Gender Discrimination in Pakistan

Introduction:

Gender discrimination is not a new word for all of us. In fact we have heard it time and again in our lives. So what comes to your mind when you hear it? Does it give the impression of an oppressed woman to you? Well let me reveal it to you today that it is not only women that are facing oppression in the name of gender discrimination. It is also the men of our society who have to go through the unfair treatment under the banner of gender discrimination. You may ask how? Well let me start this article with a common example we all came across over social media. Men are often seen complaining that they are being deprived of their mental health by the non stop excuse of “You are a man, you simply cannot cry.” Well how does this mean deprivation in terms of mental health? They are often considered too strong to be depressed while scientifically that does not make any sense. Apart from that what areas are going to be touched in this article with the reference of gender discrimination? We are first going to analyze some data which we are going to discuss through a survey about our topic. Then we will be covering several factors that are the core reasons for gender discrimination to be flourishing in the society. Then we are going to discuss how discrimination is carried out in different sectors of the society. Later on jumping to how gender discrimination actually affects both genders and the society in general, followed by my stance on the whole situation. My purpose to write this article is to spark a sense of curiosity among our upcoming leaders of the generation who are the readers of this article and also to raise awareness on some local issues as well as raise a voice against them. We often wonder why gender discrimination still exists among us despite all the educational resources being available to us? Why is it that no one realizes how silently gender discrimination is carried out in most sectors of any country around the world? Who is actually responsible for this? The women or the men? I would start writing this article by stating that women are more responsible in this scenario. Why? Because they are the ones raising a generation. A saying goes by “A woman is the worst enemy of other women” Well this saying fits so well as far as all the oppression of women is concerned. And when it comes to the men and how they are coming under this pressure of mentality it is both men and women to be blamed for this. Now let us begin analyzing what people think about gender discrimination in Pakistan.

Analysis:

In order to know how the other people from the same walk of life think about gender discrimination. I carried out a small survey asking them two main questions and also commenting on a statement:

1. In your opinion, does Pakistani culture silently support gender discrimination?

The options for the same being : Yes, No, To some extent .

2. What are the areas in which gender discrimination is supported in Pakistan? Select all that apply:

Checkboxes for the above were:

Industrial/Offices, Home, Educational institutions, Sports industry.

3. Third was a statement which was asked to be commented on :

“We are well aware that our religion Islam does not support gender discrimination in any way, yet gender discrimination is being a talk of town at international level about Pakistan, what is your stance on this?

The results to whether gender discrimination is supported in Pakistan were:

• Yes — 33.33%
• No -22.22%
• To some extent — 44.44%

It highly speaks volume about how some people want to bury this issue under the sand and do not want to talk about it also how a large percentage is hesitating to agree to its existence.

The results to which industry supports gender discrimination were pretty fair though, here are the results:

• Industrial/Offices — 27.78%
• Home — 16.67%
• Educational institutions — 27.78%
• Sport Industry — 16.67%
• None — 11.11%

The people checkboxing here are in my opinion very negligent or ignorant about current affairs or their own surroundings. Whereas I do not agree that there is such little amount to be noticed of at home gender discrimination. However, it is true that most discrimination is carried out in educational and industrial sectors.

I am quoting some of the statements received about the 3rd question:

Comment one: “I think we need to have appropriate laws in place to avoid bias and discrimination. People also need to be made aware about it.”

Comment two: “Islam clearly said about the rights of Men, Women, Father, Mother, Husband, Wife, etc. So don’t waste your time on collecting the information in this type of **** surveys go and learn about the Islam and you get the answer of everything.”

Comment three: “Due to the lack of grooming up of the sick minds of people.”

Comment four: “It is clearly not Islam that teaches us to discriminate on the basis of gender, instead it is the historical values of Pakistan that support it.”

Reasons of Discrimination:

1 — Cultural Reasons:

A lot of studies show that culture is directly or indirectly responsible for gender discrimination. Culturally men and women are associated with certain roles and they are expected to be playing their part in that particular area. Mostly women are thought to be house makers while men are said to bread earners.

Most power is attributed to male while women are expected to be submissive. This leaves society with an imbalance in the percentage of both genders in certain sectors.

2 — Non availability of Safe Spaces for Women:

There are less safe spaces for women where they can discuss their problems, learn something or engage with each other. The main problem in this regard is related to unavailability of the appropriate allocation of resources for that in both the private and government sector. It’s really necessary to build community centers, schools, recreational areas and other spaces where women can safely study, learn and engage in different resourceful activities.

3 — Issues and lack of Authority in the right role:

Another main problem is related to lack of authority in the particular role that they are working. Usually, due to that, they are not given leadership positions in companies and organizations. Already, there’s an unequal representation of women in the top management positions in every sector. So, we can say there’s a lack of role models for others to follow too. Another important problem is the unwanted hurdles in the execution of orders due to the leader being a woman.

4 — Uneven access to education:

Quite related to cultural background, but this is also an important issue especially in the rural areas. Due to educational institutes being located in far-flung areas, it’s usually considered unsafe for women to travel, resulting in the uneven access for females. It’s important for all stakeholders especially government to understand the sensitivity of the problem to make sure that everyone gets equal access to education without any discrimination.

