Women empowerment has been a long way debate in Pakistani society .The main
focus of the debates and talks are how to empower the female gender of the
society to make it contributor in the social development, cultural development,
and economic development as well as recognizing the female gender as the equal
partner with equal rights and respect in the society having equal will and say
while sharing, deciding at home, local, TMA or the national level.
The issue still remains unresolved and the female gender still suffers much more
in the society as compare to the male gender that have more access to
achievement motivations with a view to being the male and culturally supported
at all walks of life.
This sort of partial and biased behavior of the male dominant society has
deprived the female community in the society of much more fundamental rights and
the female has been fixed to some specific sectors to go for her life career and
the rest of major opportunities are free for the male gender.
With reference to differences in the achievement motivations of males and
females in Pakistani culture it is better to look into the objective realities
existing and practiced in our Pakistani society or the culture.
The objective realities show and evidently prove that the women or the female
gender are still in a waiting list to have or not. The reason is the cultural
bindings having the hold of the male gender who runs and manages the social
norms and ultimately have the veto power to designate the social status of the
female gender.
We must keep in mind that in all societies the people act and perform their role
in accordance to their social status and most probably do not violate or deny
the responsibility.
The Pakistani society and the culture which is highly dominated by the male
dictatorship has almost fixed the social status of the female gender to some
specified sectors which has not been denied yet and existing the same both at
home or the national level.
The Pakistani culture is still dominated by the ‘Hindu” philosophy designed by
“Manoo” who declared the female gender as the third class, inferior and a
subordinate generation of the society which has to obey the male in case of any
good or the bad situation.
The Pakistani society despite
being freed as an in independent country has not yet denied the “Manoo”
philosophy and is in a fix what to do , either let the female gender accept as
an equal gender with equal rights and respect or keep it just as the subordinate
and fix its role just as the house keeper.
Evidently, we have and are practicing the same denying the social status of the
female gender in all walks of life such as;
1- The majority still believing that the female gender do not need to go to
school,
2- She has to remain at home and take care of the house or the children,
3- The women have the lesser chances of job, preferred to lowest ranks and
lowest salaries,
4- The women are almost at risk at their work place, targeted, abused and
harassed,
5- The women in Pakistani society have the least share in the employment sector,
6- The women have the least right to be heard before the court of law because
her status is twisted while seeking help even at home while making any decision
she is least considered and have no right to reject any decision,
7- In case of polygamy, the women is least considered and the decision is made
by the male posing any reason or the logic to have more wife or the wives,
8- In case of having issues, kids, the women is blamed of having no potential
despite the male is responsible for its major role of fertility,
9- In case of liking or disliking, the male has the veto power to take any
decision but the women or the wife has least chances to pose her concern over
liking or disliking her husband,
10- In case of job or the employment, the women are fixed to some specific
sectors, education or the medicines,
11- In case of having female children, the women is abused or blamed of having
no potential hiding the role of the male in fertility proceeding,
12- In case of old age, the women is bound to rely on the sources and means of
her offspring’s and faces degraded and apologetic,
13- The constitution of 1973 that had been praised at large as the protector of
the rights of the male, female have not helped the female gender so as to quote
as an example in one field and the female gender has to wait for a miracle if
happened,
Let me quote here just one example, “Mukhtaran Mai” gang rapped did not have
access to justice even passing 12 years. The honorable Supreme Court could not
decide whether she was abused and the main culprits were freed because they were
male and influential in the ruling government,
Thus, summing up, it is quite evident that a woman is quite powerless and
deprived of her fundamental rights in all walks of life. She has to accept and
compromise with this subordinate position and do her role as better for her own
good to survive before the male dominated and ruled culture.
For this, the extended family influences are responsible which do not let the
majority to go for a change to recognize the female as the equal gender with
equal right and respect in the society.
Thus, it is safe to say that unless some radical structural changes take place
in the government machineries the human resources development especially the
female sources of power , the politics, the bureaucracy and the army all are
predominantly feudal oriented and patriarchal since inception of Pakistan which
have hardly any space for the weaker groups in the society namely the women.