Feminism in Pakistan refers to the movements which aim to define, establish, and defend the rights of women in Pakistan. This may involve the pursuit of equal political, economic, and social rights, alongside equal opportunity. These movements have historically been shaped in response to the national and global reconfiguration of power in the country, including colonialism, nationalism, Islamization, dictatorship, democracy, and the war on terror. The relationship between the women's movements and the Pakistani state has undergone significant shifts from mutual accommodation to confrontation and conflict.
Background The situation of women in Pakistan has been described to "confound easy categorization". For several generations women have been allowed to attend university and hold jobs, but there is still common gender-based violence and a widespread societal conception of women as property who should not have an existence outside the domestic sphere.
According to the Global Gender Gap report of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Pakistan's parity score in the Economic Participation and Opportunity subindex is 36.2%, one of the lowest scores world-wide. Pakistan has a ranking of 142 of 146 countries overall. According to UNICEF, 54% of Pakistani girls become pregnant before their 18th birthday, and 46% of girls are not in education, employment or training. The International Monetary Fund has estimated that raising women's economic productivity and growth to that of men could boost Pakistan's GDP by 30 percent.
According to writer Zoya Rehman, the image of Pakistani womanhood has been a construction of the Pakistani state since its inception, heavily influenced by colonialism and Pakistan's establishment as an Islamic nation. After independence, the government used religious right-wing sexism as a tool to gain popular support. Within this perception, Pakistani women are controlled, denigrated, and expected to guard their sexuality. They can be subject to "honor"-based violence when they do not meet cultural expectations.
Usman Quais argues that honor killings as well as other forms of gender based and sexual violence today are linked to and made worse by systemic barriers: lack of education, poverty, disrupted judicial system, and governmental negligence, which were exacerbated by years of colonial conflicts. Afiya S. Ziya argues that this cultural orthodoxy is maintained by propaganda produced by the Inter-Services Public Relations, a Pakistani government agency, that purports to define what is legitimate and permissible as Pakistani culture.
Women in Pakistan have advocated for women's political empowerment through reform legislation. The Muslim Personal Law of Sharia, which recognized a woman's right to inherit all forms of property, was passed in 1948 after activists mobilized support. There was an unsuccessful attempt include a Charter of Women's Rights in the 1956 constitution. The most important socio-legal reform to be driven by feminist movements in Pakistan, 1961 Muslim Family Laws Ordinance covering marriage and divorce, is still widely regarded as empowering to women.
Women from minority religions face a particularly severe lack of protections. The UN has expressed dismay at the continuing legal disregard for women in the Christian and Hindu communities against forced religious conversion, abduction, trafficking, child, early and forced marriage, domestic servitude and sexual violence.
History
According to Maliha Zia, while there are strong movements for women's equality and non-discrimination, there is no over-encompassing feminist movement. Zia divides the history of feminist movements in Pakistan into three phases: the first one beginning in 1947, the second one in the period after the Zia-ul-Haq dictatorship ended in 1988, and the third one since 9/11.
First phase: 1947–1952 Muslim women were some of the most affected victims of Partition; it is reported that 75,000 women were abducted and raped during this period. Soon after, Fatima Jinnah formed the Women's Relief Committee, which later evolved into the All Pakistan Women's Association. Jinnah later founded a secret radio station, and, in 1965, came out of her self-imposed political retirement to participate in the presidential election against military dictator Ayub Khan.
Begum Ra'na Liaquat Ali Khan helped the refugees who fled India during partition and 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, therefore allowing women to be in para-military forces. Nursing became a career path for many girls. Khan continued her mission, even after her husband was assassinated in 1951, and became the first female Muslim delegate to the United Nations in 1952.
According to Ayesha Khan, in the initial decades after independence, women's leadership was largely elite and invested in Muslim nationalism, striving for limited rights for women. Women in civil society came into confrontation with the government when dictatorial Islamization started limiting their rights.
Second phase: 1980s When the military dictatorial regime of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq gained power, they initiated the Islamisation of Pakistan. These reforms replaced parts of the British-era Pakistan Penal Code, making adultery and fornication criminal offenses, and introducing the punishments of whipping, amputation, and stoning to death. The feminist movement in Pakistan highly opposed this implementation of Islam, which they believed to be based on an archaic understanding of Islamic literature, asking instead for liberal modernist interpretation. After much controversy and criticism, parts of the law were considerably revised by the 2006 Women's Protection Bill.
