GENDER STUDIES

COMPLETE NOTES
by

NASIR KHAN

The difference between Gender Studies and Women studies

Gender Studies

 The academic discipline which analyses constructions of gender in society, often with reference
to class, race, sexuality and other sociological characteristics.
 Gender studies focus on the socio-economic and political role, rights and responsibilities of male,
female and third gender (LGBT).
 The field emerged from a number of different areas: the sociology of the 1950s and later; the
theories of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan; and the work of feminists such as Judith Butler.
 Gender studies developed alongside and emerged out of Women’s Studies, which consolidated
as an academic field of inquiry in the 1970s.
 Gender study has many different forms. One view exposed by the philosopher Simone de
Beauvoir said: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one"
 This view proposes that in gender studies, the term "gender" should be used to refer to the social
and cultural constructions of masculinities and femininities, not to the state of being male or
female in its entirety.

 Gender Studies interrogates the way societies conceive gender, how those cultural categories
affect the way individuals are treated within society, and the ways in which that cultural
understanding of gender categories interacts with all the other products of culture (how journalism
reports, how things are marketed, etc).

Women’s studies

 The multidisciplinary study of the social status and societal contributions of women and the
relationship between power and gender.
 Women’s studies, since its inception in around the mid 20th century, was the study of the
particular issues about women. It concerned itself with the problems and struggles women used
to face. Such studies led to development program like Women in Development (WID) in the 70s.
 Gender studies on the other hand studies the relationship between both men and women, and
also their relationships with their societies as a whole. How they are conceived and shaped, how
they presume their identity and their roles within those identities. it is a much more diverse type of
study than women’s studies.

 Women’s Studies interrogates the history of women and their contributions to society (and how
society has treated them).
 Mainly in the Women studies, consideration is all about women history while in Gender studies, it
show men’s role in women history.
 In Women studies the primarily focus is on women development, and in gender studies, it focuses
on women studies, men’s studies and as well as Queer studies.
 In nutshell, the Women's & Gender Studies is an interdisciplinary academic program that examines
the cultural and social construction of gender, explores the history, experiences and contributions of
women to society, and studies the influences of gender on the lives of women and men.

Autonomy/integration debate in Women's Studies

 The great "Autonomy vs. Integration Debate" was born out of alarm on the part of some Women's
Studies scholars about the rapid proliferation of curriculum integration projects.
 Some scholars would prefer to focus on questions germane to Women's Studies' autonomy as a
discipline. For instance, they feel that "Women's Studies is not ready for integration into
'mainstream' departments, because it is still too focused on white, middle-class, heterosexual,
young, able women; and it can never be truly autonomous as long as it is in the academy .
 Women's Studies' claim to a unique focus in the academy "on the gender system as a central part
of human social and cultural organization, and our parallel work to reconstruct knowledge itself
from a woman's viewpoint."
 Women's Studies effort is "' autonomous or woman-centered' and one 'integrationist' and so (in
their view) necessarily involved with having to placate the academic powers that be" is erroneous.
 It rightly states that "For women and for men, working to transform the curriculum through
women's studies requires political, intellectual, and personal change."
 Women's Studies scholars who are reluctant to participate in curriculum integration projects
because they feel either' that Women's Studies is thereby co-opted by non-feminist men, or is
diluted through their efforts, would do well to examine assessments of the outcomes of curriculum
integration projects.

Current women status in Pakistan

The status of women in Pakistan is not homogenous because of the interconnection of gender with
other forms of exclusion in the society.

 There is considerable diversity in the status of women across classes, regions, and the
rural/urban divide due to uneven socioeconomic development and the impact of tribal, feudal, and
capitalist social formations on women’s lives.
 Gender is one of the organizing principles of Pakistani society. Patriarchal values embedded in
local traditions and culture predetermine the social value of gender.
 An artificial divide between production and reproduction, created by the ideology of sexual
division of labor, has placed women in reproductive roles as mothers and wives in the private
arena of home and men in a productive role as breadwinners in the public arena.
 This has led to a low level of resource investment in women by the family and the State.
 The low health status of women is the result of women’s lower social, economic, and cultural
standing.
 Social and familial control over women’s sexuality, their economic dependence on men, and
restrictions on their mobility determine differential access of males and females to health
services.
 Early marriages of girls, excessive childbearing, lack of control over their own bodies, and a high
level of illiteracy adversely affect women’s health.
 Women suffer most from nutritional deprivation in low-income households. Poverty also forces
women to work harder to earn and protect their families from starvation.
 Women lack ownership of productive resources. Despite women’s legal rights to own and inherit
property from their families, there are very few women who have access and control over these
resources.
  Due to high unemployment, more and more women are seeking income earning opportunities in
the job market.
 Exploitative working conditions at the workplace, compounded by oppressive conditions at home
where women continue to take the sole responsibility for domestic work, overburdened them to
the detriment of their health.
 Domestic violence is fairly widespread across all classes. It ranges from slapping, hitting, and
kicking, to murder. Since the society, police and law enforcing agencies view domestic violence
as a private matter, it goes unnoticed until it takes extreme forms of murder or attempted murder.
 Political role of women is also undermined in Pakistan.

Status of Gender Studies in Pakistan

In Pakistan, there are 12 universities and colleges which are offering BS 4 years degree in Gender
Studies and 5 universities are offering MPhil in Gender Studies and only one university that University of
the Punjab offering PhD in Pakistan.

 Most Gender Studies departments in Pakistan are off shoots of what began as Women Studies to
introduce a five-year project in 1989 by the Women’s Development Division, Government of
Pakistan.
 When the five-year project initiated the purpose was to create social change in the society by
recognizing women as agents of change; to inculcate an academic culture valuing women’s
experiences and contributions; to promote respect for women’s human rights; encourage
sensitivity to gender issues and patriarchal norms; and to create strategies for empowering
women and other genders.
 However, catering to the requirements of the 21st century Women’s Studies was more
specifically known as Gender Studies.
 As Women’s Studies focus was more on women and feminism, Gender Studies, being more
inclusive encompasses issues related to all sexualities including, but not limited to, Lesbians,
Gays, Bisexuals, Transgender, Intersex, and Queer (LGBTIQ) as well.
 Even a cursory glance at the content of the courses offered today in Gender Studies includes
women, men, children and others including sexual minorities.

Scope and Mission of Gender Studies in Pakistan

 Gender Studies is an inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary academic field devoted to various

aspects of identity and representation across societies and cultures.
 Provide gender specialists and analysts for public and private sector, NGOs, INGOs, GOs, IGOs
and public policy matters;
 Train future academics and researchers in the discipline.

Mission

The mission of Gender Studies is to train students in such a way that they learn to critically
analyze patriarchal structures that hamper the growth of an egalitarian society socio-economically,
culturally, politically, and religiously. Moreover, the aim is to equip students to develop a research culture
that encourages and contributes to gender equality and equity.

Gender Studies adopted the following Mission Statement in 2016:

 To engage students in an on-going academic activity through class-discussions and research in

the production and dissemination of knowledge that promotes equity and equality.
  Through interdisciplinary teaching, research, and community outreach, it seeks to create a more
inclusive and transformative understanding across genders.
 The discipline explores the intersections of genders, sexualities, ethnicities, nationality, and social
class.
 To serve as a catalyst for curricular, institutional, societal and global change.

Historicizing Constructionism

 Historicizing means when one presents something as a product of historical development.

Constructionism means that we view the world through certain self made constructs(or ideas
about reality).
 Historicizing Constructionism hence means that over the course of history certain ideas have
been constructed about gender. These ideas have been enforced and reinforced throughout time.
So in today’s world they are not presented as constructs but as essential truths which have been
established through historical development of man.

What is social constructionism?

 It means that our realities are based on our experiences and interactions with other people. We
experience the world through our own opinions. These opinions are constructed through a
number of things such as culture, mores, tradition, beliefs and values.

The following are the theories of constructionism

1. Gender Performativity

The term "gender performativity" was first coined in American philosopher and gender theorist Judith
Butler's 1990

 The technical term “performative” means for Butler an act that not only communicates but also
creates an identity.
 “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman,” wrote Simone de Beauvoir in one of the most
famous articulations of the difference between sex and gender. By this, de Beauvoir does not
mean us to believe that no one is born with reproductive organs, but that the social role of
“woman” (or for that matter “man”) comes from a collection of behaviors into which we are
socialized.
 Gender performativity means that gender is not an essential category. The repetitious
performances of “male” and “female” in accordance with social norms reifies the categories,
creating the appearance of a naturalized and essential binary.
 We reinforce the notion that there are only two mutually exclusive categories of gender.
 The internalized belief that men and women are essentially different is what makes men and
women behave in ways that appear essentially different. Gender is maintained as a category
through socially constructed displays of gender.
 Certainly, gender is internalized and acquires significance for the individual; some individuals
want to feel feminine or masculine.
 Social constructionists might argue that because categories are only formed within a social
context, even the affect of gender is in some ways a social relation.
 Moreover, we hold ourselves and each other for our presentation of gender, or how we “measure
up.” We are aware that others evaluate and characterize our behavior on the parameter of
 gender. Social constructionists would say that gender is interactional rather than individual; it is
developed through social interactions.
 Gender is also said to be Omni-relevant, meaning that people are always judging our behavior to
be either male or female.

2. Essentialism

 Essentialism is the opposite to the constructionism

 Social constructionist approaches to understanding the world challenge the essentialist or
biological determinist understandings that typically underpin the “common sense” ways in which
we think about race, gender, and sexuality. 
 Essentialism is the idea that the characteristics of persons or groups are significantly influenced
by biological factors, and are therefore largely similar in all human cultures and historical periods.
 an essentialist understanding of sexuality would argue that not only do all people have a sexual
orientation, but that an individual’s sexual orientation does not vary across time or place. In this
example, “sexual orientation” is a given “truth” to individuals; it is thought to be inherent,
biologically determined, and essential to their being.
 Essentialism typically relies on a biological determinist theory of identity. 
 Biological determinism can be defined as a general theory, which holds that a group’s biological
or genetic makeup shapes its social, political, and economic destiny.

3. Feminist Understandings – Gender and Power

 The social construction framework explains that there is no essential, universally distinct
character that is masculine or feminine - behaviours are influenced by a range of factors including
class, culture, ability, religion, age, body shape and sexual preference.

 Construction of gender theory argues that girls and boys are actively involved in constructing their
own gendered identities.

 Men and women can even take up a range of different masculinities and femininities that may at
times contradict each other.

 This construction of gender identities (or subjectivities), varieties of femininities or masculinities, is

also seen as dynamic, ongoing, changing and changeable, rather than static or fixed.

 It is asserted that we “are not passively shaped by the larger societal forces such as schools or
the media, but are active in selecting, adapting and rejecting the dimensions we choose to
incorporate, or not, into our version of gender”.

 Feminist and pro-feminist researchers have also emphasised how power is contextually and
historically shaped and regulated and linked to the benefits and costs of “emphasised femininity”
based on “compliance and accommodating the desires and interests of men”” and “hegemonic
masculinity” characterised by power, authority, aggression, technical competence and
heterosexuality.

4. Anti-feminism
  The media informs or maintains the ignorance of many educators related to the gender issues.
 These issues are gaining unnecessary importance.
 Researchers agree about the strong influence of an often explicit antifeminist backlash in the
media and in popular literature about boys and education issues.
 The characteristics of this rhetoric include an essentialisation of masculinity and a positioning of
men and boys as the new victims or competing victims.
 Many of their arguments are unclear, confused and contradictory, and some are highly emotive.
 It points to how the critical analysis of feminists has publicly challenged the assumptions of
dominant masculinity and affirms the necessity of acknowledging and respecting their insight.
 An actively feminist approach is required to address perceptions such that male workers in boys’
education and research are greater authorities than women; that we need more male role models
and teachers; negative attitudes from boys to women who are working with boys; backlash
assumptions such as the need for empowerment of boys; attitudes that boys have been
neglected and are disadvantaged; and the evident underutilisation of resources which refer to the
social construction of gender.

5. Socialisation/ Sex Role Theory

 This is the theory that boys and girls experience a passive, sponge-like absorption of messages,
from models of masculinity and femininity, which is mediated through social institutions such as
the family and schools.
 Behaviours and identities are seen to be consistent and problems are described as a product of
attitudes passively acquired through socialisation.
 This explanation has been found to be insufficient on a number of levels. A fundamental problem
is the strong link between socialisation theory and biological determinism theory.
 Socialisation theory actually reinforces ideas about difference based on biology.
 Sex role theory is problematic in the same way that we don’t talk about essential and immutable
race or class differences or race roles or class roles - because the exercise of power in these
areas of social life is more obvious.
 Emerging understandings point to the risk of essentialising gender and the need to move beyond
dualism.
 The socialisation explanation also fails to account for individual agency in choosing ideas and
behaviours, or the influence of gendered power differentials in diverse environments.
 This notion of choice or agency is a significant gap in the socialisation explanation for behaviour
and is accounted for in the social construction of gender model.

6. Masculinities and Femininity

Masculinity

Ideas about masculinity and femininity are socially constructed. They vary across different cultures
and societies as well as history. Femininity and masculinity are based upon, amongst other things, the
social roles that women and men are expected toper form in their lives.

 Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles

associated with boys and men. As a social construct, it is distinct from the  definition of the male
biological sex.
 Masculinity varies for each man dependent on personality, family and culture.
 Men in different social positions have different resources available to them for the successful
demonstration of their manhood and the successful construction of a masculine identity.
  Further, men wield and access power in different ways, depending on their status in other
domains, such as class.
 Some men can use economic resources to demonstrate social power and masculine
achievement, whereas men of limited economic means do not have that option.
 Hegemonic masculinity is clearly the most popular and influential type of masculinities.
 It is related to the control of others in society.
 This is because hegemonic men find hegemonic masculinity significant for them to maintain
authority over women and subordinated men.
 Hegemonic masculinity proposes that society consents to masculinity as dominant and superior
to femininity suggesting that men have rights to certain positions and roles in society, which
inherently disadvantages women.

