SS 254: Social Anthropology of
Shandana K. Mohmand
M. Omer Sheikh: 2003-02-0129 Wednesday
Propagation and Justification of
Gender Roles
In Pakistani Educated Classes
Gender related issues remain one of the trickiest and bitterest issues in the Pakistani society. From Karo Kari in Sindh to its equivalent honor killings in Punjab by the name of Kala Kali, stove burnings, acid attacks, wife battering and related domestic issues, all form part of the gamut of injustices that the women of Pakistan face.
This paper here does not look at any of the above issues; it goes under, looking for reasons that give rise to the mentality that leads to such injustices being perpetrated.
All injustices originate when a sense of inequality is present. How this inequality is justified and propagated has been studies in detail. What probably has not been considered is how the ideas are furthered and justified in literate and educated households.
Though research in this area is still insignificant there are other indicators which can help us in gaining al least some understanding.
For the purpose of this paper I start closer to home; actually I start from my own home.
Majority of my immediate and extended family is university educated, or hold at least a graduate degree. Despite the level of education, I routinely get to see gender based discrimination between my siblings, myself included. And who is it that differentiates? They are my parents in the first place and the other senior figures in the extended family. Though at times there isn’t much that I stand to lose, I can’t help but keep the thought out of my mind that my sisters are the one who at times complain of being discriminated against. And given today’s popular agenda, they do want equality!
My case study will primarily highlight a few of such instances. Through the case study the main actors will become visible. These actors are usually the ones who exercise the most influence over the construction of the norms in any familial setup.
My main concern is that when at times I am trying to give my sisters or other female members of the family equal opportunity, then why is it considered wrong, out of bounds or not a girl’s job by the adult members of the family? This is odd considering the fact that my family is quite liberal. Then what are the factors that keep them from being progressive?
THE CASE STUDY
The case study is no more than a recollection of anecdotes and instances where in male members of my family were pitched against the female ones over questions of what is acceptable as male or female jobs.
Starting with a personal anecdote, a debate which has taken place at many times and in many forms.
Once back in 1997 after getting back home late, I asked my sister to lock the gate as I had already gone back into the house and she was still in the garage getting her belongings from the car. I was immediately reprimanded for my ‘order’ by my mother. Two reasons she gave. Firstly, her reply was that ‘stop being lazy and stop ordering people around’, since my sister refused to do so. Secondly on a point more relevant to our study, she said that ‘it is the boys’ job to lock the gates at night.” I had quite an argument with my mother on that matter and eventually I had to go and get the task done myself.
What had baffled me at that moment was that I could not see the reason why a ‘girl’ could not have closed the gate at night. Why was the job of closing the gate, a rather simple task of securing the residential compound considered to be the domain of men? This male was certainly not asking for this privilege!
On a more abstract level, if women could argue for equality in all matters with men, then what was wrong with locking a gate like men do?
This shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me had I been more observant earlier and just that I was not hadn’t meant that the signs were not there.
But then to the flip side of the coin were reciprocal acts of discrimination. My mother usually never allows me to play around in the kitchen (probably because I really did play around!) and every time I was ‘told’ by my sisters to do a kitchen job, they were promptly reminded that what they were asking me to do was a ‘girls’ job.
Girls in my own and immediate family are not allowed to take the cars just by themselves without a male escort for security concerns and I must admit that I totally subscribe to that concern. But my argument here is that would have I subscribed to the same idea had it not been put there by the elders of the family. Is it jut a recent concern in the wake of frequent kidnappings that started taking place in the late 80’s to mid 90’s and other crimes targeted specifically against women which are a recent trend? My mother tells us quite proudly that in her childhood the times were good and she would ride a bicycle to her grandparents’ house some 20km’s away.
In other situations if my mother is not the antagonist, then it’s usually my maternal grandmother who raises the issues. Her concerns are most of the time totally religious and historical.