5 — Lack of Employment Opportunities:

Lack of adequate employment opportunities is another problem. In countries like Pakistan, where the economy is not that good, it’s even difficult for males to find a job. The problems multiply for women, while doing job hunting. Due to the above stated reasons, usually they are not provided ample opportunities for employment. Another problem is related to relocation. Sometimes, jobs need relocation to a different city. In that situation, women are not even considered for such opportunities due the family issues or things like that.

6 — Job Segregation:

There are certain roles which are thought of not to be suitable for women. Women are not even considered for such roles. There has been a growing concern in the STEM community due to the uneven representation of women and they are thought to be ‘unfit’ for such roles. Due to that job segregation occurs in which roles related to those fields are not even offered to women or women are not even given ample opportunities to compete with their male counterparts.

7 — Lack of Political Representation:

Another main problem is about uneven representation of the women in political parties at key positions. Since political parties are there to contest the elections, legislate different laws and run the establishment of the country afterwards, women are thought to be unfit in these scenarios.

This gives birth to a lack of female representation in every political institution whether they are governing or local bodies, legislating authorities or law enforcement agencies.

How discrimination is carried out based on different areas:

1 — Job Sector:

According to a report, despite increases in recent years, female labor force participation in Pakistan, at 25%, is well below rates for countries with similar income levels. Even the women holding educational degrees are only 25% of the total workforce which is quite less compared to other countries for the world. This can be attributed to lesser opportunities for women to get education and hurdles for them to study.

In the job sector, appropriate opportunities need to be created for women through legislation and laws. At least on the government level, they need to make sure that women are at least a sizable portion of their workforce.

2 — Sports industry:

Over the recent years there has been an increase in the number of athletes representing different teams at national and international level but still it’s quite difficult for women to engage in sporting activities due to lack of adequate facilities for them. Most of the grounds and places have been made to entertain the male players and there’s less focus on women sporting activities.

In this regard, the Government should make separate sports arenas, playgrounds and training facilities for women where they can train and play.

3 — Educational Institutes:

As far as the education sector is concerned, most of the fields are gender segregated so women are thought of not being fit for those fields. Alongside that, another main problem with the educated females is not being able to continue their professional career due to increased family responsibilities. This is another problem.

Another important issue is related to the females being dependent on their families for financing their education expenses and everything. Sometimes it’s due to hefty expenses that they can’t continue.

4 — Political Institutions:

There’s a big imbalance in the representation of women in the political arena. There’s no adequate representation of women in the political establishment of the country. Alongside that we also see a very less number of women being ground workers of the political parties and those candidates who contest different elections.

Political parties need to make sure that they field both genders equally in the elections and provide a platform for everyone to participate in the democractic process.

Outcome of Discrimination:

1- Unequal representation in every sector:

a. Sports:

As a result of discrimination we get unequal representation of males and females in the sports industry. This in turn shows how vague our values are when it comes to supporting our country at international level by working hard for it. It is confusing to the outsiders whether the females are not willing or skilled enough to represent their country or whether they are not given the opportunity to do so.

1. Politics:

The same way there is unequal representation in political sector. It results in biased

decisions on a national level as most representation of political parties is covered by

males of the society.

1. Civil services:

It is very unfair that in the civil services sector or private sector we get less opportunities for the women and which results in a typical unbalanced ratio of provision of opportunities.

2 — Non-uniform literacy rate:

A very non-uniform literacy rate as we know is a resultant of hypocrisy when it comes to equality of provision of education. In turns results in a bad impression over the whole world and it consumes the rights of females again. We cannot however eradicate this whole difference in the ration by doing some things because there is a long way to go when it comes to progress in the education sector. In fact one of the most important problems in illiteracy is uneven provision of literacy. Once we are able to provide equal opportunities to both genders in all areas of life half of our problems will be solved.

3 — Lack of confidence:

One of the outcomes of gender discrimination is the that it is basically the root cause of lack of confidence in both genders in some way. As far as the males are concerned they grow under confident when it comes to addressing their mental health issues. While when it comes to females they are often developing confidence in the early stages of life as they are refused of the basic rights from day one. Which in turn gives birth to the root cause of many personality related issues.

4 — Unbalanced Paying system:

We all know who is the over-paid and who is the under-paid circle of the society. Yes women here are being paid less than men of the society. What causes this is the general stigma of how women are less capable of performing outside house chores and how they are thought of being unskilled mostly.

Conclusion:

Conclusively there are many factors affecting the gender discrimination. This article does not end how it was started. It is not only women or men to be held accountable for the social injustice done to them. It is indeed made up stigmas to blame which have been and will be prevailing from God knows where forever. Now in a way we can still blame men and women to some extent because where do these social stigmas actually come from? I have to discuss and make clear one point here that it is not the religious teachings of the country that has caused such great massacre of human rights. In Islam clearly the rights of both men and women are stated. But as we see the history of different cultures amalgamating into a single one over time has caused it somehow. And these different cultures and their values have mixed up with our original ones causing the misleading conceptions leading to unfair gender discrimination today. Now let us focus on how to solve it? For once and for all we will have to eradicate other cultures’ values from our social system. We will have to make sure Islam is taught deeply as a subject throughout the educational procedure. We will have to make sure the Quran and its translation is rightly conveyed. Also we can make a special organization dedicated to human’s right and start a campaign to provide equal opportunities. But as it is said, my dear reader, “charity begins at home” so let us make sure we start at home and start giving others their rights.

Faiza Saeed