Femininity

 Feminine is opposed to masculine. The problem is, defining ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ is
dependent on: time, place, and cultural norms.
 Femininity (also called girlishness, womanliness or womanhood) is a set of attributes, behaviors,
and roles generally associated with girls and women.
 This makes it distinct from the definition of the biological female sex, as both males and females
can exhibit feminine traits.
 Femininity can be cultivated to reflect your values and priorities. It can communicate
enormous self-confidence as well, as you embrace being feminine, and refuse to be ashamed of
“acting like a woman.”

7. Queer Theory

 Queer theory developed in mid 1980s. The term was coined by Teresa de Lauretis.
 In the late 1970s and 1980s problems regarding the recognition of homosexuality led to
widespread activism.
  The Gay Liberation Front was born in 1970 in Britain and it, along with other campaigns such as
Campaign for Homosexual Equality, began to work for law reform.
 Public policies in the mid 1980s were selectively blind to the plight of gay men who had
contracted AIDS.
 It is estimated that 20,000 men died by 1987.
 This led to setting up of in-formal and nongovernmental health centres by civilians. Like the
women of the second wave, these gay individuals were incensed by the casual attitude shown by
the government.
 In such an atmosphere the idea of fluidity of gender was created.
 It led to the idea that gay individuals were no different than others and that their sexuality did not
mean something was wrong with them. It was rather the heterosexual men and women who were
acting according to social constructs.
 It is a set of ideas based around the fact that identities are not fixed and do not determine who we
are. It suggests that it is meaningless to talk in general about 'women' or any other group, as
identities consist of many different elements.
 It is wrong to think that people can be seen collectively on the basis of one shared characteristic
such as men, gay, lesbian.
 Queer theory proposes that we should deliberately challenge all notions of fixed identity, in
unconventional ways. It denies that heterosexuality is normal or natural.

Criticism on Queer Theory

 For most people, their sexual identity isn't fluid, it's constant.
 Queer theory focuses on cultural texts (rather than real life) where it is easier to find sexual or
gender ambiguities.
 Discrimination at home and at work, for everyday gay people, is forgotten about in this approach
as it reduces everyone to the same fluid identity.
 By celebrating difference, queer politics makes the 'gay' or 'lesbian' identity all too important.
Other identities such as heterosexuality or asexuality are ignored.
 Queer theory celebrates pleasure and therefore puts too much emphasis on sex.

Nature versus Culture: A Debate in Gender Development

 Nature vs Culture debate is a debate on what influences our gender. Do identify as females
because it has been re-inforced by our culture or because it is part of our biology?
 Research at the Johns Hopkins Children Center has shown that gender identity is almost entirely
based on nature and is almost exclusively predetermined before the birth of the baby.
 Two studies conducted by William Reiner, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and urologist, have
confirmed that the amount of exposure to male hormones and androgens in utero almost
exclusively decides whether the child identifies as masculine or feminine.
 Gender may not totally be culturally constructed and certain aspects are a result of nature.
 However we can also argue that traits of masculinity or femininity may rest on cultural factors.

Other natural differences between binary genders are;

 Females attain puberty earlier than males

 There is difference in bone development and structure between both
 There is research to suggest that males are better math and females are betterat multitasking
and speaking.
What is Feminism?

 Feminism is a social movement and ideology that fights for the political, economic and social
rights aimed at establishing equal rights and legal protection for women.
 The terms "feminism" and "feminist" did not gain widespread use until the 1970s, they were
already being used in the public parlance much earlier; for instance, Katherine Hepburn
speaks of the "feminist movement" in the 1942 film Woman of the Year.
 Simone de Beauvoir wrote that "the first time we see a woman take up her pen in defense of
her sex" was Christine de Pizan who wrote ‘Epistle to the God of Love’ in the 15th century.
 Feminists believe that men and women are equal, and women deserve the same rights as
men in society.
 The feminist movement has fought for many different causes, such as the right for women to
vote, the right to work and the right to live free from violence.
 Almost all modern societal structures are patriarchal and are constructed in such a way that
men are the dominant force in making the majority of political, economic, and cultural
decisions.
 Feminism focuses on the idea that since women comprise one-half of the world population,
true social progress can never be achieved without the complete and spontaneous
participation of women.
 The feminist assumption is that women are not treated equally to men and as a result,
women are disadvantaged in comparison to men.
 Feminism seeks to achieve equal treatment and opportunity for women and men in order to
achieve similar opportunities across different fields of work and culture and equal respect in a
variety of roles.
 The goal of feminism is to create non-discrimination, which is essential for creating equality
to ensure that no one is denied their rights due to factors such as race, gender, language,
religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, political or other beliefs, nationality, social origin,
class, or wealth status.
 Famous feminists include Beyonce, Lena Dunham, Amy Poehler, Tavi Gevinson, Lorde and
many more.

Theories of Feminism

In 1983, Alison Jaggar published Feminist Politics and Human Nature where she defined four theories
related to feminism:

1. Liberal Feminism
2. Radical Feminism
3. Marxist Feminism
4. Socialist Feminism

1. Liberal feminism

 Liberal feminism's primary goal is gender equality in the public sphere, such as equal access
to education, equal pay, ending job sex segregation, and better working conditions. From this
standpoint, legal changes would make these goals possible.
 Liberal feminism is an individualistic form of feminist theory, which focuses on women's ability
to maintain their equality through their own actions and choices.
   Liberal feminists argue that society holds the false belief that women are, by nature, less
intellectually and physically capable than men; thus it tends to discriminate against women in the
academy, the forum, and the marketplace.
 Liberal feminists believe that "female subordination is rooted in a set of customary and legal
constraints that blocks women's entrance to and success in the so-called public world". They
strive for sexual equality via political and legal reform.
 According to Liberal feminism, social customs and laws are the major causes of women
oppression and suppression in societies.
 Liberal feminism is built upon two inter-related elements. Firstly, women are rational
individuals entitled to inalienable and universal human rights. In the eloquent words of the
pioneering first-wave feminist Mary Wollstonecraft; “the mind has no gender.” In the context
of gender equality, liberal feminists advocate a society in which women hold political equality
with men. The second aspect of liberal feminism is the aim to facilitate a diversity of lifestyles
amongst women.
 Diversity is the watchword of liberal feminists and the guiding principle should be one shaped
by individual choice.
 A society governed by liberal feminism enables women (and men) to maximise their personal
freedom to the very full.
 Passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) has been a key goal for liberal feminists.
 Liberal feminism as theory and work that concentrates more on issues such as equality in the
workplace, in education, and in political rights. Liberal feminism also focuses on how private
life impedes or enhances public equality.
 liberal feminists tend to support marriage as an equal partnership, and more male
involvement in child care. Support for abortion and other reproductive rights have to do with
control of one's life and autonomy.
 Ending domestic violence and sexual harassment remove obstacles to women achieving on
an equal level with men.
 Liberals hold that freedom is a fundamental value, and that the just state ensures freedom for
individuals.
 Liberal feminism conceives of freedom as personal autonomy living a life of one's own
choosing.
 Liberal feminists hold that the exercise of personal autonomy depends on certain enabling
conditions that are insufficiently present in women's lives, or that social arrangements often
fail to respect women's personal autonomy and other elements of women's flourishing.
 They hold also that women's needs and interests are insufficiently reflected in the basic
conditions under which they live, and that those conditions lack legitimacy because women
are inadequately represented in the processes of democratic self-determination.
 The state should ensure that the basic structure of society satisfies principles of justice that
women, as well as men, could endorse.
 Others argue that the democratic legitimacy of the basic conditions under which citizens live
depends on the inclusion of women in the processes of public deliberation and electoral
politics.

Liberal feminists believe they want the same things men want:

 to get an education
 to make a decent living
 to provide for one's family.
Solution of Women oppression

 To amend the social customs and laws to eradicate the women oppression.
 Liberal feminism support affirmative action legislation requiring employers and educational
institutions to make special attempts to include women in the pool of applicants.

Criticism

 Critics of liberal feminism point to a lack of critique of basic gender relationships, a focus on state
action which links women's interests to those of the powerful, a lack of class or race analysis, and
a lack of analysis of ways in which women are different from men.
 Critics often accuse liberal feminism of judging women and their success by male standards.
 Liberal feminism promotes racial equality because it focused on the white women.
 Individual feminism often opposes legislative or state action, preferring to emphasize developing
the skills and abilities of women to compete better in the world as it is.
 This feminism opposes laws that give either men or women advantages and privileges.

2. Radical Feminism

 A radical feminist aims to dismantle patriarchy rather than making adjustments to the system
through legal changes. 
 Radical feminists also resist reducing oppression to an economic or class issue, as socialist or
Marxist feminism sometimes did or does. 
 Radical feminism opposes patriarchy, not men.
 Radical feminism focuses on male oppression of females both privately and politically.
 Radical feminists claim that the central issue is the subordination of women by men within the
private and political spheres.
 Radical feminism was rooted in the wider radical contemporary movement. Women who
participated in the anti-war and New Left political movements of the 1960s found themselves
excluded from equal power by the men within the movement, despite the movements' supposed
underlying values of empowerment. 
 Many of these women split off into specifically feminist groups, while still retaining much of their
original political radical ideals and methods. 

Key Issues and Tactics

 Reproductive rights for women, including the freedom to make choices to give birth, have
an abortion, use birth control, or get sterilized
 Evaluating and then breaking down traditional gender roles in private relationships as well as in
public policies
 Understanding pornography as an industry and practice leading to harm to women, although
some radical feminists disagreed with this position
 Understanding rape as an expression of patriarchal power, not a seeking of sex
 Understanding prostitution under patriarchy as the oppression of women, sexually and
economically
 A critique of motherhood, marriage, the nuclear family, and sexuality, questioning how much of
our culture is based on patriarchal assumptions
 A critique of other institutions, including government and religion, as centered historically in
patriarchal power
3. Marxist feminism 

 Marxist feminism is feminism focused on investigating and explaining the ways in which

women are oppressed through systems of capitalism and private property.
 According to Marxist feminists, women's liberation can only be achieved through a radical
restructuring of capitalist economies, in which, they contend, much of women's labor is
uncompensated.
 Marxism follows the development of oppression and class division in the evolution of human
society, revolving around the evolution and organisation of wealth and production, and
concludes the evolution of oppressive societal structure to be relative to the evolution of
oppressive family structures.
 Marxist feminists look on class and gender inequalities as dual systems of oppression, with both
being very powerful and independent systems. 
 Marxist feminists often argue that class and gender inequalities reinforce each other and create
groups that are doubly oppressed.
 Various relationships, such as those between males and females, relationships in the family,
prostitution, surrogate mother hood, etc. may appear to express equality, but because of the
underlying unequal power relations conceal great inequalities.

4. Socialist Feminism

 The phrase "socialist feminism" was increasingly used during the 1970s to describe a mixed
theoretical and practical approach to achieving women's equality.
 Socialist feminist theory analyzed the connection between the oppression of women and
other oppressions in society, such as racism and economic injustice.
 Like Marxism, socialist feminism recognized the oppressive structure of a capitalist society.
Like radical feminism, socialist feminism recognized the fundamental oppression of women,
particularly in a patriarchal society.
 However, socialist feminists did not recognize gender and only gender as the exclusive basis
of all oppression.
 Rather, they held and continue to hold that class and gender are symbiotic, at least to some
degree, and one cannot be addressed without taking the other into consideration.
 Socialist feminists wanted to integrate the recognition of sex discrimination within their work
to achieve justice and equality for women, for working classes, for the poor and all humanity.
 Women are the most oppressed of every oppressed group.
 No one needs revolutionary transformation of society worse than they do and no other group
has the capacity to unite the oppressed in a mighty, working class movement that addresses
all the injustices suffered by the dispossessed under capitalism: racism, poverty,
homophobia, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, ageism, and war.
 The profit system survives on women’s unpaid labor in the home and low-waged labor in
market place.
 Both men and women have a stake in changing their unequal relationship. The subjugation of
females lays the basis for ruling class exploitation of poor and working class males of all
races, nationalities, abilities and sexual orientations.
 The profit system, and the oppression of women which keep it afloat, must be overthrown for
women, children and men to be free of economic insecurity and discrimination.
 Working class men who are feminists know that when they fight for women’s rights, they are
making a stand for all the exploited including themselves.
  Socialist feminism would turn capitalism and the subjugation of women and all other
underdogs upside down.
 First, because socialism replaces the current system of wealth for a few with a system that
can meet the human needs of the majority.
 Secondly, because the fight for women’s equality, with the lowest paid and most oppressed in
the leadership, would guarantee everyone wins, because when those at the bottom of the
economic ladder rise up, everyone moves up with them.

5. Psychoanalytical Feminism

 Psychoanalysis is concerned with analysis of mind i.e. the psyche’s structure and its relation to
the body, and use that as the basis for treating certain kinds of sickness.
 The two major schools of psychoanalytic feminism are Freudian and Lacanian.
1. Freudian feminists, mostly Anglo-American, are more concerned with the production
of male dominance and the development of gendered subjects in societies where
women are responsible for mothering,
2. Whereas Lacanian feminists, mostly French, analyze links between gendered identity
and language. 
 Psychoanalytic feminism is a theory of oppression, which asserts that men have an inherent
psychological need to subjugate women. The root of men's compulsion to dominate women
and women's minimal resistance to subjugation lies deep within the human psyche.
 This branch of feminism seeks to gain insight into how our psychic lives develop in order to better
understand and change women's oppression.
 The pattern of oppression is also integrated into society, thus creating and sustaining patriarchy.
 Through the application of psychoanalytic techniques to studying differences between women
and men as well as the ways in which gender is constructed, it is possible to reorganize
socialization patterns at the early stages of human life.
 Societal change, or a “cure,” can be developed through discovering the source of domination in
men's psyche and subordination in women's, which largely resides unrecognized in individuals'
unconscious.
 Psychoanalysis is closely associated with gender, sex, familial relations and the fact that their
expression and construction are not always available to the conscious mind which is also central
interest to feminism.
 Psychoanalytic and gender feminists believe “women’s way of acting is rooted deep in women’s
psyche.”