In this context, the vocal Women's Action Forum (WAF) was formed in 1981. According to Madihah Akhter, General Zia ultimately sought to morally police the role of women in the public sphere, which brought unexpected pressure on Pakistani women. As a reaction to the form of Zia's Islamization, many Pakistani women, including writers, academics, and performers, became active in the opposition of these policies. Akhter argued that the younger generation of 1980s activists were more feminist in their outlook and approach; the Women's Action Forum, she says, used "progressive interpretations of Islam" to counter the state's implementation of religiously interpreted morality, and in doing so, gained the unexpected support of right wing Islamic women's organizations. They campaigned through various mediums such as newspaper articles, art, poetry, and song.
After Zia: 1988–2008
After the end of General Zia's rule, Pakistan elected its first female prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. Under her administration, all-women police stations were founded and female judges were appointed for the first time. However, many anti-feminist laws of the General Zia era remained.
In the post-Zia era, activists have been able to produce research that has focused on strengthening the political voice of women and promoting inclusive democratic governance.Shaheed et al., 2009; Zia, 2005; Bari, 2015 They have also produced some of the first Pakistani research and awareness-raising material on the sexual and reproductive rights of women,Saeed, 1994 environmental issues,Sadeque, 2012; Hanif, 2011 and citizen-based initiatives for peace between India and Pakistan.Sarwar, 2007
2008–2017 This was a period when the People's Party of Pakistan (PPP) was attained political stability within the country and was able to avoid economic decline. The PPP held all parts of government, the president, the prime minister, and the speaker. It became the first party to hold a 5-year term, and add a constitutional amendment that decentralized governmental power. This comes from the party's belief that the central government had been overpowering local governments but the PPP remained in opposition to the socialist leftist movement of Muttahida Qaumi Movement/MQM. This was also a time period where more women of different backgrounds were getting involved in the mainstream political spear. Good number of women related laws were passed in between 2008 to 2012. Elections Act, 2017 expects minimum 10% women voter turn out per constituency otherwise election commission has powers to declare lesser women turn out election to be void. This law besides on field efforts by NGO 'Women in Struggle for Empowerment (WISE)' founded by Bushra Khaliq, helped improve women voter participation to some extent.
More women from marginalized and low-caste statuses were politically organizing. There was still a general lack of attention to women's rights by all mainstream political parties. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is a documentarian and a filmmaker who seeks to tell the stories of marginalized voices in her community. Obaid-Chinoy has worked all over the world to tell the stories of survivors who have not been given a platform. One of her most notable films "Saving Face" details the experiences of Pakistani women who have survived acid attacks and their processes of physical and social recovery. She won an Oscar for this project and helped raise awareness of the realities faced by these survivors. She also produced a film about honor killings,"A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness" from the perspective of a rare survivor. This film reached the prime minister who was inspired to pass a law that ended a loop-hole within the legal system for honor killings. Her story telling is closely tied with activism; she believes that movies have more power in places where literacy rates are low. She explains, "[b]y bringing the voices of the ordinary people faced with extraordinary challenges to television screens around the world, I hope to affect change in one community at a time". Thus Obaid-Chinoy also participates in hands-on activist efforts by running a movie truck that travels across the country bringing new movies and ideas to different communities. The truck adapts to the local cultural contexts by providing an inside screening room for women in areas that are gender segregated.
Malala Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai is a notable activist from Swat Valley for women's and girl's right to education who came to activism during this period from her personal experiences and passion for learning. When she was 10 the Taliban took over her community and banned girls from participating in public education. She and her father criticized the Taliban. Yousafzai started an anonymous blog where she spoke out about her concerns. She became internally displaced in 2009 due to the conflicts within her community. Once she returned she advocated openly for her right to education. She was awarded both the Pakistan's National Youth Peace Prize and the International Children's Peace Prize. Yousafzai was subsequently shot by the Taliban while riding the school bus. She survived the severe injury and went to study in the U.K. and earned her degree from Oxford. Yousafzai has gone on to write a book, I Am Malala, about her experiences and advocacy work. Yousafzai also runs a nonprofit that focuses on advocating for the education of girls in the global south by conducting research, and connecting local activists to funds.
2018 – present