two warring camps: one insisting that hijabs and scarves must be worn even during an earthquake, the other asking why on earth should women be expected to carry this invisible burden in the middle of a natural disaster.

One woman recounted how she refused to evacuate because her salwar was too thin. Another lamented the cultural anxiety summed up in that immortal Bengali question: “What will people say?” Activist Seema Akhter put it more bluntly: “When an earthquake strikes, people try to save their lives. Women of Bangladesh look for their scarves.” If only she were wrong.

Every time the earth shakes, Bangladesh somehow manages to turn a disaster into a referendum on women’s clothing. This was no exception. Before emergency plans, before structural integrity assessments, before state accountability, the country found itself embroiled in yet another cultural war over the headscarf and hijab. And then came the inevitable chorus of self-appointed moral guardians, the cis-hetero Bengali Muslim men — lecturing women on piety during a nationwide emergency. Many confidently declared that women must cover themselves first because the earthquake was a sign of “Allah’s wrath,” and argued that a woman’s modesty mattered more than her safety. If this is the level of public discourse during a natural disaster, what hope is there? Their posts went viral. Their arrogance went unchecked.

Let’s be clear, I am not a religious scholar. Naturally, I did what any rational person living in the 21st century would do: I Googled it. Surprisingly, there is no Islamic injunction demanding a woman stop mid-evacuation to grab a scarf. In fact, Islamic jurisprudence is very clear on emergencies. The core Islamic principle says that the preservation of life comes first. If a woman is in harm’s way, escaping to save her life takes precedence over maintaining modest attire.

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The logic is not that hard. If you may pause prayer to survive an earthquake, you may exit the building without perfectly arranged modesty. Life comes first. Yet somehow, patriarchy comes even before life.

So why do women still search for scarves during disasters? It is because patriarchy and social norms have encoded modesty, shame, and fear so deeply that even in mortal danger, the social gaze feels more threatening than the ground trembling beneath their feet.

Should we mock these women? Absolutely not. They are victims of a system designed to discipline them. Should we attack those who expressed frustration online? Also no. Their anger is equally justified. What must be interrogated is the culture that forces women to choose between survival and “respectability.” At the end of the day, it's all about making your own choice. As long as you are safe and sound, it should be okay and pray to Allah for mercy and safety.

Although Bangladesh is not a Muslim-majority country where women are legally obliged to follow an Islamic dress code, many still face subtle but persistent pressure from their families to do so. Refusing to wear head coverings often leads to women being shamed by their families, neighbours and strangers. Even though Article 28 of The Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh prohibits discrimination based on gender and affirms that men and women are equal in all areas of public life, this right exists only on paper. Women do not feel they can practice their sacred right to live as free, independent women because of the patriarchal society structure.

A recent study by Manusher Jonno Foundation and DNET reveals the depth of this culture:

With statistics like these, is it any surprise that even after such a deadly earthquake, the nation was obsessed not over emergency response systems or building safety but over who wore a scarf?

It’s noteworthy that since the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s regime in August 2024, gender-based violence has drastically surged in Bangladesh. Moreover, radical Islamists are capitalising on political instability, weaponising religion to police, silence and control women. Sports, entertainment, public life — women’s participation is being pushed back into the shadows.

The earthquake on January 21 didn’t create this dysfunction; it exposed it.

Perhaps the starkest illustration of Bangladesh’s double standards came from the CCTV footage at Dhaka University’s Shahidullah Hall, one of the oldest hostels of the University of Dhaka. Male students dashed downstairs during the tremor, wearing towels, shorts, or even bare-chested. No one lectured them about modesty. No one accused them of inviting divine anger. No one ordered them to cover up.

What law will regulate them? What fatwa will shame them?

This double standard thrives in a political climate that has grown increasingly hostile toward women lately. On May 23 of this year, Hefazat-e-Islam (Deobandi Islamist advocacy group) called for nationwide protests demanding the scrapping of the Women’s Reform Commission report, branding it the “Slut Commission.”

Similarly, in July, the Bangladesh Bank issued an advisory requiring female employees to wear sarees or salwar-kameez with scarves, banning short sleeves and leggings, and dictating hemline length. Considering everything happening now, it’s not hard to guess why this guideline was introduced. Since Bangladesh’s July Uprising, there has been a desperate attempt to implement and form a certain cultural sphere, and what we are seeing today reflects that collective effort.

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If you are wondering how far this could go, take a look at Afghanistan. At around midnight on the last night of August, the country witnessed a catastrophic earthquake that resulted in around 2,000 deaths, caused thousands to sustain injuries, and damaged health facilities and homes. Across the broken villages of Kunar’s mountainous Nurgal district, women lay injured under rubble, unable to be examined because there were no female health workers and Taliban rules forbid male doctors from touching them. Women literally died because men’s rules were more sacred than women’s lives.

Is Bangladesh headed toward the same abyss? Perhaps not yet. But it is surely inching towards becoming the utopia of cis-hetero male supremacy. In the power vacuum that followed Sheikh Hasina’s fall, a new model of Muslim masculinity has emerged across Bangladesh, marked by anti-Awami League sentiment, anti-secularism, religious orthodoxy, misogyny, and Bangladeshi ultra-nationalism. This figure, often referred to as the “Tauhidi Muslim man,” has stepped into the role of moral arbiter, policing women’s clothing, restricting their movement, and enforcing rigid religious codes across both public and private life. This specific Bangladeshi Muslim male psyche still sees men as “everybody” (majority) and women as “nobody” (minority) and tends to treat patriarchy not as a system but as the natural order. It cloaks misogyny in religious righteousness, ensuring women internalise the policing until they enforce it upon themselves.

This is why unlearning is essential. Hijabi women and non-hijabi women must interrogate the same internalised misogyny — the conditioning that makes them feel responsible for honour, modesty, purity. Religion and culture have long been used as shields for gender discrimination. Women must reject that burden together, and if they do not resist now, this regression will only get worse with time.

Change won’t come overnight. But it will never come at all if women remain trapped in debates about scarves while the nation collapses economically, politically, morally.

On that Friday morning, the earth shook. But what shook us more was in a moment of life and death, Bangladesh asked not “Are you safe?” but “Were you covered?”

And until that question stops being asked, no disaster management plan can save the nation.

[VP]

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