The mere mention in front of my grandmother of the fact that one of the girls is going over to her friends’ house elicits scolds and frowns with the justification that ‘our girls never frequented their friends houses like you girls do!’ or that ‘its not very nice of virtuous girls to go over to friends houses or get-togethers every other day’.
To my sisters protests that I or my brother do the same the standard reply usually is ‘it’s another thing about boys, they have to go out and socialize….” Similar voices are heard from my maternal aunts and uncles even.
There is a marked difference between what spaces are allowable for the girls and what are purely masculine areas. Standing close to the gate or in the car park idly is not a nice thing to do and the better areas are still considered to be the indoors.
Numerous other such issues exist, too numerous for me to recall and pen down right now. But the preceding discussion does lay out the field for our discussion.
THE BASIC REASONS
My grievance had been that I failed to see why educated people might have such reservations when it came to issues of gender.
The reasons that give rise to these dichotomies are many; religion, cultural and societal norms being the main reasons.
Then there are the age old moulds in which everything is fit into. I was prohibited from asking my sister to lock the gate because “…it is regarded as hard work” (Mencher 1987).
In this part of the world, the subcontinent to be specific, religion and culture both Hindu and Muslim is so intertwined that except for in a few cases one can not demarcate the boundaries between the traditions of the two cultures. A lot is told to us that was never a part of Islam the religion, but through the process of reverse assimilation where religion was deliberately read and understood to sanction certain cultural aspects of a region, much has been absorbed in the religions. This adherence to traditions has found its way down to families who claim to be learned and well educated.
This brings me to an interesting argument by Rubina Saigol in her book Knowledge and Identity (ASR Publications, 1995).
She argues that “Social and political entities in
In her ensuing discussion through numerous examples from the school curriculum of primary classes she very effectively highlights how traditionally held beliefs about gender and family are converted to ‘scientific fact’ by appealing to the women and child psychologies (Saigol, 1995).
It is a common observation for us all and especially girls that gender roles are explicitly announced to both sexes starting from late childhood. ‘Differentiations and power pyramids’ are taught early to Pakistani children in school as well. Hierarchical ordering is also taught early on and the father is established as having power and superiority over mother and children as a reproduction of God’s superiority over humankind (Saigol, 1995, pp 118-119).
My earlier arguments about the sphere of masculine and feminine work are clear from the govt. policies that place repeated emphasis on Home Economics and Domestic Science.
With regards to the education policy of Ayub era she very
rightly points put that only those skills were deemed important which helped a
girl become an ‘intelligent and effective wife and mother in order to ensure
the well being of the family’ (Saigol, 1995, pp 187). Hence being able to lock
a gate is a useless exercise to conduct! Given the current state of antiquity
of our academic curricula, most of these educational policies still hold their
place. And underlying all these notions is the male/female dichotomy. Women are
considered akin to religion in that they are often regarded as being more subjective,
personal and emotional. Men on the other hand are opposites since
they are objective, impersonal, rational and detached
and hence men are suited for technical and laborious endeavors (Saigol, 1995,
pp 121). An illustration would be the women of the Walled city of
In south Asian societies such as
All said and done, what do we infer from this brief
discussion? Though the ideas above might appear unrelated they are not. The
subtle link that exists tells us that it is the entire cultural and social
setup of a community or a nation that effects how its people perceive notions
of gender. The social setup includes the government, its agencies and the
governments’ idea of right/wrong, good/evil. Giving in to our religious
considerations and allowing for the encroachment of local custom on religious
beliefs and practices, we can justify the biases to some extent. But go a
little more to the east say in the other Muslim nations and a lot of the
normative gender constructs of
The only way to change the situation in our own country is to change the basic belief system. The way to alter the belief system is education, and unfortunately for us it is government controlled and dictated. My family, parents and myself are the products of this very education system. It is only when we get outside of the system can we see the functioning’s and manipulations of the entire system. No single entity can be blamed alone for the situation at hand.
Only dedicated and objective remedial measures initially targeting our formal and informal education system will be able to bring any change.
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