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Being a woman in Pakistan

Many NGO's are helping in law matters, education and skills women can learn and work from home , I wish them all the success.

Example: Pakistan Air Force Women Association (PAFWA)
Providing social, educational and financial uplift to Pakistan Air Force (PAF) low paid employees and their families and participation in relief work during national calamities such as floods, earthquakes etc.
Objectives of PAFWA: Coordination of welfare activities with a view to improve the social and economic conditions of PAF personnel
Improving the health and well-being of PAF personnel and their families both at home and in the general community
Extending legitimately needed assistance to PAF personnel and their families which cannot be provided through service channels
Undertaking special relief activities to alleviate the sufferings of those affected by disasters and calamities from time to time
Setting up projects in social welfare areas such as:

Family & child welfare activities
Vocational / educational training
Teaching of the Holy Quran with Urdu translation at PAFWA centres
Adult literacy programme for the families of PAF personnel at all PAFWA centres
Religious and motivational programmes
PAFWA Projects:
The following institutes have been established by PAFWA for social, educational and financial uplift of PAF personnel and their families :

Bilquis College of Education for Women, PAF Chaklala
PAF Finishing School for Women, Chaklala
PAF Community Centre, Islamabad
PAFWA /MTBC Project, Islamabad
Rehana Jamal Mujahida Academy, Peshawar
Marakaz-e-PAFWA (Bases)
PAF/ Base Montessori
Mujahida Montessori
PAF School for Special Education

http://www.paf.gov.pk/pafwa.html
 
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Do Muslim Women Get a Fair Deal?
Pak Tea House

By Taji M

I have a friend, university educated, upper class, stylish and religious but not an extremist way. She is a on the whole a very sensible person. Over the years we have debated religion extensively; I have more reformist thoughts and she is more mainstream. She is of the firm belief that present orthodox version of Islam offers the best position for Muslim women; in one of our debates she said something like this “Look at me, I am much better off than the western women slaving away in offices and then scouting for boyfriends and eventual husbands. Before marriage my father took care of me, he treated me and my brothers equally. During his lifetime he divided the property between me and brothers and I ended up getting a larger share as I got a lot of gold in my jahez also. I got married without going through the humiliating boyfriend search, and now have a loving husband and two cute kids. I am a stay-at-home mom out of choice not due to my husband’s insistence. And the nice house we live in is in my name. I am protected under the safety of Islam which offers the best to all good women”.

She is not alone in coming to that conclusion, a large number of educated class Muslim women share this attitude. They have been convinced that they have gotten best deal possible. I have a problem with this belief though. And I have told her and other similar women, that their experience is not out of the fruits of orthodox version of religion, but of the good luck of being associated with decent men. In case of my friend, her father bypassed the law and divided his estate in his life time so that she won’t get half share later on. Her husband, a really nice guy, ensured her financial security by keeping the house in her name. Otherwise in case of widowhood, the wife gets one of the smallest shares, and if there is a divorce she gets nothing from the family wealth. Of course she gets the Meher, but how many women can survive for long on that amount.

My sweet rightwing ladies at this point bring up the doctrine of Kifalat. A woman is not supposed to be earning her own living; it is the obligation on the male relatives to provide for her. If there is no husband, it has to be her father, or her paternal uncle, or elder brother. Woman is freed from the drudgery of doing job, unless she herself wishes to take up employment, provided of course she doesn’t mingle with men. OK, sounds good, so I ask how many of you will be delighted to see one of their husband’s nieces to land in their homes for life! What sort of treatment will be bestowed upon this woman by the household? Isn’t it sentencing the woman to be a charity case?

The reality is that present family laws have a tribal bent. Examine closely, and underlying theme is that wealth of the tribe or family should remain as much intact as possible. This is actually a very sound principle when people used to live in tribes. Take the example of a divorce of a woman earlier married to someone outside of her tribe. She will be returned to her tribe, who will now be responsible for her maintenance until she marries again. Her ex-husband would let her keep the Meher and other gifts what he has bestowed upon her. And if there are children, the woman’s tribe is not expected to give up their wealth for them, so the husband is required to provide for them, in fact after a certain age, the children are to be sent to live with their father. For its time, this was a good arrangement. Replace tribe with family and it still works as long as the women do not try to become independent of will. So it has been working until the modern times; the problem for orthodoxy emerges due to increasing number of independent minded women who challenge the inequality at the core.

