Feminism revolves around achieving equal political,
economic, cultural and social rights for women. Usually, this ideology is
linked to the West and countries like Pakistan don’t seem to give it much
importance. The West views the ‘burqa’ as an anti-feminist symbol and raises an
eyebrow to other such Islamic practices.
So where does Feminism stand in Pakistan? Not everyone
in Pakistan turns a blind eye to the ideology of Feminism. In fact, many have
joined the struggle to enable women to stand shoulder to shoulder with men. Unfortunately,
ever since Pakistan has come to exist men have had a clear advantage over women.
Females are always held second to men when it comes to educational and working opportunities.
Some organizations have tried to encourage Feminism
by redefining Islamic views – this seems to be a good way to go about the situation,
since most of the country looks to religion whenever they want an answer. Others,
however, promote Feminism on the basis of Human Rights.
The truth is that Islam has given women a certain
status and rights – therefore, Feminism is definitely not anti-Islamic. But
there are limits to the rights given to women and perhaps women want more now.
1 comment:
There is no doubt in the fact that women are always held second as opposed to men in Pakistan, but such a situation is not limited to Pakistan alone, its present all around the globe. The United States, which is commonly viewed as the nucleus of feminism and equality, has not had a single female president in its entire lifetime of over 200 years. In Forbes list of the top 100 most powerful people in the world, a mere 9 are women. And Pakistan is actually doing a lot better at giving equal rights to women than other more advanced Islamic nations such as Saudia Arabia.
However, I believe this issue of inequality is not one which can be solved quickly, it may take generations. But a good place to start would be educating people about the issue from an early stage to prevent the ideology of women as being inferior to men from developing in the first place.
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