Pakistan International Peace & Human Rights Organization
Nindo Shaher District Badin Sindh Pakistan

Definition of Gender

The differences between women and men within the same household and within and between cultures that are socially and culturally constructed and change over time. These differences are reflected in: roles, responsibilities, access to resources, constraints, opportunities, needs, perceptions, views, etc. held by both women and men. Thus, gender is not a synonym for women, gut considers both women and men and their interdependent relationships. ( Moser, C. 1993).

It is a man's world". Being a woman, writing this phrase really hurts. One does not want to believe it, nor does one want to accept it. But when you look around, both in society and in the professional world, you grudgingly concede that despite genuine efforts at some levels to restore this imbalance, many things may never change. The most change resistant being the gender inequality issue. This is sad because the secondary role of woman in our society has more to do with our own indifferent behavior and tolerance of injustice to the issue than being a Muslim or being a Pakistani. The role of woman in society is largely influenced by the role of woman prescribed in the religious tenets. The interpretation of the religion is unfortunately in the hands of the so called religious representatives like mullahs. The average mullah neither has the education nor the mental capacity to interpret the teachings and tenets of the Quran in an open and unbiased manner. The role of the religious institutions in our society have dominated the perception of the ordinary public on defining the respective gender roles. Concepts like "Chaadar and chardivari" have been enforced as decrees by these mullahs. Such decrees have been questioned by many woman activists but by and large the perception of the ordinary public is still colored by what they hear repeatedly at Friday prayer sermons delivered by mullahs who denounce every form of female independence and prominence. It is unfortunate that this misrepresentation of the religion by the Mullahs in Islamic countries and the recently removed Taliban regime has given the western powers a huge opportunity to justify their aggression against the Muslim countries. Their media has got enough material on religious based gender suppression to make countless documentaries on the abject misery of Muslim women. Most of these allegations against woman suppression are not unfounded. The degradation of the female in the rural areas is definitely outrageous, but the fault does not lie in religion, instead with the power given by society to men to allow them to distort religious facts to suit their own purpose. Rationally and factually speaking women have played a very important role in Islamic history. The Prophet (peace be upon him) married the top most businesswoman of his time, Hazrat Khadeejah, who helped him in learning the business of trade. She was years older than him and asked for his hand in marriage. Similarly the prophet did not have a male issue and had one daughter Hazrat Fatima who took the burden of carrying forward the message of Islam. Women fought battles alongside men and played the roles of nurse, advisors and supporters on the battlefield. The mullah will only rant and shriek about the right of men to marry innumerable times without elucidating the reasons behind it. They will never highlight the progressive roles women have played in Islam. Role of Women in society is definitely attributable to the beliefs, norms, and values of the society. These beliefs may be formed on the basis of historical religious beliefs or perceived on future economic needs. In the underdeveloped countries where the historical role of women is confined to the four walls of the parents or husband's house, the female member is perceived as an economic burden. Lack of education and lack of earning power makes these societies wish for male off spring since they can share the economic burden of the family. Parents believe that the female job opportunities are limited and once they are married they will stop supporting them. This perception is colored by religious beliefs and by the pressure of social norms. Realistically, however, female employment is much higher in the lower class than in the middle and upper classes. The lower class female works in the fields in villages, while in the cities they mostly work as housemaids and servants. In many cases the male members i.e fathers and husbands sit at home, while the females slave away day and night to support their husband and the rest of the family. In the middle and upper class female education is quite common, but female employment is rare. The society has allowed certain "respectable" professions for them which they are designated to follow, like teaching and medicine. Remaining professions are persued by those few females who dare risk the gossip and slandering of the society. Thus the females persue education not with the objective of specific careers in mind but as an eligibility criteria to catch the most eligible bachelors in their social strata. The social and religious beliefs also affect the workplace environment. Women who do manage to defy the traditional role set by the society face an almost skeptical and disbelieving environment in the workplace. In a male dominated professional world, women are in minority and are only considered competent for certain routine lower management positions. When it comes to the top management ranks there will be little incidence of female dominance. Thus often women have to prove to their questioning male counterparts that they have risen to these positions not on the basis of their "femme fatale" attractions, but genuine brilliance and competence. This is especially true when women working in the marketing field are perceived as trying to sell themselves to sell the product. The minute designations like "Public Relations" and "Client Executives" are attached to women the sly and suggestive look on men's face tells the story about how the male mind works. This exploitation is not only present in the underdeveloped, but the developed countries. The proliferation of the media has revealed that companies use the female form to attract attention and action from the potential buyers. Regardless of the product or service, the addition of an "attractive" female is sure to increase product recall and product interest. Thus image of the professional female has been stereotyping this belief in nearly all managerial ranks - i.e that women may be good for routine work, but to lead and manage organizations, you need men. Such discriminatory and biased opinions will of course be more prevalent in the under-developed societies, as laws on equal opportunity and sexual discrimination are considered more of a laughing matter than serious legal violations. As previously mentioned, the only two respectable and socially acceptable female careers in our society are that of teaching and medicine. Unfortunately here the bias against women has continued unabated and has reached an almost abominable stage.