6. Postmodern feminism

 The goal of postmodern feminism is to destabilize the patriarchal norms entrenched in society
that has led to gender inequality.
 Postmodern feminism is a new branch of feminism that strives for equality for women within the
category of women. While doing so, they take into account the differences among the women on
the basis of class and race.
 Postmodern feminists seek to accomplish this goal through rejecting essentialism, philosophy,
and universal truths in favor of embracing the differences that exist amongst women to
demonstrate that not all women are the same.
 These ideologies are rejected by postmodern feminists because they believe if a universal truth is
applied to all woman of society, it minimizes individual experience, hence they warn women to be
 aware of ideas displayed as the norm in society since it may stem from masculine notions of how
women should be portrayed.
 Postmodern feminists seek to analyze any notions that have led to gender inequality in society.
Postmodern feminists analyze these notions and attempt to promote equality of gender through
critiquing logocentrism, supporting multiple discourses, deconstructing texts, and seeking to
promote subjectivity.
 Postmodern feminists are accredited with drawing attention to dichotomies in society and
demonstrating how language influences the difference in treatment of genders.
 The postmodern feminist theorist intend to:
 Identify feminist perceptive of society.
 Examine the way social world affects women.
 Analyse the role played by power and knowledge relationships in shaping the women’s
perception of the social world.
 Devise the ways through which social world can be changed.

 Women are required to put themselves in words.

 Postmodern Feminists accept the male/female binary as a main categorizing force in our society.
 Women must write about themselves outside the world that man has constructed for them.
 Cixous insists women to write as their writings will transform the way western world “thinks,
speaks and acts”. This will eventually change the cultural and social standard.
 Postmodern feminists share a political agenda with the American feminism who believe that
regardless of one’s perspective each feminist aims to change social and political order to end
women’s oppression.
 Political action is a necessary step to redress the injustices done to women.
 By uniting women as one category, feminists reflect the interests of the higher status women.
 As a result, they ignore the interests of the black women, women from the third world and
lesbians.
 Postmodern feminism's is perhaps the argument that sex, or at least gender, is itself constructed
through language, a view notably propounded in Judith Butler’s work.
 Butler criticises the distinction drawn by previous feminisms between (biological) sex and (socially
constructed) gender. She asks why we assume that material things (such as the body) are not
subject to processes of social construction themselves
 Women’s subordination has no single cause or single solution; postmodern feminism is thus
criticized for offering no clear path to action. Butler herself rejects the term "postmodernism" as
too vague to be meaningful.
First wave feminism

 First wave feminism was critical in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in giving women the right
to vote and basic rights such as in property.
 While the roots of this feminism are not clear, new movements from the Enlightenment and
industrialization began to focus on female rights and individuality.
 The 19th century was a time where people questioned basic rights and who had access to them.
 It emerged that both sexes, as well as different races, should have basic given rights such as
emancipation, rights to vote, and rights to own property, even though the battles for equality
continued into the 20th century.
 First-wave feminism promoted equal contract and property rights for women, opposing ownership
of married women by their husbands.
 Achieving the right to vote was generally seen as the major achievement for first wave feminists.
  The first wave had marginalized black women, who faced discrimination based on race as well as
gender.
 First-wave feminism ended with passage of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1919,
granting women voting rights.

Second-wave feminism

“Socio-cultural rights”

 Second-wave feminism of the 1960s-1980s focused on issues of equality and discrimination.

 The second-wave slogan, “The Personal is Political,” identified women’s cultural and political
inequalities as inextricably linked and encouraged women to understand how their personal lives
reflected sexist power structures.
 Betty Friedan was a key player in second-wave feminism; in 1963, her book “The Feminine
Mystique” criticized the idea that women could find fulfillment only through childrearing and
homemaking.
 Friedan hypothesizes that women are victims of false beliefs requiring them to find identity in their
lives through husbands and children. This causes women to lose their own identities in that of
their family.
 Ultimately, the second wave feminist movement gave women the opportunity to start
conversations about how social inequality and begin to think about gender, identity, sexuality,
race, and class as all equally important factors.

Third Wave Feminism

The “micropolitics” of gender equality

 The third wave of feminism began in the mid-90's and was informed by post-colonial and post-
modern thinking.
 In this phase many constructs were destabilized, including the notions of "universal womanhood,"
body, gender, sexuality and heteronormativity.
 One of third-wave feminism's primary goals was to demonstrate that access to contraception
and abortion are women's reproductive rights.
 It is not feminism's goal to control any woman's fertility, only to free each woman to control her
own.
 Third-wave ideology focused on a more post-structuralist interpretation of gender and sexuality.
Post-structuralist feminists saw binaries such as male–female as an artificial construct created to
maintain the power of the dominant group
 An aspect of third wave feminism that mystified the mothers of the earlier feminist movement was
the read option by young feminists of the very lip-stick, high-heels, and cleavage proudly exposed
by low cut necklines that the first two phases of the movement identified with male oppression.
 Pinkfloor expressed this new position when said that it's possible to have a push-up bra and a
brain at the same time.
 The "girls" of the third wave stepped onto the stage as strong and empowered, avoiding
victimization and defining feminine beauty for themselves as subjects, not as objects of a sexist
patriarchy.
 They developed rhetoric of mimicry, which appropriated derogatory terms like "slut" and "bitch" in
order to subvert sexist culture and deprive it of verbal weapons.

Issue
  Violence against women
 Reproductive rights
 Reclaiming derogatory terms
 Sexual liberation
 Third-wave feminism regarded race, social class, and transgender rights as central issues.
 It also paid attention to workplace matters such as the glass ceiling, unfair maternity-leave
policies, motherhood support for single mothers by means of welfare and child care, respect for
working mothers, and the rights of mothers who decide to leave their careers to raise their
children full-time.

World Conferences on Women

The United Nations has organized four world conferences on women. These took place in Mexico
City in 1975, Copenhagen in 1980, Nairobi in 1985 and Beijing in 1995. The last was followed by a series
of five-year reviews.

Mexico Conference 1975

The Commission on the Status of Women called for the organization of the first world conference
on women to coincide with International Women’s Year. The World Conference of the International
Women's Year was subsequently held in Mexico City; 133 governments participated, while 6,000 NGO
representatives attended a parallel forum, the International Women’s Year Tribune. The conference
defined a World Plan of Action for the Implementation of the Objectives of the International Women’s
Year, which offered a comprehensive set of guidelines for the advancement of women.

The Mexico City Conference was called for by the United Nations General Assembly to focus
international attention on the need to develop future oriented goals, effective strategies and plans of
action for the advancement of women. To this end, the General Assembly identified three key objectives
that would become the basis for the work of the United Nations on behalf of women:

 Full gender equality and the elimination of gender discrimination;

 The integration and full participation of women in development;
 An increased contribution by women in the strengthening of world peace

The World Conference of the International Women's Year, Recognizing that women of the entire
world, whatever differences exist between them, share the painful experience of receiving or having
received unequal treatment, and that as their awareness of this phenomenon increases they will become
natural allies in the struggle against any form of oppression, such as is practiced under colonialism, neo-
colonialism, zionism, racial discrimination and apartheid, thereby constituting an enormous revolutionary
potential for economic and social change in the world today.

Copenhagen Conference 1980

145 Member States gathered for the mid-decade World Conference of the United Nations
Decade for Women in Copenhagen. It aimed to review progress in implementing the goals of the first
world conference, focusing on employment, health and education. A Programme of Action called for
stronger national measures to ensure women’s ownership and control of property, as well as
improvements in protecting women’s rights to inheritance, child custody and nationality.
 This Conference recognized that there was a disparity between women's guaranteed rights and
their capacity to exercise them. Participants identified three spheres in which measures for equality,
development and peace were needed:

 Equal access to education;

 Equal access to employment opportunities;
 Equal access to adequate health care services.

Nairobi Conference 1985

The World Conference to Review and Appraise the Achievements of the UN Decade for Women
took place in Nairobi. The conference’s mandate was to establish concrete measures to overcome
obstacles to achieving the Decade’s goals. Participants included 1,900 delegates from 157 Member
States; a parallel NGO Forum attracted around 12,000 participants. Governments adopted the Nairobi
Forward-Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women, which outlined measures for achieving
gender equality at the national level and for promoting women’s participation in peace and development
efforts.

The Nairobi Conference was mandated to seek new ways of overcoming obstacles for achieving
the objectives of the Decade: equality, development and peace.

Three basic categories were established to measure the progress achieved:

 Constitutional and legal measures;

 Equality in social participation;
 Equality in political participation and decision-making.

The Nairobi Conference recognized that gender equality was not an isolated issue, but
encompassed all areas of human activity. It was necessary for women to participate in all spheres, not
only in those relating to gender.

Beijing Conference 1995

The 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing marked a significant turning point for
the global agenda for gender equality. The Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action, adopted
unanimously by 189 countries, is an agenda for women’s empowerment and considered the key global
policy document on gender equality. It sets strategic objectives and actions for the advancement of
women and the achievement of gender equality in 12 critical areas of concern:

 Women and poverty

 Education and training of women
 Women and health
 Violence against women
 Women and armed conflict
 Women and the economy
 Women in power and decision-making
 Institutional mechanism for the advancement of women
 Human rights of women
 Women and the media
 Women and the environment
 The girl-child
The Beijing conference built on political agreements reached at the three previous global conferences on
women, and consolidated five decades of legal advances aimed at securing the equality of women with
men in law and in practice. More than 17,000 participants attended, including 6,000 government
delegates at the negotiations, along with more than 4,000 accredited NGO representatives, a host of
international civil servants and around 4,000 media representatives. A parallel NGO Forum held in
Huairou near Beijing also drew some 30,000 participants.

Follow-up to Beijing

2000: The General Assembly decided to hold a 23rd special session to conduct a five-year review
and appraisal of the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action, and to consider future actions and
initiatives. “Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development, and Peace for the Twenty-First Century” took
place in New York, and resulted in a political declaration and further actions and initiatives to implement
the Beijing commitments.

2005: A 10-year review and appraisal of the Beijing Platform for Action was conducted as part of
the 49th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. Delegates adopted a declaration
emphasizing that the full and effective implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action is
essential to achieving the internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the
Millennium Declaration.

2010: The 15-year review of the Beijing Platform for Action took place during the Commission’s
54th session in 2010. Member States adopted a declaration that welcomed the progress made towards
achieving gender equality, and pledged to undertake further action to ensure the full and accelerated
implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

2015: In mid-2013, the UN Economic and Social Council requested the Commission on the
Status of Women to review and appraise implementation of the Platform for Action in 2015, in a session
known as Beijing+20. To inform deliberations, the Council also called on UN Member States to perform
comprehensive national reviews, and encouraged regional commissions to undertake regional reviews.

Feminist Movements in Pakistan

 Feminism in Pakistan is a set of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal
political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women in Pakistan.
 It is the pursuit of women's rights within the society of Pakistan. Like their feminist counterparts all
over the world, feminists in Pakistan are supposed to seek gender equality: the right to work for
equal wages, the right to equal access to health and education, and equal political rights.
 Feminist and women's rights consciousness in Pakistan has historically been shaped in response
to national and global reconfiguration of power including colonialism, nationalism, dictatorship,
democracy and the Global War on Terror.
 The relationship between the women's movement and the Pakistani state has undergone
significant shifts, from mutual accommodation and a complementary ethos to confrontation and
conflict.

History of Feminist movements in Pakistan

 After independence, elite Muslim women in Pakistan continued to advocate women's political
empowerment through legal reforms.
  They mobilized support that led to passage of the Muslim Personal Law of Sharia in 1948,
which recognized a woman's right to inherit all forms of property.
 They were also behind the futile attempt to have the government include a Charter of
Women's Rights in the 1956 constitution.
 The 1961 Muslim Family Laws Ordinance covering marriage and divorce, the most important
socio-legal reform that they supported, is still widely regarded as empowering to women.
 In 1947, Muslim women did not have it easy; they were some of the worst victims of the traumatic
events that took place in the South Asian region in the mid-20th century.
 It's reported that 75,000 women were abducted and raped during the partition, sooner after
Pakistan's Independence Fatima Jinnah took part in refugee relief work and formed the Women's
Relief Committee during the transfer of power, which evolved into the All Pakistan Women s
Association.
 Later on Fatima Jinnah set up a secret radio station to running for president when it was
perceived to be a man's role.
 Begum Ra'na Liaquat Ali Khan helped the refugees who fled India during partition and also
organized the All Pakistan Women's Association in 1949, two years after the creation of her
country.
 Noticing that there were not many nurses in Karachi, Khan requested the army to train women to
give injections and first aid. This resulted in the para-military forces for women.
 Nursing also became a career path for many girls.
 She continued her mission, even after her husband was assassinated in 1951, and became the
first Muslim woman delegate to the United Nations in 1952.