The modern day pro conservative Islamist approach is to give a fresher and more women friendly spin to these orthodox laws. The most interesting readings are found in Islamic Websites that are mostly aimed at the Muslims living in the west. They use the social problems of Western society to forward their point, for example the over sexualized treatment of women in western media is contrasted with use of hijab as a statement of rejecting the media onslaught. Many young Muslims women have adopted a more orthodox version of Islam as an identity enhancer. Luckily for them they can have the best of both worlds; they can lay claims to all the benefits available to women in the west, right to education and work, alimony, child support, and freedom of speech. At the same time they can practice their religion according to their beliefs. In countries like Pakistan, women do not enjoy equal legal rights, and religion is used to justify this situation. It is however, difficult to understand why women living in Pakistan, like my friend, continue to buy the same spin, while they can actually observe the inequality even if they are lucky enough not to go through firsthand experience.

Most of the spin can be unravelled with very little cross examination. Let us consider the most revered figure in the family, the mother. Muslims glorify their mothers to very high levels; she has an almost divine status. And admittedly most mothers are treated very well, at least a lot better than wives. But what is the reality in terms of family laws. In case of death of offspring, the mother gets lesser share of the wealth of deceased than the father. While Jannat is under the feet of mother, it is perfectly acceptable to keep children away from their mother in case she is divorced from the father. Notice that the main argument given against pursuing a career is that the children need a full time mother, but the same logic is thrown out of the window, if the father is no longer interested in keeping the marriage intact, then suddenly it is the father’s right over the children that takes precedence. The mother can only keep the children for a few years if they are very young. Over the years, thankfully our courts have shown mercy on mothers, and in practice most of the time women are granted the child custody, on the basis of what’s best for the child approach. But perhaps this is because child custody laws have not been properly shariah-ized like that of rape, and that is some relief.

I hope that our women and men start asking more questions about the laws and customs pertaining to women and their place in society. Even in religious discourse there is exclusion of women; it is completely a domain of men clerics, who interprets religion to the benefit of maintaining the patriarchal set up. While I do not agree with women preachers like Farhat Hashmi, at least she was a good competitor to male speakers. Yet in spite of her conservatism, and the fact she was not challenging scholars, she was highly criticized by mainstream ulema, for… flaws that mostly emerged from the fact that she was a woman and she was independent. I can’t think of any other Pakistani woman in that capacity. I have however attended religious gatherings at homes, where women mostly western educated try to give a more enlightened interpretation of Islam. Unfortunately these gatherings, at least the one I know of, belong to a very elite class of Muslims families, who have half of their family members living in USA/Canada. And I assume that the approach espoused by these families is a way to synthesize Islam with western influences, but only at very small mostly individual scale. What we need is questioners and analyzers who are more widespread.

The blogosphere has been abuzz by several articles on the need to reform religion to bring it closer to modern realities. While the arguments presented are logical, the basic problem is how to make the reformist approach appealing to mainstream Muslims. No matter how excellent the arguments of the reformist sitting in the fringe are, unless there is some momentum within the larger section of the society, not much can be achieved. For the time being I say to my friend and those like her; baby thank God every day for giving you a loving husband, because it is him, and not Law which is looking after your benefits.
 
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were a strange country....in some ways, we are so backwards with respect to the way women are treated; on the other hand, in many ways we are ahead (female participation in govt/politics, armed forces etc.)


over all, it is obvious we have a lot to work on.......the honour killings and Mukhtara Mai type incidents still does go on, and this is the biggest shame on our country.

female literacy rates, labour participation and school completion rate is appalingly low in certain areas of the country

I really do hope that more is done in Pakistan. The truth is, our culture and our religion put so much importance and emphasis on the female -- because paradise does lie at the feet of the mother.


as lame and cheesy as this may sound, i speak from the heart when i say that the man is the head of the house but the woman is the neck and she can turn the head anyway she wants...
 
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Hi
Some how i expected that you will be more knowledgeable , man! was i wrong or what?, not to mention your piteous attempt by showing these pictures nullifies your credibility as some one who can argue without resorting to propaganda to justify ones claims
How was that 'propaganda'?