The role of females, as productive agents, is becoming critical in rapidly changing global economic scenario. However, there is a need to improve the quality of female labor force, to provide legislative support to ensure equality of opportunity and rewards between males and females and to involve females in the development activity and in the process of decision making more actively and effectively. In general females are less educated, have less access to health facilities, less control of assets, less access to social security, less access to financial resources, and less earning capacity. These characteristics are blamed for the higher incidence of poverty among females. Recent empirical literature emphasizes that in the post structural adjustment period the slow down in economic activity has also resulted in feminization of poverty in the developing countries. For example, Khan (1999) found an increasing trend in feminization of agricultural labor1 and feminization of poverty2 in the post adjustment period. But the study by Brown (1992) argues that employment is a key factor in determining females' empowerment and some aspects of economic reforms hold for improvement in the labor market in the long run. Similarly, other studies report mixed results. A review of these studies reveals that the overall effect of structural adjustment programs is difficult to measure as it varies across countries, sectors, and individuals. Female poverty has long term implications for educational attainment and financial status of the current and future generation.3 Lower status, a discriminatory environment, and gender-based violence affect women's productivity in the household and the market place, their reproductive health, and their sexual well-being.4 According to Heyzer & Sen (1994), "Women are seen as having to balance several roles in coping with poverty and having to devise numerous survival strategies. Hence, in the generation of economic opportunities for the poor, there is need to target resources to women." Last two decades' development efforts saw an emphasis on poverty alleviation programs, in developing countries, with the support of the national governments and bilateral and multilateral institutions. The emphasis of these programs is to reach the most vulnerable groups of the society, particularly the females. World Development Report (1990) recommended a two pronged strategy for poverty alleviation. First by promoting employment opportunities, profitability and efficiency through market based approach for resource allocation. Second, enabling the poor to take advantage of new opportunities through better human capital formation. However, despite the recognition of problem and solutions, most of the countries, including Pakistan, have experienced return of poverty in the decade of 1990s. In Pakistan, females are almost fifty percent of the total population but their involvement in market production is low for two reasons: First, the female labor force participation rate is low and second, their contribution in national income is underestimated. Females' involvement inproductive activities is low due to a number of factors like limited access to productive inputs, lower investment in human capital, discrimination in the labor market, underestimation of females contribution and other social and cultural factors. Social and cultural indicators show that the burden of females managing every day life has increased in recent years. Table A1 (in appendix) shows that the gender based development indicator and gender empowerment measure vary across countries in South Asia. For Pakistan, both indicators are below the average for South Asian countries. This confirms the view that Pakistani females play a limited role of in economic development and their access to social services and in decisionmaking within and outside household is limited, relative to females in other countries of the region. Economic empowerment is critical in empowering females socially at domestic level and to create opportunities for their success. When females control their livelihood the whole family benefits. Studies have shown that when females have control over their own income or over household income more money is spent on food and on children's education and health. If we take the degree of involvement of females in day-to-day decision making, as measure of female empowerment, then the highest percentage of females, i.e., 71.2 percent, is ever consulted for the purchase of food, and only 51 percent of the females are major buyers of food. [see Table A2 (in appendix)]. Less than 70 percent of these females are consulted about the number of children, their education and marriage and less than 20 percent are consulted for the purchase of asset. Given this scenario what can we say about the gender dimension of poverty, in terms of socioeconomic indicators and in terms of income/expenditure, in Pakistan? In this study our objective is to explore this issue by keeping in view its various dimensions and complexity. We first discuss the gender ratio (GR), i.e., females as percentage of males for various socioeconomic indicators in section 2. We start the discussion with gender ratio for population structure, education, health and labor market indicators including gender discrimination in the labor market. This discussion will help us to understand the gender differences in income and expenditures of the individuals and households. The methodology to estimate poverty indicators is given in section 3 and the results based on this methodology are discussed in section 4. Finally, we conclude the study in section 5.