Second Phase

 End of 1970's started a new wave of political Islamization in many Muslim majority countries. In
Pakistan a military dictatorial regime of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq came into power and introduced
several laws for more Islamization of Pakistan called Hudood Ordinances It replaced parts of the
British-era Pakistan Penal Code, adding new criminal offences of adultery and fornication, and
new punishments of whipping, amputation, and stoning to death.
 (After much controversy and criticism only parts of the law were considerably revised in 2006 by
the Women's Protection Bill.)
 As a reaction to patriarchal rigid form of Zia's Islamization, many Pakistani women from diverse
fields like writers, academics, performers became active to oppose women denigrating policies of
General Zia.
 Younger generation of 1980's women activist were more feminist in their outlook and approach on
one hand; Women's Action Forum used "progressive interpretations of Islam" to counter the
state's patriarchal version of religion and morality, and in doing so, succeeded in getting
unexpected support of right wing Islamic women's organizations, too.
 The WAF and its associates mass demonstrated against a number of laws and issues throughout
the early 1980s. They campaigned through various outreach approaches like newspaper articles,
art, poetry, and songs in schools and universities.
 Feminist work in Pakistan cuts across all sectors of civil society: education, health, poverty,
domestic violence, rape, denial of rights and legal/ political reform through range of women's
movements.

Third Phase 1988–1999

  Post General Zia period, While Pakistan got its first woman prime minister in form Benazir Bhutto,
that helped create some positive image for Pakistan, and she made some small efforts here and
there like all women police station & appointing women judges first time; she could not succeed in
repealing anti women laws of General Zia era.
 Post-Zia era (1988-1999), activists produced research that focused on increasing women's
political voice and strengthening inclusive democratic governance.
 They have also produced some of the first research and awareness-raising material on sexual
and reproductive rights,5 environmental issues, and citizen-based initiatives for peace between
India and Pakistan.

2000–2010

 While it is still more time i.e. 2006 to water down General Zia's some of ordinances and quite a
long time to effect any social change; after September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in USA &
subsequent global war on terrorism, obviously along with global political Islam, Afghanistan,
Pakistan's socio-political structures also came under global attention.

Aurat March 2019

 Aurat March 2019 was one of the most exciting feminist events in recent years. Its
sheer scale, magnitude, diversity and inclusivity were unprecedented.
 Women belonging to different social classes, regions, religions, ethnicities and sects
came together on a common platform to protest the multiple patriarchies that control,
limit and constrain their self-expression and basic rights.
 From home-based workers to teachers, from transgender to queer all protested in their
unique and innovative ways. Men and boys in tow, carrying supportive placards, and the
marchers reflected unity within diversity, seldom seen in Pakistan’s polarised and
divisive social landscape.
 Aurat March 2019 also marks a tectonic shift from the previous articulations of feminism
in Pakistan. It would not be far-fetched to say that it has inaugurated a new phase in
feminism, qualitatively different from the earlier movements for women rights.
 While the past expressions of feminism laid the foundation for what we see today, the
radical shift of feminist politics from a focus on the public sphere to the private one from
the state and the society to home and family manifests nothing short of a revolutionary
impulse.
 Feminism in Pakistan has come of age as it unabashedly asserts that the personal is
political and that the patriarchal divide between the public and the private is ultimately
false.

The new wave of feminism includes people from all classes, genders, religions, cultures
and sects without any discrimination or prejudice.
 The young feminists are diverse, yet inclusive, multiple yet one. There are no leaders or
followers they are all leaders and followers.
 The collective non-hierarchical manner of working and the refusal to take any funding is
similar to the functioning practised by WAF and represents continuity with the past.
 But the entire framing of the narrative around the body, sexuality, personal choices and
rights is new.
  The young groups of women say openly what their grandmothers could not dare to think
and their mothers could not dare to speak.

Feminism through art and literature

 Some of early twentieth century Urdu feminist writer were common to south Asia i.e. India and
Pakistan. Rashid Jahan (1905–1952) was an Indian writer who inaugurated a new era of Urdu
literature written by women with her short-stories and plays specially she was well remembered
for her groundbreaking and unconventional short stories depicting sexual agency of women in
collection Angaaray (1931).
 The book railed against social inequity, hypocritical maulvis and the exploitation of women in a
deeply patriarchal society. Of the two pieces that Jahan contributed to Angaaray, one was a short
story barely three pages long Dilli ki Sair is a little narrative about a burqa-clad women watching
life on a railway platform waiting for her husband to turn up and take her home.
 The story is a brief but penetrating meditation on life behind the 'veil' and the blindness of male
privilege towards the experience of women behind the purdah. The other piece, Parde Ke
Peeche, is a conversation between two women from affluent, sharif (respectable) families.
 Since then Muslim orthodox clergy in the united India opposed publishers had to withdraw the
book & then British government too preferred to ban for its own political convenience.
 Ismat Chughtai Beginning in the 1930s, she wrote extensively on themes including female
sexuality and femininity, middle-class gentility, and class conflict, often from a Marxist
perspective.
 According to S.S.Sirajuddin in Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English expresses
reservations about availability of free space for feminism in Pakistan & feels that nation space is
much affected by religious fervor. Still it admits that awareness of feminist concerns & changing
role of women & their identity do exist in Pakistan, and these concerns get reflected in Pakistan's
English literature.
 Perception & intervention of major female character can be observed in novels like Bapsi Sidhwa,
Sara Suleri's Meatless Days. Whereas Pakistani poets like Maki Kureishi, Hina Imam, Alamgir
Hashmi, Taufiq Rafat are sensitive but restrained in their portrayal.
 One of the pioneers of women's liberation in Pakistan was actually a man from Lollywood
(Pakistan's film industry). The first feminist film was called Aurat Raj (Women's Rule). It was
released in 1979. It was a huge droop at the box-office despite the fact that it was made and
released in an era when the Pakistan film industry was dotted by thousands of cinemas and a
huge cinema-going audience.

Colonial and Capitalistic Perspectives of Gender

Colonial perspective of gender:

 Colonialism of gender has altered the indigenous sense of self, identity and to the larger extent
their cosmology and gender relationships.
 With the colonization of indigenous groups, it allowed European to implement their idea of gender
and sex.
 This covered up the preexisting conception of sex and gender in the indigenous group during the
pre-colonialism times. The idea of gender itself was believed to be introduced by Western
colonizers as a way to distinct two dualistic social categories which are men and women. T
  he colonizers had introduced the idea of gender itself into Indigenous groups as this was
originally a colonial concept which was made to organize production, territory and behavior.
 The desire for the colonizer to put forth the idea of gender onto an Indigenous group was to have
control over their labor, authority, influence their subjectivity and ideas of sexuality.
 Cases to back up how the dual concept of Gender is a purely European origin: Two spirit concept
in native America where in some tribes there were up to five different genders, the acceptance
and even court positions for Hijras or the third gender in the pre-British Raj sub-continent.

Capitalistic perspective of gender

 Engels wrote widely about the gender gap in capitalistic economies in his book, The Origin of the
Family, Private Property, and the State, directing attention towards how in capitalistic economies
men monopolize paid labour and use this as a tool to control women-especially in nuclear
families.
 Also pointed out that for the property owning class where the class system’s continuous survival
across generations depends solely on the inheritance of property rights, men have ensured that
fidelity and chastity in women is valued so that the power of the ruling class stays in the family.
 This is another control/bind on women and women oppression serves the function of class
oppression regeneration over the years. So according to him (and many Marxist feminists)
Women oppression is a direct result of capitalism and ownership of property rights.
 Later on this concept developed further. During WWII women had to join workforce as men went
to war. When war was over women were asked to give up the jobs but they revolted.
 The capitalists wanted to continue making profits and they could pay women a fraction of the
wages they would have to pay men, hence women officially entered the workforce in hordes
despite being paid less and doing the same job. It was just another way to exploit workers in the
capitalistic economies.
 Another side of the capitalistic perspective of gender is gender specific branding.
 Fashion industries can sell e.g "women jeans" for twice the amount they would sell the same
product if they branded it so anyone could buy it. The color distinction in genders of pink and blue
is also a capitalistic construct to sell more goods to specific groups of people.

Gender Analysis of Development Theories

 The contemporary world has experienced a focus on development as a core influence on social,
economic, and political spheres.
 Development and modernization theory with a focus on the first world-third world divide.
 Development seeks to achieve progress in local, national, regional, or global, social, cultural, and
political spheres.
 The contemporary development paradigm entails the view that material advancement is the only
acceptable route to the achievement of the social, cultural, and political progress.
 Capital investments constitute the driving force behind industrialization, infrastructural progress,
and modernization, interpreted as economic growth and development.
 Such capital-based advancement is associated with factors such as technology, monetary and
fiscal policies, population, resources, industrialization, agricultural development, and commerce.
  This material advancement conceptualization of development is evident in the global disposition
within the last fifty years, with countries categorized as industrialized (developed) and
developing. 

MODERNIZATION THEORY

 Modernization theory forms a core framework for the contemporary development, based on the
role of that urbanization in progress, and by heightened industrialization, exposure to the mass
media, and literacy.
 Modernization theory originated from the ideas of German sociologist Max Weber (1864–
1920), which provided the basis for the modernization paradigm developed by Harvard sociologist
Talcott Parsons (1902–1979).
 Modernization theory views development from a liberal conception in which progress is a linear
and cumulative process.
 Modernization theory interprets development as expansionist and diffusionist, besides noting the
centrality of value differences between traditional versus modern perspectives.
 Modernisation Theory blames internal cultural factors for women’s subordination in the
developing world.
 It is argued that some traditional cultures, and ideas that underpin the values, norms, institutions
and customs of the developing world, ascribe status on the basis of gender.
 In practice, this means that males are accorded patriarchal control and dominance over a range
of female activities and, consequently, women have little status in developing societies.
 Modernisation theorists note that gender equality is generally greater in more developed
countries and believe that there is relationship between modernisation, economic growth and
greater gender equality.
 Trade openness and the spread of information and communication technologies (ICTs) have
increased women’s access to economic opportunities and in some cases increased their wages.
 ICT has also increased access to markets among female farmers and entrepreneurs by easing
time and mobility constraints.
 Women have moved out of agriculture and into manufacturing and particularly services.
 These changes have taken place across all countries, but female (and male) employment in the
manufacturing and services has grown faster in developing than developed countries, reflecting
broader changes in the global distribution of production and labour.
 International peer pressure has also led more countries than ever to ratify treaties against
discrimination, while growing media exposure and consumers’ demands for better treatment of
workers has pushed multinationals toward fairer wages and better working conditions for women.

Globalisation could also influence existing gender roles and norms, ultimately promoting more
egalitarian views: women turned income earners may be able to leverage their new position to change
gender roles in their households by influencing the allocation of time and resources among house- hold
members, shifting relative power within the households, and more broadly exercising stronger agency.

In fact, women appear to gain more control over their income by working in export-oriented activities,
although the impact on well-being and agency is more positive for women working in manufacturing and
away from their male relatives than for those work- ing in agriculture.

Women in factories feel their status has improved.

Women in work also marry and have their first baby later than other women of similar socioeconomic
status and to have better quality housing and access to modern infrastructure.
 They also report greater self-esteem and decision-making capacity, with benefits extending to other family
members.

WORLD SYSTEM THEORY

 World systems theory is a response to the criticisms of Modernization Theory and Dependency

theory.
 World Systems Theory was developed by Immanuel Wallerstein (1979).

 Wallerstein’s theory has four underlying principles:

1. One must look at the world system as a whole, rather than just at individual countries.
Dependency Theory tended to argue that countries are poor because they used to be exploited by other
countries. However focusing on countries (or governments/ nation states) is the wrong level of analysis –
government today has declined in power, whereas Corporations are more powerful than ever.
2. Wallerstein believes that the World System is characterised by an international division of
labour consisting of a structured set of relations between three types of capitalist zone:

 The core, or developed countries control world wages and monopolise the production of
manufactured goods.
 The semi-peripheral zone includes countries like South Africa or Brazil which resemble the core in
terms of their urban centres but also have areas of rural poverty which resemble the peripheral
countries. The core contracts work out to these countries.
 Finally, there are the peripheral countries at the bottom, mainly in Africa, which provide the raw
materials such as cash crops to the core and semi periphery. These are also the emerging markets in
which the core attempts to market their manufactured goods.

3. Countries can be upwardly or downwardly mobile in the world system. This is one of the key
differences between World System’s Theory and Frank’s Dependency Theory. Many countries, such as
the BRIC nations have moved up from being peripheral countries to semi-peripheral countries. 

4. The Modern World System is dynamic – core countries are constantly evolving new ways of extracting
profit from poorer countries and regions.

DEPENDENCY THEORY
 Dependency theory is the notion that resources flow from a "periphery" of poor and
underdeveloped states to a "core" of wealthy states, enriching the latter at the expense of the
former.
 First proposed in the late 1950s by the Argentine economist and statesman Raul
Prebisch, dependency theory gained prominence in the 1960s and '70s.
 Dependency theory emerged in the 1960s in reaction to modernization theories of development,
arguing that international inequalities were socially structured and that hierarchy is a central
feature of the global system of societies.
 Dependency theory and Marxist-Feminists would probably point out that many Transnational
Corporations are not interested in helping developing countries. Rather, they simply exploit
patriarchal values rather than promoting real equality.
 It sought to explicate the institutional structures by which powerful core states continued to exploit
and dominate less powerful states even after decolonization and the establishment of official
sovereignty in peripheral nations.
 Ignoring the core/periphery hierarchy is a mistake not only for reasons of completeness, but also
because the ability of core capitalist states to exploit noncore resources and labor has been a
major factor in deciding the winners of global competition.
 A key insight of dependency theory is that capitalist globalization has occurred in waves and that
waves of integration are followed by periods of globalization backlash. Although industrial
production has largely moved from the core to the noncore, rather than flattening the world this
trend has been accompanied by the extension and reorganization of modes of control
and exploitation based on financial transactions and foreign investment.
 Women put up with worse conditions than men because there is no better alternative other than
to return to their roles as mothers and unpaid domestic labourers.
 From a Dependency perspective, increased participation in the work force also implies increased
hazards for women.
 Women’s jobs outside the home tend to be the lowest earning, least secure, and most dangerous
available in the economy, especially in periods of recession that plague most developing
countries.
 Unfortunately, even the global nature of business does not confer universal rights for these
women.
 In Guatemala, women constitute 80 percent of the textile factory sector, and thousands of mostly
indigenous women provide services as domestic servants. In both sectors, women have only a
precarious claim on the rights to Guatemala’s legally mandated minimum wage, work-week
length, leave time, health care under the national social security system, and privacy protections.
Often, they are subject to physical and/or sexual abuse, according to Human Rights Watch
 Many U.S.-based companies, such as Target, The Limited, Wal-Mart, GEAR for Sports, Liz
Claiborne, and Lee Jeans, have contracts with Guatemalan factories and continue to honor them
even if the factories break explicit company policy, such as physically examining women to
determine if they are pregnant and denying health care to employees. According to Human
Rights Watch, strengthening legal protection for women labourers and increasing their access to
legal recourse might cement increased participation in the work as a positive development for
women.

STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM

 Functionalism, also called structural-functional theory, sees society as a structure with

interrelated parts designed to meet the biological and social needs of the individuals in that
society.
 Functionalism grew out of the writings of English philosopher and biologist, Hebert Spencer
(1820–1903), who saw similarities between society and the human body; he argued that just as
the various organs of the body work together to keep the body functioning, the various parts of
society work together to keep society functioning.
  The parts of society that Spencer referred to were the social institutions, or patterns of beliefs
and behaviors focused on meeting social needs, such as government, education, family,
healthcare, religion, and the economy.

 Structural functionalism suggests that gender inequalities exist as an efficient way to create a
division of labor, or a social system in which a particular segment of the population is clearly
responsible for certain acts of labor and another segment is clearly responsible for certain acts of
labor and another segment is clearly responsible for other labor acts.

 The feminist movement takes the position that functionalism neglects the suppression of women
within the family structure.

 A structural functionalist view of gender inequality applies the division of labor to view predefined
gender roles as complementary: women take care of the home while men provide for the family.

 Thus gender, like other social institutions, contributes to the stability of society as a whole.

 According to structural functionalists, gender serves to maintain social order by providing and
ensuring the stability of such functional prerequisites.

 This view has been criticized for reifying, rather than reflecting, gender roles.
 While gender roles, according to the functionalist perspective, are beneficial in that they
contribute to stable social relations, many argue that gender roles are discriminatory and should
not be upheld.
 The feminist movement, which was on the rise at the same time that functionalism began to
decline, takes the position that functionalism neglects the suppression of women within the family
structure.

WID, WAD and GAD

As asserted by Marxist theories, the WID WAD and GAD frameworks liberate, empower and
promote partnership and equitable distribution of resources and benefits. Although women are not fully
involved in issues of development, they are some who have managed to take part in financial budgeting
and management. For instance in the creation of the Women's World Banking (WWB), a nonprofit
financial institution created in 1979 to give poor female entrepreneurs access to financing, market
information, and training. WWB's goal is to help poor women create wealth. It is also important to note
that since the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women there has been a surge in gender-responsive
budgeting

WID

 The WID (or Women in Development) approach calls for greater attention to women in
development policy and practice, and emphasises the need to integrate them into the
development process.
 The WID approach was introduced primarily by “American liberal feminists” and focuses on
egalitarianism (Equality).
 The WID perspective evolved in the early 1970s.
 It marked an important corrective, highlighting the fact that women need to be integrated into
development processes as active agents if efficient and effective development is to be achieved.
  Women’s significant productive contribution was made visible, although their reproductive role
was downplayed.
 This economic focus led WID activists to address the disparity of employment opportunities
between men and women in the majority world.
 The WID model did not question modernization, and placed the onus (responsibility) of
development and growth on women’s economic capacity.
 What is most striking about the WID model is that it does not deal with the disparities and power
relations between men and women.
 In my opinion, the roots of inequality are the most critical thing to address when discussing women
and poverty. However, the WID model is known as being the “non-confrontational approach” as it
does not confront these issues.
 Between men and women it emphasizesthe need to challenge existing gender roles and relations.
 The WID perspective marked animportant corrective action highlighting the fact that women need
to be actively involved in development as active agents if effective and efficient development is to
be achieved.
 WIDaddressed women’s practical needs by creating incomegenerating opportunities like access to
credit facilities from financial institutions and setting upsound and recognized self-sustaining
projects like cross border trading, weaving and crafting tomention a few.

WAD

 The WAD approach is not as frequently discussed; however it was an important bridge between
WID and GAD.
 When most countries attained their freedom in the 1950s and 1960s, women who took part in the
struggle for independence felt that they should also participate in nation building activities together
with men and this saw the birth of women and development (WAD)
 The central point of WAD is that women should be empowered economically; they should be
emancipated from poverty as this will allow them to contribute and benefit from developments
efforts.
 Furthermore it stresses the power of women in society in terms of their knowledge, work, goals
and their responsibilities and that the society should acknowledge the role that has always been
played by women in the society.
 WAD is a “neo-Marxist feminist approach” and it grew out of the “limitations of modernization
theory” that was foundational in the WID approach.
 The WAD approach comes from the perspective that equality will be essential to improving
women’s positions, but still frames change in terms of providing women access to the productive
sector.
 WAD, while perhaps more critical than WID, also fails to dig deeper into the systemic problems
associated with the relationship between men and women.
 WAD approach is centered on women only seeking the need to create projects which are women
centric, constructed to protect women’s interests from patriarchal domination.
 The approach states that women’s status will only improve wheninternational structures become
more equitable, it fails to see the existence of a patriarchalsociety that exist within the
international parameters which undermines women as far asdevelopment is concerned. In a
nutshell it ignores the question of social relations between menand women and their impact in
development.

GAD

 The weaknesses of WID and WAD saw the birth of Gender and Development GAD in the 1980s.
 In contrast, the GAD (Gender and Development) approach to development policy and practice
focuses on the socially constructed basis of differences between men and women and
emphasises the need to challenge existing gender roles and relations.
 The GAD approach, which was developed in the 1980s, stepped away from both WID and WAD
and was founded in socialist-feminist ideology.
 The GAD approach holds that the oppression of women stems largely from a neoliberal focus on
improving women’s reproductive and productive capacities.
 The focus of GAD has been to examine “why women systematically have been assigned to inferior
and/or secondary roles” and also to confront questions of power and agency.
 GAD emerged from a frustration with the lack of progress of WID policy, in changing women’s
lives and in influencing the broader development agenda.
 GAD challenged the WID focus on women in isolation, seeing women’s “real” problem as the
imbalance of power between women and men.
 There are different interpretations of GAD, some of which focus primarily on the gender division
of labour and gender roles focus on gender as a relation of power embedded in institutions.
 GAD approaches generally aim to meet both women’s practical gender needs and more strategic
gender needs, by challenging existing divisions of labour or power relations.
 GAD isconcerned with addressing the root, inequalities of both gender and class that create
many of the practical problems women experience in their daily lives as opposed to the WID
approach thatviews the absence of women in development plans and policies as the problem.
 Unlike the WID,it addresses strategic interests such that it takes women as agents or enables
women to becomeagents, it can improve the position of women in society and can empower
women and transformgender relations and attitudes.
 Strategic interests for women arise from their disadvantaged position in society relative to that of
men.
 Strategic interests are long-term, related to improvingwomen's position.
 For example, empowering women to have more opportunities, greater accessto resources, and
more equal participation with men in decision-making would be in the long-term strategic interest
of the majority of the world's men and women alike.

STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT POLICIES AND GENDER

 Structural Adjustment Policies are economic policies which countries must follow in order to

qualify for new World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans and help them make
debt repayments on the older debts owed to commercial banks, governments and the World
Bank.
 IMF describes its "core responsibility" as being to "provide loans to countries experiencing
balance of payments problems”.
 SAPs generally require countries to devalue their currencies against the dollar; lift import and
export restrictions; balance their budgets and not overspend; and remove price controls and state
subsidies.
 In the dozens of countries where the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank have
imposed structural adjustment programs (SAPs), the people who have seen deterioration in their
standards of living, reduced access to public services, devastated environments, and plummeting
employment prospects have not been passive.
 The pages of newspapers, magazines, and academic journals (those that can survive in
depressed economies) been filled with damning analysis of structural adjustment.
  More important, people have been organizing to combat the pillaging of their lands and
livelihoods.
 This organizing has resulted in mass movements and protests on every continent, but they are
not often reported on in the mainstream press.
 Feminism, known as a critical theory, stresses the importance of rendering women visible to the
world scene and addresses the needs and concerns of those women.
 Men control and dominate women through social, economic, and political institutions, because
they have more access to resources and authority.
 Men's and women's unequal access to resources and authority is important to understanding the
effects of structural adjustment programs on women.
 IMF may say many things regarding helping the developing countries and the poor within those
countries, but actions speak louder than words.
 There are many detrimental effects on the poor, particularly on women, due to structural
adjustment programs.
 With the patriarchal society that exists in the world, cultural constructs ensure that women have
less access to resources and power than men do.
 The structural adjustment programs aggravate women's already unequal access, which further
harms women.

Basically, there are two main problems regarding the effects of SAPs on women.

 First, the effects are largely ignored or unseen by the international community, and second,
those effects are empirically supported to be detrimental to women and society.
 In order to truly grasp the way that structural adjustment programs affect women, it is necessary
to evaluate the way that women's labor is viewed and evaluated by IMF developers.
 By viewing the economy, women's labor is "invisible" and therefore, "obscures the economic and
social costs of structural adjustment on women's work and lives.
 Women do 70 percent of the world's work but receive only 10 percent of the revenues, and own
only 1 percent of the wealth.
 Women's work, although extremely important, often goes ignored and unpaid. For example,
women in Africa produce 78 percent of the food-both meat and agriculture. "Eight out of ten
working farmers in Africa are women. In Asia, the ratio is six out of ten" (McGovern 2001).
 However, the majority of these women do not gain cash directly for their work, and their labor is
discounted in censuses and statistics. Daily work for women in subsistence economies includes
everything from household work such as child care, cooking, cleaning, gathering water, and
fueling the home to working in the bam and field labor. Women have primary responsibility over
the care of all the animals including feeding, tending, gathering eggs and milk, and gathering
fodder. Women also have primary responsibility over post-harvest work, as well as helping during
pre-harvest and harvesting.
 Women comprise a greater portion than men of those living below the poverty line and those
living without the basic essentials.
 Theories get to the root of the problems of SAPs by looking at how patriarchal societies enact the
policies. Although it is the government that ultimately decides how to carry out the conditionality
requirements, the requirements themselves are what cause governments to make the choices
that they do.
 The economic choices made, as shown above, often have detrimental effects on women. I have
also shown how the ramifications of SAPs are largely unseen and un-researched by IMF due to a
lack of senior women in the program and little desire to research the impacts on women.
 In conclusion, IMF's structural adjustment programs indirectly cause a severe impact on women
due to patriarchy of society and the invisibility of women at IMF.
 Although IMF does not specify how their conditions should be carried out, governments have little
choice.
 They must cut funding to important programs such as health care and education; they must
increase cash crops; they must draw in foreign companies and investors.
 IMF does not force these specific actions, but it does require improvements in fiscal austerity and
increases in exports and investment opportunities for different countries.
 The issue is that the government does not have a lot of choice in what they can do to enact these
conditions. Therefore, the ramifications of decreased public funding, cash crops, and foreign
exploitation can be linked to SAPs.

GLOBALIZATION AND GENDER

 A process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of
different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information
technology. This process has effects on the environment, on culture, on political systems, on
economic development and prosperity, and on human physical well-being in societies around the
world.

 In general, globalization tends to open up employment opportunities for women in developing

nations; however, many of these opportunities tend to be exploitative with poor pay, extreme
conditions, and long work hours. Many women have culturally-imposed domestic responsibilities,
which cut into their time away from work. In fact, globalized corporations have even begun to
exploit "female" domestic skills for their own advantage.

 The power structures of the nation State have been organized around patriarchical assumptions
that have accorded to men monopoly over power, authority and wealth. A number of structures
have been erected to achieve this imbalance that have disguised its inequity by making it appear
as natural and universal, for example, constructions of citizenship that concentrated upon civic
duty (payment of taxes, military service, public office) from which women were excluded through
the public/private dichotomy and the subordination of women within the family.

 At the same time, the role of men in the public sphere has been supported by divisions between
productive and un(re)productive work, presenting women's work as lacking economic value.

 Emphasis upon the normative impact of the public/private divide has been legitimately criticized
for universalizing a western model of social ordering. While recognizing the fluidity of any
demarcation between public and private spheres, the undervaluing of women's contributions and
the primary responsibilities of women within the family impeded their advancement across many,
if not all, societies.

 The State is no longer the sole institution that can define identity and belonging within it has
denied women the space to assert their own claims to gendered self-determination.

 Corporate enterprises, markets and movements of capital have weakened the effective decision-
and policy-making power of the nation-State, notably in economic and labour policies.
 Women are seen, and hence favoured, as a passive, compliant workforce that will accept low
wages without demanding labour and human rights.

 The traditional sexual division of labour (the location of women in employment to which they are
regarded as inherently suited, for example, the caring professions or textiles industries) has been
furthered through the addition of new locations and forms of work (services industry, tourism, and
work in free trade and export process zones).

 What remains constant is the low economic value accorded to work performed primarily by
women in conditions of exploitation, no job security and violations of human rights. The last occur
both directly through prohibitions on labour organization and indirectly through further abuses
where women have claimed rights such as to organize or to be free from sexual harassment.

