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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
Gender relations in Pakistan rest on two basic
perceptions:
that women are subordinate to men, and that a man's honor
resides
in the actions of the women of his family. Thus, as in
other
orthodox Muslim societies, women are responsible for
maintaining
the family honor. To ensure that they do not dishonor
their
families, society limits women's mobility, places
restrictions on
their behavior and activities, and permits them only
limited
contact with the opposite sex.
Space is allocated to and used differently by men and
women.
For their protection and respectability, women have
traditionally
been expected to live under the constraints of purdah
(purdah is Persian for curtain), most obvious in
veiling.
By separating women from the activities of men, both
physically
and symbolically, purdah creates differentiated male and
female
spheres. Most women spend the major part of their lives
physically within their homes and courtyards and go out
only for
serious and approved reasons. Outside the home, social
life
generally revolves around the activities of men. In most
parts of
the country, except perhaps in Islamabad, Karachi, and
wealthier
parts of a few other cities, people consider a woman--and
her
family--to be shameless if no restrictions are placed on
her
mobility.
Purdah is practiced in various ways, depending on
family
tradition, region, class, and rural or urban residence,
but
nowhere do unrelated men and women mix freely. The most
extreme
restraints are found in parts of the North-West Frontier
Province
and Balochistan, where women almost never leave their
homes
except when they marry and almost never meet unrelated
men. They
may not be allowed contact with male cousins on their
mother's
side, for these men are not classed as relatives in a
strongly
patrilineal society. Similarly, they have only very formal
relations with those men they are allowed to meet, such as
the
father-in-law, paternal uncles, and brothers-in-law.
Poor rural women, especially in Punjab and Sindh, where
gender relations are generally somewhat more relaxed, have
greater mobility because they are responsible for
transplanting
rice seedlings, weeding crops, raising chickens and
selling eggs,
and stuffing wool or cotton into comforters
(razais). When
a family becomes more prosperous and begins to aspire to
higher
status, it commonly requires stricter purdah among its
women as a
first social change.
Poor urban women in close-knit communities, such as the
old
cities of Lahore and Rawalpindi, generally wear either a
burqa (fitted body veil) or a chador (loosely
draped
cotton cloth used as a head covering and body veil) when
they
leave their homes. In these localities, multistory
dwellings
(havelis) were constructed to accommodate large
extended
families. Many havelis have now been sectioned off
into
smaller living units to economize. It is common for one
nuclear
family (with an average of seven members) to live in one
or two
rooms on each small floor. In less densely populated
areas, where
people generally do not know their neighbors, there are
fewer
restrictions on women's mobility.
The shared understanding that women should remain
within
their homes so neighbors do not gossip about their
respectability
has important implications for their productive
activities. As
with public life in general, work appears to be the domain
of
men. Rural women work for consumption or for exchange at
the
subsistence level. Others, both rural and urban, do
piecework for
very low wages in their homes. Their earnings are
generally
recorded as part of the family income that is credited to
men.
Census data and other accounts of economic activity in
urban
areas support such conclusions. For example, the 1981
census
reported that 5.6 percent of all women were employed, as
opposed
to 72.4 percent of men; less than 4 percent of all urban
women
were engaged in some form of salaried work. By 1988 this
figure
had increased significantly, but still only 10.2 percent
of women
were reported as participating in the labor force.
Among wealthier Pakistanis, urban or rural residence is
less
important than family tradition in influencing whether
women
observe strict purdah and the type of veil they wear. In
some
areas, women simply observe "eye purdah": they tend not to
mix
with men, but when they do, they avert their eyes when
interacting with them. Bazaars in wealthier areas of
Punjabi
cities differ from those in poorer areas by having a
greater
proportion of unveiled women. In cities throughout the
North-West
Frontier Province, Balochistan, and the interior of Sindh,
bazaars are markedly devoid of women, and when a woman
does
venture forth, she always wears some sort of veil.
The traditional division of space between the sexes is
perpetuated in the broadcast media. Women's subservience
is
consistently shown on television and in films. And,
although
popular television dramas raise controversial issues such
as
women working, seeking divorce, or even having a say in
family
politics, the programs often suggest that the woman who
strays
from traditional norms faces insurmountable problems and
becomes
alienated from her family.
Data as of April 1994
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