No other issue is so contentious and well-debated in the politics of contemporary societies as the question of gender and politics. Women activists all over the world have begun to question political inequality among the sexes. They have raised fundamental questions about the essence of male-dominated democratic system in which women find themselves formally or informally excluded from political power. In recent decades, they have focused on the vital issues of empowerment, rights, social and political equality and discrimination in its all forms. The feminist movement even in a male dominated, socially conservative society like Pakistan has brought into sharp focus more or less the same issues about the social status of the women and their inadequate representation in the political power and participation in politics. The feminist movement around the world reach startlingly the same conclusions on the issue of gender and political power. Although women in different parts of the world face different problems and confront different challenges and the feminist movement has many shades and strands, all of them, irrespective of the nature of societies they live in, strike a common tone: a) All modern societies are governed by males; b) Women in all societies have subordinate roles; c) Male dominance is not a natural but cultural phenomenon that must change. Change in gender relationships, self-empowerment of women and getting the first principle of democracy and equality accepted are some of the themes that are at the centre of women's political movement. Pakistan is no exception. But the women in Pakistan mainly due to the social and cultural conditions are more disadvantaged than the women in modern western democratic societies. Their struggle, perhaps as old as the country itself, has not evoked the same responses and has not achieved the same results either. What is heartening is that women in Pakistan are getting more organised, with their activists highly educated, skilled and articulate. And all women groups have a clear vision and a convincing agenda of more forward-looking politics than that of the males in the Pakistani society. Yet, they have to travel a long distance before they get equal rights or increase their share in different professions or in political power. What holds the women in Pakistan back? Why very few women compared to their substantial numbers, roughly fifty percent of the population, exercise or seek to exercise political power? These questions have been a subject of many theories, conjecturing and sociological explanations in different countries. Many of the factors that work against equality of women in both developed and developing countries are more deeply ingrained in Pakistani society. Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, has attempted to explain low participation of women in politics with reference to four hypothetical constraints -- physiological constraints; cultural constraints; role constraints; and male conspiracy. The American political context of this and many other similar studies does not eliminate their relevance to the developing countries like Pakistan. But in explaining the low participation of women in the power process of our countries we have to account for variations, relatively greater influence of some factors than others and look for what is unique and so different from other situations. In case of Pakistan, one must fully comprehend the cultural constraints and how they have reinforced the subordinate social role of women. The social structures that are at the base of any type of political process consist of power relations, relative positions of individuals and groups, established identities and determined roles. The larger question about gender and power can only be understood in terms of the social structures and how they distribute values in the society. Looking at the general values, social structures and cultural orientation of the Pakistani population, one finds women in the country as the most oppressed social and political class. Dependence, passivity, low self-esteem and denial of even some of the basic rights characterise their general status. But there are great variations in the status and roles of women depending on their social circumstances. Educated and professional women in urban areas and from upper classes of the society enjoy much better status and rights than illiterate women in rural areas. Women in tribal areas of Balochistan, Frontier province and remote areas of southern Punjab and interior Sindh live in more adverse social conditions than women in other parts of the country. Although honour killings, domestic violence and discrimination by the male members of the families are too common in these areas, they are not confined there alone. Our argument is that exclusion from political process or even voluntary low-participation of women are culturally and socially determined traits; and that the state in the political culture of traditional male-dominant society of Pakistan has done very little to meaningfully empower women. The low social status of women because of the customs of largely feudal and tribal culture pose the biggest barrier in the way of women's involvement in public affairs of the society in general and electoral politics in particular. Studies on political participation have again and again demonstrated the relationship between social status and participation in the electoral politics. All women groups throughout the history of Pakistan have time and again suggested that the state must take the lead to increase women's participation through reserving seats for them in the elected assemblies. Another area of women's demands relate to removing or amending discriminatory laws against them. All women rights activists consider the state as the primary agent of bringing about change in their social and political status, as the slow evolution from within the society would take a longer time. This has been quite a consistent theme in the feminist movement, but at the same time with the expansion of civil society networks, women have found a large number of independent forums to articulate their demands and seek and expand participation in the informal sectors of political power. During much of the decade of democracy when elected governments were in power, the question of women's participation remained unsettled, particularly amending of the constitution to extend the initial period of ten years and the mode of elections. Only recently, the government of General Pervez Musharraf has taken some radical measures to increase women's participation. In the new arrangements that have been announced women will be allocated 30 percent of the seats in the national and provincial assemblies. These are formal affirmative action measures that the women movement in Pakistan had demanded for a long time. Will their status, role and participation in elections increase? Will discrimination against them come to an end? In answering these questions on must focus on social structures, the rural agrarian environment and the feudal and tribal characteristics of the society. The formal measures that the military government have taken to end discrimination against women are important but the real change will come when the social barriers gradually come down. Women's equality as candidates and voters continues to suffer not because of state policy, but primarily due to tradition, social structures, lower level of education and a male-dominant society.