 In some situations, global pursuit of profit has enhanced employment opportunities for women,
where previously they had not existed. While these may have been exploitative, they have
nevertheless facilitated some degree of economic independence for many women. This, in turn,
has provided the space for them to assert their own agency and has generated the self-esteem
that comes from such independence. In other situations, the consequences have led to
powerlessness and sexual exploitation. For example, reports of the Special Rapporteur on
Violence against Women have highlighted the linkages between countries in economic transition
and the increase in trafficking and forced prostitution of women.

 Economic liberalization has encouraged organized transnational enterprises, including those for
sex and pornography. One of the most adverse consequences has been the construction of ideas
about the market and free movement of capital as natural and inevitable, making challenge
difficult. This was seen in Beijing, where there was no alternative voice offered in opposition to
the benefits of market policies: the goal was to ensure women's participation in and access to the
dominant structures of the market, not to question their underlying assumptions or even to
consider alternative models. It has distorted priorities, for example, pursuit of global profits rather
than gender equality.

 However, the global social movement of human rights has acquired an irresistible force, bringing
the language and beliefs of human rights to all parts of the globe into all aspects of social, political
and economic life, and exposing the falseness of the public/private divide. Affirmation of the
universality of legal norms prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of sex and affirming women's
equality have provided them with international standards to raise against adverse national or local
codes.
 The technological and communications revolutions have added new dimensions to women's long-
standing organizational methods. In one manifestation of "globalization from below", groups
working for the recognition of women's human rights have furthered their skills and strengths in
campaigning and communicating globally. Instantaneous communications have facilitated the
formation of alliances and coalitions, lessened isolation for women in remote or secluded areas,
allowed for rapid mobilization over issues and provided support on a global basis.
 Another area where revolutionary technologies have had particular consequences for gender
relations is that of reproductive technology. Again the picture is mixed. On the one hand, this has
allowed women, especially those economically affluent, greater freedom and choice with respect
to reproduction. On the other, it has created innumerable health problems for those who are not
given adequate attention by State agencies or the medical establishment. Women's health
conditions, especially gynecological ones, that could be relieved with little expenditure are
frequently overlooked or remain untreated through cultural taboos.
 Other problems arise when technologies are used alongside State policies with respect to
women's fertility, for example, reproductive technology that allows predetermination and selection
of the sex of a child alongside a national "one child" policy, or a policy demanding sons for the
continuation of a national struggle. "Modem technology has been the means of liberation and
choice for many women, but for others it has resulted in death and exploitation," says the
Preliminary Report by the Special Rapporteur. Indeed, the twentieth century has repeatedly
demonstrated the fragility of gains in women's advancement that appear to be threatened by
change. Gender relations are fluid and subject to constant negotiation within the family, the
workforce and the community. On many occasions, women have participated in national self-
determination movements, but the social reconstruction that has followed upon national liberation
has not included guarantees of their rights.
 Transition to democracy and market economies in Eastern Europe resulted in lowered public
office participation for women and loss of a range of economic rights. More generally, economic
downturn within a State has a particularly harsh impact upon women through high unemployment
or the introduction of austerity measures and structural adjustment programmes. Continued
stereotypes of men as the primary breadwinners with family responsibilities lessen women's
employment security, even in the face of statistical evidence of women-headed households.
Reconstruction after conflict often focuses on the need to find employment for men who were
formerly in military or paramilitary units rather than on the continuation of female employment.
Armed conflicts, whether internal or international, have caused women to be targeted for forms of
attack by opposing forces and be subjected to policies within their own community that place the
interests of the collectivity above those of women for example, the importance that is attached to
reproduction to ensure the continuation of the group; the promotion of the "family" as a sub-unit of
the State that is to be protected as such, and the presentation of women's role as restricted to
within that family. Control of government by religious or other extremists that introduce a form of
sexual terrorism also lead to substantial reversals of women's advancement.
 What has become apparent is that forms of inequality exist regardless of a State's prevailing
political ideology. Their manifestations may differ, but the reality of women's subordination
remains constant. Advancement in women's interests is susceptible to being lost through political,
economic and societal changes, both those that are deemed generally progressive and those that
are destructive.

WOMEN HEALTH ISSUES IN PAKISTAN

 A United Nations report presents a very bleak picture of Pakistan that is yet to make a serious
start for women’s development, the majority of whom are deprived of education and basic
healthcare.

 The world leaders had adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the report —
Turning Promises into Action: Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda examines all 17 Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) and shows their impact on the lives of women and girls. It highlights
how the different dimensions of well-being and deprivation are deeply intertwined and suggests
measures to tackle existing structural inequalities and turn promises into action.

Issues/Problems in Women’s Health

 Lack of health services

 Inadequate community outreach

 Distant and inappropriate locale of health services

 Poor quality of care

 Non-availability of medicine

 Low health and nutritional status of women

 High infant mortality rate among female children

 High maternal mortality rate

 Higher incidence of diseases among women

 Illegal and unsafe abortions

 Lack of female service providers

 Weak supervision and monitoring

 Shortage of competent doctors and nurses especially in rural areas

 Absenteeism of health personnel at service facilities especially in rural areas

 Poverty

 Inconsistent health policies

 Restricted budget for the health sector

 Low social and economic status of women

 Early marriages

 Frequent pregnancies

 Son preference
  Overburdening of women with triple roles (e.g., wife,

 mother, worker)

 Violence against women

 Lack of access to clean water and sanitation

 Illiteracy

 Lack of women’s access to information

 Restrictions over women’s mobility

 No wage incentive for doctors to work in underserved areas

 Structural weaknesses

 Patriarchal control over women’s sexuality

 Limited decision-making authority of women in marital

 relationships

 Cultural barriers to discussing sexual issues within marriage

 Male biases inherent in public health system

 Pakistan is one of the four countries highlighted in the report where 4.9 million women aged
between 18 and 49 years are simultaneously deprived in four SDG-related dimensions.

 Across nine out of 10 dimensions, women and girls from the poorest 20 per cent of households in
rural areas fare worse than women and girls from the richest 20 per cent of households in urban
areas.
 The health indicators of women in Pakistan are among the worst in the world. It is one of the few
countries where women’s life expectancy is lower than that of men. There are 108 men for every
100 women.

 Female infant mortality rate is higher (85 per 1,000 live births) than that of male children (82 per
1,000). More than 40 percent of the total female population are anemic. The fertility rate is 5.4 per
woman. The maternal mortality rate is still high, 1 woman in every 38 dies from pregnancy-related
causes. Only 20 percent of women are assisted by a trained provider during delivery. However,
24 percent of married women now use contraceptives, which is a substantial increase from 9
percent

 On average, 48.1 per cent of women and girls aged between 15 and 49 years in Pakistan have
no say in decisions regarding their own health care, but rates vary significantly by location, wealth
and ethnicity.

 For instance, women and girls in rural areas are 1.3 times as likely to report having no say in
decisions regarding their own health care as those in urban areas: 52.5pc compared to 39.3pc,
respectively.

 The low health status of women is the result of women’s lower social, economic, and cultural
standing. Social and familial control over women’s sexuality, their economic dependence on men,
and restrictions on their mobility determine differential access of males and females to health
services. Intra-household bias in food distribution leads to nutritional deficiencies among female
children.

 Early marriages of girls, excessive childbearing, lack of control over their own bodies, and a high
level of illiteracy adversely affect women’s health. Institutionalized gender bias within the health
service delivery system in terms of lack of female service providers, and neglect of women’s
basic and reproductive health needs, intensify women’s disadvantaged health status.

 The rise of poverty exacerbates conditions of oppression for women and children. In poor
households with scarce means, gender discrimination in the allocation of household resources is
more pronounced.

 Women suffer most from nutritional deprivation in low-income households. Poverty also forces
women to work harder to earn and protect their families from starvation. This contributes to the
stresses these women already face due to poverty and cultural oppression. It is estimated that
two thirds of the psychiatric patients at any hospital or clinic are women.

 Women’s poor mental and physical health has negative implications on their productivity and
imposes high social and economic costs for the society.
  Exploitative working conditions at the workplace, compounded by oppressive conditions at home
where women continue to take the sole responsibility for domestic work, overburdened them to
the detriment of their health.

 In poor households with scarce means, gender discrimination in the allocation of household
resources is more pronounced. Women suffer most from nutritional deprivation in low income
households. Poverty also forces women to work harder to earn and protect their families from
starvation.

 This contributes to the stresses these women already face due to poverty and cultural
oppression. It is estimated that two thirds of the psychiatric patients at any hospital or clinic are
women. Women’s poor mental and physical health has negative implications on their productivity
and imposes high social and economic costs for the society.

WOMEN EDUCATION ISSUES

Women's education in Pakistan is a fundamental right of every female citizen, according to article
thirty-seven of the Constitution of Pakistan, but gender discrepancies still exist in the educational sector.

 According to the Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Program,
approximately twice as many males as females receive a secondary education in Pakistan,
and public expenditures on education amount to only 2.7% of the GDP of the country.

Issues/Problems in Female Primary and MiddleLevel Education

 Lack of schools for girls

 Lack of female teachers in rural and underdeveloped areas

 Distance of educational institutions from home

 Lower rate of enrollment

 High dropout

 Absenteeism among teachers

 Lack of capacity to pay for education

 Poor quality of education

 Poor training of teachers

 Gender biases of teachers

 Inefficient use of resources

 Low cost recovery

 Underutilization of funds

 Lack of institutional capacity of educational machinery at the national and provincial levels

 High opportunity cost of educating a female

 Restrictions on female mobility

 Early marriages of girls

 Ideology of gender roles

 Cultural attitudes towards female education

 Reproduction of gender biases in educational curricula

 Poor governance

 Weak civil society

 One in ten of the world’s school-aged children are Pakistani. 56% of male studentscompared
to 44% of their female counterparts are attending school. 60% of the country’s population
over the age of 10 can read and write, with disparate literacy rates of 69% for males and 45%
for females.

 Yet even the higher male statistic is desperately far behind the world male literacy rate of
90%, and Pakistan’s female population reads and writes at a rate of just over half that of the
world average. In Islamabad, the nation’s capital, the literacy rate is encouragingly high 87%
in Islamabad.

 In more remote areas, like the rural Balochistani district of Kohlu, just 20% of residents can
read and write.
 The social and cultural context of Pakistani society is predominantly patriarchal. Men and
women are conceptually divided into two separate worlds.

 Home is defined as a woman’s legitimate ideological and physical space, while a man
dominates the world outside the home. Strong gender disparities exist in educational
attainment between rural and urban areas and among the provinces.

Gender issues of women in Politics

 The Constitution of Pakistan places no restriction on women's participation in politics;

nevertheless, their presence in the political parties as well as in the political structure at
the local, provincial, and national levels remains insignificant due to cultural and structural
barriers.

 Years of struggle and experience by women ís rights groups and activists across the
globe have reinforced the belief that democracy cannot fully be realized unless there is
equal participation of women and men in political and legislative process and decision-
making.

 In Pakistan, the 2018 general election had the highest number of female candidates
running for parliament. However, only 8 out of 183 (about 4 percent) female
contestants won seats in Pakistan’s National Assembly.

 In Pakistan, the Election Act (2017) criminalizes any effort to hinder female participation

in elections, as either a voter or a candidate. The act also requires political parties to
have a minimum of five percent of female candidates contesting in general elections for
both national and provincial assemblies. In the 2018 elections, all mainstream national
parties kept close to the minimum percentage, while over 45 percent of political parties
did not field a single female candidate. Thus, while many parties did not follow the act,
those that followed it chose female candidates just to meet the quota. Most female
candidates were strategically given tickets for constituencies in which the party had no
chance of winning. Many of these contestants did not even campaign for elections
or share their pictures on banners.
 In addition to quota representation in elections, the National Assembly of Pakistan has 60
reserved seats for women. However, due to a system of indirect elections, political
parties award these reserved seats through nepotism and favoritism instead of
qualifications or gender. For example, the list of female candidates for reserved seats by
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has remained confined to women that
have close familial links with the party’s male leadership.
 Aside from legal framework for the national level, General Musharraf’s Local Government
Plan introduced a 33 percent quota for women in district, municipality, and union councils
in 2000, bringing almost 100,000 women into politics across Pakistan. After the National
Assembly passed the 18th amendment to the constitution of Pakistan in 2010, the
provincial governments secured more resources and power to legislate from the center.
Since then, the local government law of all provinces, presented in 2013, have
 implemented a system of reserved seats for women, but their success varies across
provinces. For instance, in 2015 cantonment elections, only two women were elected out
of total 199 seats, results that clearly fail to meet Musharraf’s 33 percent quota. In
Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and other areas with relatively conservative
populations, the rate of female contestation for reserved seats is so low that most female
councilors elected ran unopposed. In Punjab and Sindh, where women’s participation is
much higher than the other two provinces, the quota for female councilors was reduced
to 15 and 22 percent respectively.

Arguments against and in favour of the quota system

Various arguments have been advanced for and against the introduction of quotas as a means to
increase the political presence of women. However the arguments in favour of quotas outweigh the
arguments against quota systems. Hence more and more countries of the world are adopting quota
systems most suited to their realities.

There are 90 countries in the world which have one or the other type of quota for women in
legislative assemblies.

Arguments against the quota system

 Those who oppose quota systems argue that quotas are against the principle of equal opportunity
for all. Since in these systems women are given preference over men, as such they are
undemocratic.

 Quotas are also called undemocratic, as they take away voters right to decide who is elected.

 It is also argued that quotas imply that politicians are elected because of their gender and not
because of their qualifications; and in this way more qualified candidates are pushed aside. Thus
quotas violate the principles of liberal democracy.

