Patriarchy is a system in which males hold the primary power. Patriarchal state is a state in which men have access to resources and are more authoritative than women. Liberal feminists view the role of state as a positive one. They believe that state should provide women with the right to vote and promote equal rights for women.
Whereas radical feminist believe that state is designed to empower men and to promote their interests. They claim that state is responsible for gender inequality and oppression towards females by creating 'public'' and 'private' domains and by restricting women to private realm of the state as being housewives or mothers.
If we look at this theory in context of Pakistan then we can see that we have high degree of male dominance in our society. The conditions are different in different areas but in some areas like Sindh and Baluchistan and some areas of KP women have to face a lot of biases. At Zia-Ul-Haq's time most of the laws made were meant to increase the control over land and over women. Hudood ordinance had some clauses that proved quite harmful for women and had given a hard time to a lot of women. If we look at male to female employment ratio than we may find great degrees of wage discrepancies among males and females and females are usually concentrated in low paid jobs or informal sector. While most of the executive positions are held by males. The governments have also tried to decrease gender inequality in our society. A lot of work was done for women empowerment in Musharraf's time. Women were given higher representation in Parliament. Benazir Income Support Programme started by PPP' s government was also targeted at females' income generation programmes.
Hence the role of state can be negative or positive in terms of dealing with gender issues.
1 comment:
I agree that the role of the state can be positive, negative, or anything in between on gender issues.
I think that Pakistan has done far too little to address gender equality issues, particularly when it comes to wages and marital rights. Unfortunately, this problem does not just exist in Pakistan, but also exists in much of the rest of the world. Even in America, a fairly progressive and liberal state, there exists a wage gap between male and female workers. What this goes to show is that issues of gender equality are both salient on the local and global level.
Thank you for the thoughtful post!
Post a Comment