Female pilots of Pakistan airforce

Pakistan Army's two female major generals
Was I talking about Pakistan?

American polygamist females
And apparently you missed what I said earlier about polygamous marriages in the US -- ILLEGAL.

You missed the point completely. No surprise there. So let me try this again...

- Thou shalt not kill.

God commanded us not to murder. The government deemed the act detrimental enough to society that it will punish anyone who so deprive society of a productive member. It is a double whammy. In this life the government punish and supposedly in the afterlife, God will punish again.

- Honor thy mother and father.

That is fine. If not, God will punish in the afterlife. But can I be punished in this life if I do not honor my parents? Absolutely. We can make a law that will outline this and that and these things we must do to satisfy the law that I have sufficiently 'honor' my parents. If not, then my parents can call the police and have me charged with violating this law.

- Thou shalt not bear false witness.

Good. Lying is bad. If I lie to the police, I should be punished. But what if I lied to you about your ugly tie? Can we have a law that punish people for lying to each other, even to something as minor as ugly clothing? Absolutely. We can make a law that said if X amount of people can agree that your tie is truly ugly and that I should have been honest enough to say so, by lying to you I should be punished.

Is this the level of intrusion we want the government to have into our lives? The point here is that there are something that we want governmental intrusion and there are some that we do not. But it is curious that why do we have so many laws, aka 'governmental intrusions', into women's lives and not so much for men?

Another point is that the more governmental intrusions we have into our lives, the less freedom we have and the less capable we can be. The evidence to support that is glaring. By hobbling women, from denying them the right to dress, to drive, to vote, to work, etc...We effectively severed half of our brain from the other half. That is why the West, imperfect as we are, accomplished so much more than the muslim society, because we did away with women specific laws.

All the criticisms about the way our women behave missed another important point, which is that we allow our women to free enough to be prostitutes or drug addicts as well as astronauts or doctors. The more laws there are specifically for women, the greater the oppression on that half of society and the less capable that society will be compared to the one that do not have so much oppression on their women. Some muslim countries may have more or less women specific laws than other. That is why Pakistan is more 'advanced' than Afghanistan and that made Pakistan somewhere in the middle between these two extremes...

burqa.jpg
eileen_collins.jpg


But as I pointed out that we do not conduct our lives and societies in an intellectual vacuum, therefore our laws are highly influenced by religious values. So if a woman is legally compelled to wear a burqa it will not be so difficult to come up with other religiously based laws that are equally oppressive and women specific. That is why you muslims should be honest enough to admit that Islam cannot be dismissed as an influential factor in the way women are treated in muslim countries. The more women specific laws there are, the greater that influence.
 
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I dont know what you are exactly discussing here because i dint read all posts BUT gambit in your above post one sentence capture my attention which you posted and goes like this " So if a woman is legally compelled to wear a burqa"


I would say its not going to be the case anyway so if something is not on ground then why you are whining about it in the first place,

As far as right to wear whatever women want well your western countries are not far behind in curbing that right of the Muslim women
 
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Gambit its not the first time when i saw you comparing the women of east and west like this. Next time when you have to compare do it the proper way

1) West

eileen_collins.jpg


1) East

pakistanigirlan4.jpg


2) West

DegreeNun.jpg


2) East

3620734871_f53e1f3d06.jpg


========

The burqa that you are repeatedly sharing is hardly wore by anybody in "East" but some tribal areas and those women who consider themselves to be highly conservative or religious (which is a very small % in total)

Back to topic :)
 
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I dont know what you are exactly discussing here because i dint read all posts BUT gambit in your above post one sentence capture my attention which you posted and goes like this " So if a woman is legally compelled to wear a burqa"


I would say its not going to be the case anyway so if something is not on ground then why you are whining about it in the first place,
What make you think am 'whining' about the burqa? Am making an observation.

As far as right to wear whatever women want well your western countries are not far behind in curbing that right of the Muslim women
Any Western country that want to ban the burqa is doing so based upon the same right as the muslim countries that want to enforce the burqa. The issue here is the degree of governmental intrusions into our lives and their effects.
 
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I wonder why we take up Islam when discussing such things because

1. The incidents of rape of women in the western society are also there

2. discrimination of women in the western or so-called non-Islamic societies are also found.

