A recent remark by a district-level Jamaat-e-Islami leader has renewed serious concerns over women’s dignity and the broader political culture of the country.
During a public rally, Jamaat’s Barguna district unit assistant secretary Md Shamim Ahsan called the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union (Ducsu) a “brothel”.
The remark was not only obscene but widely condemned as a public insult to women, an attack on a historic educational institution, and a blunt expression of political hostility.
The reaction was swift and forceful. Anger and protests followed, signalling a growing social refusal to normalise such language. The backlash was most visible on university campuses, where students and teachers viewed the comment as crossing a clear moral and political line.
Speaking to TIMES of Bangladesh, Ducsu Executive Member Hema Chakma strongly criticised the statement.
“Using obscene language about women in politics has become a continuous and cyclical culture,” she said. “If this does not stop, women’s participation in politics will shrink further. One day, it may become almost impossible to find women in politics.”
She said the remark promotes a dangerous narrative by portraying female students at public universities as “immoral”. According to her, the attack goes beyond women themselves and implicitly brands higher education as sinful, raising troubling questions about how women are being politically targeted ahead of elections.
Echoing this concern, Dhaka University student Shima Akhter said women are being consciously targeted in political campaigns ahead of the national election. She described slut-shaming as an increasingly deliberate tool used to push women out of electoral politics and weaken liberal and democratic forces.
Provocative and populist statements, she said, are circulated because they resonate easily with certain sections of society. Those who publicly claim to respect women are often the same actors who shame women with dissenting views. Even while invoking women’s rights rhetorically, women are excluded from decision-making spaces.
She questioned how a political party that gives no nominations to women can credibly claim moral authority on women’s rights if it comes to power.
Institutional condemnation soon followed. Ducsu Literary and Cultural Affairs Secretary Musaddiq Ali Ibne Mohammad issued an open letter describing the comment as “disgusting and defamatory” and demanding a public apology.
He said branding Dhaka University and Ducsu as spaces of “drugs and prostitution” is not only false but deeply insulting to a historic institution. If specific allegations exist, he said, there are legal channels to pursue them. Targeting an entire university instead reflects political bankruptcy.
Other organisations joined the protest. Islami Chhatra Andolan Bangladesh described the comment as irresponsible, obscene, and indicative of moral decay.
It said character assassination of female Dhaka University students would not be tolerated, adding that those who insult women while speaking in the name of Islam and morality have no ethical right to invoke Islam at all. The statement also cast doubt on Jamaat’s moral and religious positioning.
Students demonstrated at the Raju Sculpture, burning an effigy and holding marches. The presence of Ducsu members, hall parliament leaders, and activists from different student political groups made it clear that the outrage was collective, not confined to one ideology or organisation.
Under mounting pressure, Shamim Ahsan later withdrew his statement, which he confirmed to TIMES. Critics, however, questioned the sincerity of the withdrawal. If an ideological mistake is genuinely recognised, they argue, it should be accompanied by remorse.
His admission that the retraction came under “party pressure” suggests the problem is not merely individual but rooted in an organisational culture where such language is initially acceptable and abandoned only when backlash becomes unavoidable.
Academics have also spoken out. Dhaka University teacher Shehrin Amin Bhuiyan (Monami) said women’s dignity is increasingly being weaponised to attack political opponents rather than advanced through meaningful empowerment.
“When party leaders publicly speak about protecting women’s dignity, such degrading remarks by their own leaders directly contradict that stance,” she said. “A responsible political figure is expected to show restraint, decency and sensitivity. This statement shows the opposite.”
In the same context, Jinat Ara Haque, executive coordinator of women’s rights organisation We Can, said misogyny is being deliberately deployed to appeal to male voters.
Educated and outspoken women, she said, are being targeted with degrading language as a political tactic. If this continues, respect for women will remain a slogan rather than a lived political reality.
The rights activist said the strong rejection across society shows that misogynistic language is increasingly losing its legitimacy as mere “opinion”. Yet the episode also makes clear that the issue extends far beyond one remark or one individual.
It reflects a long-standing political culture in which insulting women has been normalised as a means of gaining advantage—one that is now being openly challenged, she added.