To: Daughter, Sheely

Whenever someone gives you a sorrow
Name that sorrow, 'daughter'
When my grey hairs appear
Laughing around your cheeks, your can weep
On the sorrow of my dream, you can sleep
Those fields which are yet to grow
In those fields
I see your brassiere too.
I was afraid
But only the first time, daughter
How many are the times I felt afraid daughter
Trees hide the archers who lie in wait for you
You were my birth, daughter
And your birth, your daughter will be
In the desire to bathe you
My fingertips spit blood.

The Moonflower Tree

As it in a dream,
I remembered last night,
The tree in a corner of my garden,
Studded with flowers of moonlight.
I would play beneath its shade
Sheltered afternoons long form the sun
Swing on the boughs, meeting them as they swayed
Touch the flowers and run
Into its tr4unk, had been sunk,
Scores of nails.
Many a time, had I been warned
Not to touch those nails.
That tree, they said,
Was haunted.
But a wise man
Had cast a spell on it
Trapped the giant within
Transfixed him with nails
Should anyone pull out those pins
It would release the genie within,
Which would devour, every flower,
Which would sap every leaf.
Then this house, this home would burn
In a flash, into ashes it would turn.
Within the confines of this body and soul
Dwells such a moon-silvered tree
Its leaves I've always confided in
Each flower has been a friend to me.
Still, I dearly love
The shade of this, my tree.
And in its trunk until this day
Lives bewitched that same genie
Even now I live in dread
If ever I should touch those nails
That ogre might escape
The flowers be may not devour
The leaves be may not want
But my home would surely burn!
Would it really into ashes turn?