 One argument against this system is that introducing quotas creates significant conflicts within
the party organizations.

 But the experience of many last decades shows that quotas are the most effective means to
make democracies more representative

Arguments in favour of the quota system

 Arguments in favour of quota system are more convincing than the ones against it. Proponents of
the quota system argue that quotas for women do not discriminate, but compensate for actual
barriers that prevent women from their fair share of the political seats.
  They say that quotas imply that there are several women together in a committee or assembly,
thus minimizing the stress often experienced by the token women. It is also argued that quotas
are justified as women as citizens have the right to equal representation.

 Another argument is that women have their own distinct experiences and those experiences are
needed in political life.

 In response to the arguments that women are generally less qualified and experienced in politics
it is stated that election is about representation and not educational qualifications.

 In response to the objection that quotas are undemocratic, because voters do not decide who is
elected, it is argued that in actual practice the political parties control the nominations and they
are not primarily the voters who decide who gets elected; therefore quotas are not violations of
voters' rights.

 It is now almost universally acknowledged that if properly implemented, quotas are an effective
means of fast tracking women’s access to decision-making bodies. In India, analysts have
acknowledged that the quota brought a critical mass of women to institutions, with nearly one
million women entering councils at the local government level. Similarly, in Pakistan, the 33 per
cent quota adopted by the government opened up the political space to women and provided
them a strategic opportunity to make a difference in setting and implementing the agenda of local
governments. In both the countries women from different socio-economic, political and religious
backgrounds took their places on local councils, demonstrating that the quota indeed opened the
door for disadvantaged groups.

Issues/Problems Related to Women and Politics

 Lack of women’s interest in politics

 Lack of women’s participation in formal political processes

 Women’s negative perception of politics

 Male domination of political parties

 Male domination of political parties

 Lack of financial resources among women who want to enter politics

 Lack of political skills

 Purdah and segregation

  Structural

 Sexual division of labor

 Cultural view of politics as male arena

 Feudal and tribal structures

WOMEN AND LAW

Issues/Problems of Women and Law

 High cost of litigation

 Lack of access to legal aid

 Delay in getting justice

 Complicated court procedures

 Sexual harassment of women in courts

 Underlying

 Illiteracy among women

 Lack of awareness of legal rights

 Lack of female judges

 Structural

 Discriminatory legislation

 Gender biases of judiciary

 The 1973 Constitution of Pakistan is a contradictory instrument. On the one hand, Article 25
of the Constitution guarantees equality of rights to all citizens irrespective of sex, race, and
class and empowers the Government to take affirmative action to protect and promote
women’s rights. On the other hand, there are several discriminatory laws that negatively
impact on women. For example, the Family Law is not uniform in that its personal or
customary laws govern each religious community and all of them have discriminatory
provisions. Under the Muslim Family Law, women have unequal rights to inheritance,
termination of marriage, minimum age of marriage, and natural guardianship of children;
polygamy has not been banned or even sufficiently restricted by law; and there are grossly
inadequate provisions for women’s financial security after termination of marriage. Women
have unequal rights under the citizenship laws, in which citizenship through descent is
guaranteed only through a father, and which give the foreign wife of a Pakistani man the right
to acquire citizenship, with no corresponding right for the foreign husband of a Pakistani
woman.

 A series of discriminatory laws were introduced as a part of the process of Islamization by

Zia-ul-Haq during the late 1970s. The Hudood Ordinances promulgated in 1979 equated rape
with adultery. In the case of maximum punishment, a woman’s testimony was not admitted to
prove rape or adultery. Instead the evidence of four Muslim males of good reputation was
required in such cases. This also created a situation where women could be charged for
adultery if they reported rape but could not prove it. The Law of Evidence promulgated in
1984 denigrated women by reducing the value of the testimony of two women equal to one
man in financial transactions. The laws of evidence, Qisas and Diyat, institutionalize the
compensation or blood money for crimes including murder and bodily harm. According to this
law, women’s value would be considered equal to half that of a man.

 There is considerable evidence that this legislation has negatively impacted Pakistani
women’s lives and made them more vulnerable to extreme violence. Today, the majority of
women in prison have been charged under the Hudood Ordinance. The data collected for one
year from one police station show that out of 113 cases registered, 94 were zina (adultery)
cases.Similarly, a national level study conducted in dar-ul-amans (shelters for women)
mentioned that 21 percent of women had Hudood cases against them. Their families use this
legislation to punish them for trying to exercise their legal rights of self-determination.

 The report of the Inquiry of the Commission for Women (1997) clearly states that this
legislation must be repealed as it discriminates against women and is in conflict with their
fundamental rights. Despite the demand of women’s movement to repeal this legislation, it
continues to be a part of the statute book and shape women’s lives. The Government has
made no commitment to implement the recommendations of the report.

 The interplay of formal statutory laws, Islamic laws, and customary practices is shaping
women’s lives in Pakistan. The equality enshrined in formal laws is negated by customary
practices that allow the male members of the family to sell, buy, and exchange women as
commodities and kill and murder them in the name of honor. Presently, the gap between
equality of gender in formal laws and de facto realities of women’s life is too wide. Due to
their dependent socioeconomic status, the suffering of women litigants is enormous. Very
 often they lack the financial means to enter into litigation. Complicated legal procedures
compounded by gender biases of judiciary and law enforcing agencies, delays, high cost of
court fees, and corruption of the judiciary, make it extremely difficult for women to enter into
litigation to get justice for themselves.

GENDER BASED VIOLENCE

Gender-based violence is a phenomenon deeply rooted in gender inequality, and continues to be

one of the most notable human rights violations within all societies. Gender-based violence is violence
directed against a person because of their gender. Both women and men experience gender-based
violence but the majority of victims are women and girls. Gender-based violence and violence against
women are terms that are often used interchangeably as it has been widely acknowledged that most
gender-based violence is inflicted on women and girls, by men. However, using the ‘gender-based’ aspect
is important as it highlights the fact that many forms of violence against women are rooted in power
inequalities between women and men. 

Gender-based violence includes physical, sexual and psychological violence such as domestic
violence; sexual abuse, including rape and sexual abuse of children by family members; forced
pregnancy; sexual slavery; traditional practices harmful to women, such as honor killings, burning or acid
throwing, female genital mutilation, dowry-related violence; violence in armed conflict, such as murder
and rape; and emotional abuse, such as coercion and abusive language. Trafficking of women and girls
for prostitution, forced marriage, sexual harassment and intimidation at work are additional examples of
violence against women. Gender violence occurs in both the ‘public’ and ‘private’ spheres. Such violence
not only occurs in the family and in the general community, but is sometimes also perpetuated by the
state through policies or the actions of agents of the state such as the police, military or immigration
authorities. Gender-based violence happens in all societies, across all social classes, with women
particularly at risk from men they know.

Sites of Gender-Based Violence

1. Family is one of the primary sites of gender violence. w prepares its members for social life, forms
gender stereotypes and perceptions of division of labor between the sexes. w is the arena where physical
abuses (spousal battering, sexual assault, sexual abuse) and/or psychological abuses occur. (Domestic
violence can also take such forms as confinement, forced marriage of woman arranged by her family
without her consent, threats, insults and neglect; overt control of a woman’s sexuality through either
forced pregnancy or forced abortion.) w because violence within the family and household takes place in
the home, it is often seen as a ‘private’ issue and information about it is lacking.

2. Community/Society as a group sharing common social, cultural, religious or ethnic belonging, it

perpetuates existing family structure and power inequalities in family and society. w justifies the behavior
of male abusers aimed at establishing control over women in the family, and supports harmful traditional
practices such as battering and corporal punishment w workplace can also be a site of violence. Either in
governmental service or in a business company, women are vulnerable to sexual aggression
(harassment, intimidation) and commercialized violence (trafficking for sexual exploitation).

3. State legitimizes power inequalities in family and society and perpetuates gender based violence
through enactment of discriminatory laws and policies or through the discriminatory application of the law.
w is responsible for tolerance of gender violence on an unofficial level (i.e. in the family and in the
community). w To the extent that it is the State’s recognized role to sanction certain norms that protect
individual life and dignity and maintain collective peace, it is the State’s obligation to develop and
implement measures that redress gender violence.

FORMS OF GENDER - BASED VIOLENCE

There are two major forms of Gender Based Violence

1. Direct violence
2. Structural / Indirect Gender Based Violence

Direct Gender Based Violence

Because of deep-seated cultural and traditional practices and inadequate responses of society
and government, in Pakistan women are the victims of direct violence and in most cases, they are killed
mercilessly in the name of honour, customs, and compensation of crimes or bringing insufficient dowry. It
can be said that when a husband kills his female relative because of suspicion or any other reason, it is
direct violence. When the majority of men follow the same practice of killing women, it is structural
violence, which is embedded in patriarchal setup of society and when society does not give adequate
attention towards this inhuman practice, it can be said to be a manifestation of cultural violence, which is
legitimizing structural and direct violence.

It is unfortunate that Pakistani society is not reacting against this vicious circle of violence to a
considerable extent because of ignorance and an overall gender-based biased approach, ranging from
government institutions to mass population. Violence against women in Pakistan not only brings physical
injuries to women but also puts psychological impacts on their power of thinking and behaving. This
violence leaves a deep-seated trauma which with no proper healing. Further it brings miseries to woman,
especially in cases of rape when the victim of rape has to provide four male witnesses in order to prove
rape. Society and courts consider women as responsible for adultery and in some cases, women are
killed by their relatives because she has lost her honour after being raped.

 Honour Killings

Honour killing is one of the worst forms of violence against women. It is an extreme form of direct
physical violence, which is marked by great suffering. In recent years, Pakistan has been criticized
because of the dramatic rise in the incidence of honor killings in the country. Here it will be important to
know about the definitions and actual causes behind inhuman killings of woman in the name of honour.
The meaning of honour killings is the "unlawful killing of a woman for her actual pr perceived morally or
mentally unclean and impure behavior."

 Dowry system

Dowry system is another form of social and traditional practices whose consequences result
direct violence of women. There is hardly any family in Pakistan in which this dowry system is not
followed. Not a single day passes without dowry deaths and torture of women. Newspapers are full of
stories of torture of women who bring insufficient dowry. Unable to bear the torture, some brides are
forced to commit suicide and some are burnt alive under the cover of stove deaths, which is also called
bride burning in which women are burnt alive after being covered with kerosene oil.

 Bride burning

Bride burning is a form of inhuman domestic violence within the walls of the home. "In bride
burning, it is alleged that a husband or the family of the husband douses the man's wife with kerosene or
gasoline oil and sets the woman alight, leading to death by burning her alive". This is one of the most
severe abuses of human rights. In addition, Bride burning is often described as a kitchen accident or
suicide attempts.

There are several reasons for bride burning but the major reason includes the failure of the wife's
family to provide a large enough dowry. Here the question arises, why do husbands decide to go for this
inhuman option and burn their wives alive? Generally, husbands who participate in these crimes believe
that burning their wife is a good way to remove her without evidence and may be labeled a suicide. This
may provide for an opportunity to marry again and thus receive a larger dowry.

 Acid throwing

Acid throwing is another abuse inflicted on women. The purpose behind this is to "teach them a
lesson". In many instances, men throw acids on women because she did not bring sufficient amount of
dowry. But in many cases, besides dowry there are many other reasons behind acid throwing on women.
Men who had proposed a woman for marriage and if the woman rejected his proposal; then, they in many
cases as a revenge, throw acid on the woman's face and body to make pain and suffering certain and
sure forever on the victim because she "dishonored" him by refusing his proposal.

2. Structural / Indirect violence

Structural / Indirect violence can be understood as a type of structural violence, characterised by

norms, attitudes and stereotypes around gender in general and violence against women in particular.
Indirect violence operates within a larger societal context; institutions, and the individuals within and
outside these institutions, are all engaged in the production and reproduction of attitudes which normalise
violence against women. Looking at these attitudes can provide insight into the way in which these
indirect forms of violence are created and sustained, and even more importantly, how they contribute to
and support direct forms of violence against women.

Inequalities - and the forms of violence connected to them - are intersectional. They are the result
of interplay between multiple power structures that produce and reproduce hierarchical distinctions, for
example regarding race, disability, age, social class, and gender. This means that while all women face
discrimination based on gender, some women experience multiple forms of discrimination, of which
gender is only one component.

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world, with a Gender-related
Development Index ranking of 125th out of 169 countries, and a Gender Empowerment Measure rank of
99 out of 109 countries.

According to the Human Rights Watch, gender- based violence occurs as a cause and consequence of
gender inequities. It includes a range of violent acts mainly committed by men against women, within the
context of the subordinate status of females in society, which it seeks to preserve. In all societies, to
varying degrees, women and girls are subjected to physical, sexual and psychological abuse that cuts
across lines of income, class and culture. Such violence is recognized as a violation of human rights and
a form of discrimination against women, reflecting the pervasive imbalance of power between women and
men.

THE MAIN CAUSES OF GENDER BASED VIOLENCE INCLUDE

 Socio-cultural factors i.e. power relations, low status of women in society, socialization, traditions,
customs, beliefs, attitudes, illiteracy and limited education.
 Legal factors i.e. dual legal systems, archaic laws, lack of commitment to international
instruments, inadequate legal provisions, inaccessibility of legal services, attitudes of judicial
officers and ignorance or rights and responsibilities, policies.
 Policies and practices i.e. negative policy environment, gender insensitive policies and lip
services to international commitments.
 Economic factors i.e. economic dependence, poverty, limited opportunities and income sources,
lack of control of own resources and alcohol abuse.
 Institutional factors i.e. the lack of or inadequate victim support services and distances from
courts, health facilities, police services, etc.

