Gender Inequality and Societal Oppression of Women in Pakistan

Introduction

Healthy families promote balanced societies which can impact the politics of democratic communities around the globe (Rapoport & Rapoport, 2016). Women are integral to this endeavor as they provide the backbone of a family’s functioning through their traditional role as caretakers of the home. Additionally, as women continue to be the primary caregivers of children worldwide, investing in women’s health and education has an impact on intergenerational well-being and mortality rates (De Leon & Boris, 2010; Gakidou et al., 2010; Güneş, 2015). As such. the well-being of women is a significant indicator of a healthy society (Qasim et al., 2018). However, while women make up nearly 50% of the world’s population, they continue to face persistent structural challenges (Bacci, 2017) resulting in disparate experiences of poverty and hunger (i.e., about 60% of those who experience chronic hunger are women and girls; United Nations World Food Programme, 2015), greater rates of illiteracy (i.e., women account for over two-thirds of the illiterate population of the world; Inter-Agency Task Force on Rural Women, 2012), lower wages and longer working hours that typically include unpaid labor such as domestic responsibilities and family care, and less access to leadership roles (UN Women, n.d.). Even though both traditionally male and female roles are needed for a prosperous and healthy society (Garbarino, 2017), tasks that are deemed to be “women’s work” often hold less prestige (Peplow, 2019).

The Convention on the Elimination of all kinds of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) defines “discrimination against women” as “any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field” (United Nations General Assembly, 1979, p. 2). It further affirms “that discrimination against women violates the principles of equality of rights and respect for human dignity, is an obstacle to the participation of women, on equal terms with men, in the political, social, economic and cultural life of their countries, hampers the growth of the prosperity of society and the family and makes more difficult the full development of the potentialities of women in the service of their countries and of humanity” (United Nations General Assembly, 1979, p. 1.).

While gender discrimination is certainly not limited to developing countries (i.e., women in the United States currently make only about 84% of the income of men—a pay gap that has remained the same for the past 15 years; Barroso & Brown, 2021), the manifestations of gender discrimination as well as the perceptions and social acceptance of gender inequality may vary.

In Pakistan, discrimination towards women is rooted in patriarchal norms and steeped in the cultural and traditional values of the Indian subcontinent (Ali et al., 2011; Zaman et. Al., 2006). Gender discrimination is a pervasive force across the lifespan, appearing in childhood (Delavande & Zafar, 2013) in the differential (less or lower quality) access that girls receive to food, education, and medical care (Ali et al., 2011), but also appears in attitudes and behaviors that often surface prior to the birth of a female child. The lower desirability of female births is evidenced, for example, by practices such as prenatal sex selection, female feticide and female infanticide (Agha, 2018).