This discrimination ranges from rights at workplace to home affairs, decision making and economic affairs just like Islamic countries.

The only thing which is different is the enforcement of laws in less developed countries as compared to the developed ones that too irrespective of the religion
 
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Gambit its not the first time when i saw you comparing the women of east and west like this. Next time when you have to compare do it the proper way

1) West

eileen_collins.jpg


1) East

pakistanigirlan4.jpg


2) West

DegreeNun.jpg


2) East

3620734871_f53e1f3d06.jpg


========

The burqa that you are repeatedly sharing is hardly wore by anybody in "East" but some tribal areas and those women who consider themselves to be highly conservative or religious (which is a very small % in total)

Back to topic :)
Sorry...No government forces the nun to dress that way. FYI -- That is a pre-Vatican II nun. Post Vatican II nun can dress anyway she want. In fact, you would not recognize a post-Vatican II nun even if she is standing in front of you.
 
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What make you think am 'whining' about the burqa? Am making an observation.

1. clearly you are whining about burqa.


Any Western country that want to ban the burqa is doing so based upon the same right as the muslim countries that want to enforce the burqa. The issue here is the degree of governmental intrusions into our lives and their effects.

The Muslim countries are not formulating laws that says that wearing a burqa is a must for women and specially for Western women unlike your western world that is snatching right to wear from Muslim women .

And if we accept your justification for western countries' banning the attire of Muslim women than by the same yardstick isnt it fair if some Muslim countries want the opposite ???
 
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How did this go from being about women in Pakistan, to being about West Vs Pakistani women?

Some people like causing a stir... Usually such is the case when their argument carries little or no actual substance. Of course Pakistan has her problems and certainly women in Pakistan face hardships, but to take a picture of a raggy Burqa clad lady and compare her to an educated woman in a flight suit... What do you wish to achieve?

You took an extreme in Islamic Society and compared it to the best in Western society, I shall repay the favour:

It would have been better for you to compare her, with this lady:
first_officer_maliha_people.jpg


Or them:
capt_ayesha_lgds17e.jpg


Or her:
20071021_18.jpg


Or can you only focus on the negative?
 
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Sorry...No government forces the nun to dress that way. FYI -- That is a pre-Vatican II nun. Post Vatican II nun can dress anyway she want. In fact, you would not recognize a post-Vatican II nun even if she is standing in front of you.

so does the government forces in Pakistan or any other eastern country to wear burqa? :undecided: :no:
You just disappointed me Gambit :confused:

@nun
unfortunatley whichever nun i have seen so far still wear similar dress code :confused:

the only reason for sharing her picture was, those women who opt to wear burqa or even Hijab do so on their own wish and you are comparing them with NASA scientists. Housewives and scientists are entirely two different professions/lifes. Compare a person within a same profession, do it a proper way next time

bye
 
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Burka & women’s liberation

From Fata to France, the question of what differentiates moderate from extremist Islam is being settled on the bodies of women. Using women as a litmus test for whether a certain interpretation of religion is ‘acceptable’ is one of the worst things that can happen to women’s rights.


This is especially true if the indicator is women’s clothing, as nothing can be a more superficial gauge of either emancipation or religiosity. Indeed, there can be no doubt that the struggle for women’s liberation and religious moderation is a long-term effort that will require systemic social change. What, then, is all the fuss about?


Last week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy ruffled many a headscarf when he lashed out against burkas. He framed his remarks as an issue of women’s rights, rather than religious tolerance. By describing burkas as a sign of ‘subjugation’ and ‘submission’ that deprive women of their identity and hinder social participation, he cast the garments as a cultural tool of male oppression (rather than a religious expression). Seeing is believing, his simple logic suggested: if a woman looks liberated, she must be liberated.


Now, a national commission backed by 58 members of parliament, many of whom are from Sarkozy’s rightwing UMP party, are conducting a ‘burka probe’. If investigations suggest that women are being coerced into covering themselves, burkas will be banned in France to protect women and ensure their equality.


The problem is, Sarkozy’s women’s lib argument holds no water. The 2004 ruling that banned ‘ostentatious’ religious symbols — including headscarves — from French classrooms forced many Muslim girls to leave the public secular school system and enroll in Islamic schools where they could continue wearing hijabs. A ban on burkas will similarly confine women who veil themselves to their homes. Rather than boost social participation, integration and equality, French legislation on Muslim women’s clothing will further marginalise them. In a secular state such as France, where human rights are privileged, this outcome should be seen as counter-productive.