THEORIES OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

The violence against women approach focuses on the belief system prevalent in relationships
between women and men, wherein the male believes he is entitled to be superior to women. Thus, he is
willing to control and coerce the female by a variety of means, including violence, in order to maintain that
authority. The gender-based analysis holds men accountable for stopping their own violent behaviors.
Moreover, it recognizes the ways in which women are undervalued and have been conditioned via the
female role belief system to believe in their own inferiority in relationship to men. The gender-based
violence against women theory emphasizes the importance of educating women and men as to the
dangers and limitations of gender role conditioning and the supporting belief systems specific to those
roles.

1. BIOLOGICAL THEORIES

Biological theories of criminal behaviour have existed for over a century, cycling in and out of
fashion. Where family violence is concerned, two dominant explanations are observed in the recent
literature. The first is that head injury in men can or could cause them to be violent to family members.
The second approach, a gene-based explanation, focuses on sexual jealousy and male efforts to ensure
sexual propriety over their partners. Woman abuse is seen as a “mate retention tactic” which will be used
only under the right set of circumstances, such as when a man senses his wife could attract and keep a
better partner. Empirical evidence for these controversial ideas is not strong but most researchers would
acknowledge that biological factors can play a role in some cases.

Frontal-lobe epilepsy might be an example. However, their applicability to the field of family violence is
probably far more limited than their proponents would argue. Attempts to predict violence using biological
variables will only be valid when a host of other non-biological factors are added, indicating that the
perspective is too reductionist. Treatment implications, mostly centering on pharmacology and other
medical interventions, are limited and unlikely to be effective in isolation from other efforts. However,
some researchers are attempting to devise a typology of batterers based upon physiological arousal so
neurological assessments may one day be used on a more routine basis.

2. PSYCHOPATHOLOGY THEORY

Psychopathology, the second category of explanation for family violence, focuses as with the last
on individual factors but with greater emphasis given to psychodynamic than organic variables. Many
researchers and practitioners who adopt this perspective focus on childhood and other experiential events
that have shaped men to become batterers. In this view, family violence may co-exist in a constellation of
other interpersonal problems and functional deficits could be evident in non-family settings such as the
workplace. Empirical evidence in support of this view takes the form of surveys of populations of batterers
that find high levels of certain psychiatric diagnoses, specifically borderline and anti-social personality
disorders. In this view, violent reactions and patterns are long standing and firmly entrenched and
treatment must be intensive and individualized.

The assumption is that psychoeductional approaches will be insufficient. At least some time must
be spent exploring the historical origins of current behaviour by responding to past shame, guilt and
traumas. Through experimentation and follow-up, the specific treatment techniques are now being
refined. Some critics believe this approach erodes years of advancements in seeing male violence as a
power and control technique reinforced by society. Others argue that these disorders among batterers are
over diagnosed. Another problem is that treatment of personality disorders is not always associated with
high levels of success so risk management may be the best approach for some men.

3. SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

From the social learning perspective, children observe the consequences of the behaviour of
significant others and learn which behaviours, even socially inappropriate ones, achieve desired results
without drawing a negative sanction. When inappropriate behaviours are modeled for young children
especially if reinforced elsewhere such as in the media these patterns of interaction can become
entrenched and will be replicated in other social interactions. Interventions based upon the social learning
perspective are, therefore, rooted in efforts to prevent the exposure of children to negative role models
and the promotion of skill development in those who have been so exposed.

Empirical support for this view takes two forms: evaluation of cognitive behavioural batterers
programs; and research, first retrospective and now prospective, that finds high rates of family violence
perpetrated by men exposed to violence in their childhood. Further support can be found in the literature
on criminal behaviour in general where cognitive behavioural interventions have received widespread
endorsement. However, social learning in isolation from other theories does not explain why the
intergenerational transmission of violence is not universal and, conversely, why some batterers do not
report histories of exposure to violence in their families of origin.

4. FEMINIST APPROACH

While there is no one feminist approach to family violence, most theoreticians in this field look to
the power imbalances that create and perpetuate violence against women. These imbalances exist at a
societal level in patriarchal societies where structural factors prevent equal participation of women in the
social, economic and political systems. Societal level imbalances are reproduced within the family when
men exercise power and control over women, one form of which is violence. Interventions are targeted at
a broad range of factors including day care, pay equity, suffrage, social resources, and law reforms.
Interventions with women focus on empowerment and the recognition of power and control dynamics.
Empirical support of this view takes three forms.

First, qualitative documentation of women’s experiences is used to develop models such as the
cycle of violence and the power and control wheel. In turn, these models have utility when applied to
advocacy and clinical work with women. Second, cross cultural research examines the prevalence of
family violence across cultures with different levels of patriarchy. The third technique is to evaluate
batterers programs designed using feminist principles. Feminist-inspired programs may be the most
common type of batterer treatment, typically using a group format with education in the dynamics of
power and control and on egalitarian relationships. Critics believe the confrontation of abused men with
the inappropriateness of their actions will not necessarily translate into changes in behaviour. In the group
approach, the idiosyncratic characteristics of the men such as their own abuse histories are not
necessarily dealt with.

5. SYSTEMS APPROACH

In the systems approach, the family is a dynamic organization made up of interdependent

components. The behaviour of one member and the probability of a reoccurrence of that behaviour are
affected by the responses and feedback of other members. Family violence researchers using this
perspective look at the communication, relationship and problem solving skills of couples where violence
occurs. Because both partners play some (not necessarily equal) role, any intervention must involve both
of them. Research examines relationship variables in violent compared with non-violent couples.
Treatment takes the form of marital or family counselling sometimes preceded by a period of gender
specific groups. A strength of this approach is that it can readily accommodate female to male violence
and child abuse. Control is an important but non-gendered variable.

Criticisms are many. Women are blamed for their own victimization, minimizing the degree of
responsibility of the man and potentially placing them at risk for further abuse. While systems theorists
often look at the multiple and nested systems in which individuals live beyond the family to culture,
religion, neighborhood, community standards, etc. the work reviewed here did not. Moreover, the
significant power imbalances that typically exist in violent relationships may not be attended to by all
therapists.

STRATEGIES TO ELIMINATE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Violence Against Women (VAW) stems from gender-based discrimination and gender inequality.
Addressing VAW without taking into account the wider context in which women evolve and the need to
secure respect for women's fundamental rights in general is hopeless. All policies, laws, budget
decisions, etc., impact in one way or another on women and have the potential to increase their
vulnerability to violence.

The response to violence against women should also be holistic. It should prevent and protect. It
should be geared towards assisting victims and making sure that they are protected in the future. It
should criminalize violence against women, strive to identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice. It
should fight impunity.
 Putting an end to VAW is not the responsibility of one person, actor or group. Final eradication
will require a collective response, in which everyone has a role to play. Actions therefore need to involve
all stakeholders, men and women, developing and developed countries, representatives from
government, parliaments, the judiciary, law enforcement agents, civil society, the private sector and
international organizations.

There is no single solution or means of putting an end to violence against women, which is the
goal to be pursued. However, there are various measures that reflect the diversity of national situations
and experiences.

The six strategies listed below to prevent the violence against gender

Strategy 1: Adopt laws that work

To address VAW, parliamentarians must begin by building a legal framework. This is a basic
foundation for which they have responsibility.

 First, many countries have already passed legislation on VAW. Some have one omnibus law
whereas others address violence through a variety of laws. In this case, we need to ensure that
there is harmonization between the different laws.

 Second, legislation on VAW needs to include several key elements. It must acknowledge violence
against women as a form of gender-based discrimination, and that violence may affect different
groups of women differently. It should also be comprehensive, including provisions regarding
prevention of violence against women, protection and support for the complainant/survivor, and
prosecution and punishment of the perpetrator. Ensuring that prevention is covered by law is of
paramount importance.

 Third, legislation should be evidence-based. It must also address national realities and serve the
interests of all constituents, including rural women and marginalized women. Women in
vulnerable and crisis situations (in situations of conflict, migrant women, trafficked women, victims
of the sex trade, etc.) should receive special attention.

 Fourth, legislation should also provide for implementation mechanisms such as budgetary
support, the creation of specific institutional mechanism to monitor implementation and collection
of statistical data.

 Fifth, legislation should be regularly monitored and amended in order to respond to new realities,
address gaps or correct inadequacies.

 Sixth, national legislation must meet the international standards and benchmarks to which
countries have committed. Particular attention should be placed on international human rights
instruments such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW); the concluding comments of the UN Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women; Security Council resolutions 1325 and 1820; and regional legal
instruments on VAW.

Strategy 2: Make sure laws are implemented

 While legislation is necessary, it is not sufficient, as there is often a gap between de jure and de
facto equality, between legislation and its effective implementation. Responsibility for bridging this gap lies
also with parliamentarians, as they can oversee the implementation of policies and programmes to ensure
that they meet the standards and goals that have been set.

 First, parliamentarians must ensure, through parliament's budgetary powers, that allocated
resources match the requirements of legislative priorities and national policies on violence against
women. The development of gender-sensitive budgeting can help in that regard. Cost
assessments of legislation could also be carried out to identify needs for effective implementation.

 Second, parliamentarians must have access to comprehensive, sex-disaggregated data and use
indicators and targets to assess the impact of laws. They need to build national statistical
capacities and should not hesitate to make use of tools and instruments developed by the
international community in this field.

 Third, parliamentarians should use existing parliamentary mechanisms (such as parliamentary

committees) or set up new parliamentary bodies specifically mandated to oversee the
implementation of VAW legislation. These bodies should benefit from sufficient resources and
support, and also have the power to impact on the work of parliament.

 Fourth, the creation of specific inter-institutional mechanisms should also be promoted. Members
of parliament should be included in such bodies with a view to enhancing political follow-up.

 Fifth, parliamentarians must not hesitate to use all of their powers to monitor the VAW situation in
their countries. They must ask the difficult questions and hold governments to account regularly
on the implementation. They can also engage with independent bodies such as the audit office or
the office of the ombudsman.

 Sixth, parliamentarians must encourage and support civil society actors to play an active role in
putting an end to VAW.

Strategy 3: Educate and sensitize

Effective progress will require a change in mentality and social patterns, a growing awareness of
women's rights issues and violence against women. As opinion leaders and policymakers,
parliamentarians must take the lead.

 First, change starts at birth. From a very early age, children - girls and boys - should be educated
on human rights and gender equality. Teaching and learning materials that are used in schools
must also be reviewed to address stereotypes. Families should be targeted in terms of raising
awareness about women's rights and challenging social stereotypes. Parental education on
women's rights should also be developed.

 Second, for laws to be effective and make an impact, they must be known about and understood.
Legislative reform must therefore be accompanied by campaigns to raise awareness and educate
women about their rights. Boys and men should also be targeted. We should therefore not
hesitate to speak up, explain the laws, and challenge the media, civil society associations, the
 private sector and others to join in public education programmes. Laws must also be easily
accessible and translated into local languages.

 Third, training and education programmes should be designed to target judges and law
enforcement agents such as the police. Parliamentarians should ensure that specific programmes
are designed to that end and receive sufficient funding.

 Fourth, sensitization campaigns should be launched to make VAW visible and raise awareness.
Parliamentarians should not hesitate to support national campaigns on VAW or even lead some.
They should also not hesitate to make use of existing campaigns, such as the White Ribbon
campaign or the United Nations Secretary-General's Campaign to End Violence against Women.

Strategy 4: Build partnerships

Progress will only result from the combined efforts of all stakeholders to achieve equality and put
an end to VAW. Parliamentarians need to build a united front. It is important to maintain open channels of
communication and forge alliances between the various actors, from the local to the international levels.

 First, partnership between men and women is at the core of progress. Specific programmes and
initiatives to engage men in the fight against VAW should be developed and adequately
supported. Men should also be encouraged to champion efforts to put an end to VAW, reach out
to other men and contribute to transforming mentalities and societal roles. The participation of
men should be valued and made visible. Discussions on masculinity and the role of men in
society should be carried out.

 Second, parliamentarians must help forge national consensus on the need to address violence
against women as a Strategy . They can begin within their own parliaments. They must build
cross-party alliances to support VAW action. They must also cooperate with other stakeholders,
especially civil society and grass-root organizations.

Strategy 5: Show strong political will

Violence against women is a political issue and needs strong political will to be addressed as a
matter of Strategy .

 First, to garner political will, parliamentarians need to give visibility to the question, have accurate
data, to know about the situation, inform others and engage them. Exercises of costing violence
against women can serve as strong mobilization instruments. They should therefore not hesitate
to request and support such exercises.

 Second, parliamentarians need to continuously put pressure on their government to follow up on

its commitment or to commit to ending VAW. They should not hesitate to question government
and call ministers to give account of their commitments, hold briefings and hearings in parliament
to convince and engage MPs and political leaders.

Strategy 6: Establish a sound institutional framework

 Effective change requires a strong institutional framework and national bodies that have the
power and the capacity to take action.

 First, parliamentarians must build their parliament's capacities to take action to put an end to
VAW. They should look at what parliamentary mechanisms can be developed to support work on
VAW. The establishment of a specific parliamentary committee on VAW could be an option.

 Second, they should build their capacities to address VAW. Exchange of experiences between
parliaments from a same region or even at the global level should be encouraged. They should
also not hesitate to seek support from international or national organizations that could facilitate
training or provision of expertise.

 Third, it is crucial that more women be represented in decision-making bodies. Parliamentarians

need to develop strategies to promote their access to parliament, government, national courts,
etc.

 Fourth, national strategies to mainstream gender should be developed and supported to secure a
coordinated approach and response to VAW.

 Fifth, all efforts to address VAW should be taken into account and implemented at all levels of
government: national, subnational and local. Specific attention should be placed on building the
capacity of rural bodies which often lack support despite the important needs of rural populations.