Saheefa Jabbar Khattak has slammed the backlash she received over a recent haircut, questioning why women are consistently held to a different standard than men.
In a video addressed to her followers, Saheefa challenged the very premise of the criticism.
“Did it not feel strange to you to ask why I cut my hair? Have you ever asked a male influencer, a male actor, your father or your brother why they got a haircut? Never. But you will always ask a woman why she wore certain clothes, why she thought about marriage, why she chose to study so much, why she thought about starting a business,” she said.
She pushed back against those who accused her of playing the woman card.
“You will then say I am playing the woman card, but you yourselves can see what has been trending. For the past three months, it is women who have given me the most trouble, women who have given me the most backlash. And on top of that, look at what has happened in our country over the past five to six days and what has been done to women. So please, a haircut should not be the discussion right now,” she added.
Saheefa stressed that the timing of the criticism made it all the more difficult to digest, pointing to larger and more pressing national issues that deserved attention far more than her appearance.
Earlier this year, she drew widespread backlash after saying in an Instagram video that she preferred hiring Pashtun workers for her Lahore restaurant, Roni’s Pizzeria, and no longer trusted Punjabi or Urdu-speaking people.
The remarks were widely condemned as discriminatory and triggered calls to boycott her business. Shortly after, her restaurant was flooded with one-star reviews overnight, which she described as a coordinated campaign against her.
The controversy deepened further when food vlogger Ahtsham Riaz publicly expressed regret over ever promoting her pizza brand, to which Saheefa fired back sharply, accusing him of using her platform for his own reach.