My Crime: A Promise

My child, I've told you a story: thousands of times
Nestling in the veils of a lullaby.
Sometimes I rocked you to sleep, cuddled and cradled by my words
I touched your warm cheeks with my cold lips
I promised your something
That promise which is the destiny of human beings
of protection, of honour, of esteem.
My child,
The tired and exhausted girl in the story
Was not a princess, it was me
That magical place
Which burnt to a desert in an instant was my home
When only the needles in the eyes remained
Those dreams were mine
And all those who besieged me
Were not outsiders, they were my own kin.
In her story
Lies my truth
Where she looked back and turned to stone
There was my love
And thousands of fields of fire
rainfalls of blood
All that was my story
all that happened to me.
My child, in that story
that tired and exhausted girl
was not a princess, it was me.
Where the story ended
my child!
there you came in
a symbol of life and happiness
a constant dream of desires
a guarantee of companionship and truth
where there were only happy endings to every fiction
My child, that's where you came in.
where you came in.
My eyes were weary with the wounds of a promise
Your reflection was a balm to those wounds
My hands trembled with unkept resolutions
your company was a constant comfort
I admitted
I am only dust
and your: beauty and adornment
I was aware
that I am fear itself
and you: peace and comfort
I am the past
but you glow like a future heaven
I am tribulation itself
but you, like hope, are the solution itself
My child
my feelings and admissions both stand guilty today
Head bowed, I listen to the charge against me
Instead of roses I pick thorns from
the 'chadur' of my desires
Do you know
what the allegation is
that promise which is the destiny of human beings
of protection, of honour, of esteem.

The Grass is Really like me

The grass is also like me
It has to unfurl underfoot to fulfil; itself
But what does it prove by getting soaked:
A scorching sense of shame
Or the heat of emotion.
The grass is also like me
As soon as it can raise its head
The lawnowner,
Obsessed with flattering it into velvet
Mows it down again.
How you strive and endeavor
To level woman down too!
But neither the earth's nor woman's
Desire to manifest life dies.
Take my advice: the idea of making a footpath was appropriate
Those who cannot bear the scorching defeat of courage
Are grafted onto the earth.
That's how make way for the mighty
But they are merely straw
Not the grass
The grass is really like me.

The First Prayer of my Elders

From the womb of the night
A tiny ray of light was thus born:
Night uncurled the lovely pink fists of Dawn
Read her palm
Whispered to the morning breeze
And made the dew weep.
A star laughed
Moonlight smiled and went tripping away
Turning on her side, weakly
My mother started, then keenly
She gestured?
A flutter of movement, a whisper:
" Oh! Is it a girl?"
Such deep sadness in that voice God!
The very first which wrote itself onto my hearing
In my very first breaths it stirred
The bitter poison of defeat as I heard
"Oh, it`s a girl!"
"A girl!"
"Is this a girl? Pray for her good fortune, then"
It is still carved into my hearing The first prayer of my elders

She

He hits her again in the dark hour
She wept all alone in that dark hour
She hoped she wouldn't have married him
She hoped she wouldn't have loved him
Pain cutting through her heart
She hated him from the core of her heart
Yet she loved him in the corner of her heart
There is a little ray of hope left in her eyes
But soon it is going to wash away by the tears in her eyes
She is soon going to be fed up of this life
But she is going to keep on hanging for the sake of her child

Silent Desperado

Her lips are shivering cold and blue
Her roving wet eyes have got no clue
Her skin has turned wrinkled and white
With trembling hands,she begs few nights
He's in his jaunt , he shuts the door
He leaves her way to trap few more
Yet its not hot but her body's wet
All through with droplets of sweat
Her clothes are torn for what he did
She bowed,she knelt and so she hid
Entering her heart and then her soul
Deep inside into her own
He breathed ,he felt ,he touched her close
She needs him now, that's what he knows
He made her crush,her heart did melt
Now she's alone , her body's swelled
He'll never return , there he goes
Leaving her cold , all in the woes