One is also discomfited by Sarkozy’s throwback to colonial posturing. His brash attempt to ‘save’ Muslim women from their barbaric, overbearing husbands and fathers is paternalistic, eerily recalling the we-meant-best rhetoric that stemmed from the ‘white man’s burden’.


Many have also pointed out that Sarkozy’s absolutist rhetoric resembles the very extremism it aims to counter. In Saudi Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan, women have been forced to wear burkas — a practice that has been widely denounced. But how can its flipside — forcing women not to wear burkas — be any better? The argument that the state cannot tell a woman how to dress is equally valid in the Muslim world and the West.



As such, everything about Sarkozy’s burka-bashing seems ridiculous. Given that only about 100,000 women out of France’s total population of five million Muslims wear burkas, it also seems unnecessary. Can such a minority merit the attention of the French parliament when the country as a whole is still wrangling with the problem of how to integrate Muslims into mainstream French society? Is it possible that the feisty Frenchman’s burka fervour is really directed at something else?


Soon after Sarkozy condemned burkas, Mohammed Moussaoui, the president of France’s Representative Muslim Council, expressed support for the president’s stance and declared that his group was investing in promoting a moderate version of Islam. Moussaoui’s comments indicated that Sarkozy’s decision to raise this point had less to do with the social politics of the burka per se, and more to do with which western power decides what interpretation of Islam will be acceptable to the West.


It is no coincidence that Sarkozy spoke out against burkas soon after US President Barack Obama delivered his historic address in Cairo. In that speech, Obama hit out at European countries that are dictating how Muslim women should dress and warned against disguising “hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism”. Sarkozy’s critique of the burka, then, is a way to push back against Obama, making it clear that France will deal with Islam on its own terms, not America’s.


Indeed, the burka issue gets at the heart of a longstanding tussle between the US and France. Writing in The Christian Science Monitor, Howard LaFranchi points out that the difference between the two countries’ approaches to notions of freedom 'comes down to one of ‘freedom to’ versus 'freedom from'. While the US defends a woman’s right to dress as she likes, France wants to ensure women’s freedom from coercion and subjugation. In the former approach, individual liberty is elevated; in the latter, the state as protector bears the burden of responsibility.
This arm-wrestling between the US and France over concepts of freedom is centuries old, and is now taking place on the backs of Muslim women because the greatest challenge the West currently faces is its engagement with Islam.



Whichever nation sets the boundaries for what constitutes ‘moderate’ Islam will emerge victorious, at least for now.Of course, this could also be a case of petty personal politics. Sarkozy and Obama are both charismatic, ‘rule’-breaking, superstars with a penchant for the limelight. At the G20, Nato and EU summits earlier this year, Sarkozy was publicly perturbed at being overshadowed by Obama — he even went so far as to declare that the US president was inexperienced and thus not 'up to standard'. Post-Cairo, France’s favourite troubleshooter probably wants to ensure that he is not eclipsed by Obama.


It would be best if western powers left Muslim women’s clothes out of their lovers’ spats. Denying women the option to veil themselves may provide France with a vision of a progressive Islam, but it will compromise the reality of Muslims in Europe. After all, banning burkas does not address the real issues that continue to hinder the progress of Muslim women the world over — access to education, political representation, job opportunities, vulnerability to domestic violence and more.

In the near future, when military operations in Pakistan’s tribal and northwestern areas end, it will be time to invest in social and economic development. International donors have already implied that bolstering women’s rights while respecting tribal mores will be of utmost importance.


One hopes that the Pakistani government can learn a lesson from the fallacies of the French and instead take a page from Obama’s Cairo address. Let the chador be. Instead, emphasise female literacy, fiscal independence through micro-finance, equitable healthcare and freedom of movement. Looking the part is the least important aspect of being liberated.


DAWN.COM | World | Burka & women?s liberation
 
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How did this go from being about women in Pakistan, to being about West Vs Pakistani women?
The original complaint, not by me, was the degree of intrusion of religion, supported by legal sanctions, into women's lives in Pakistan. The burqa or the chador or the hijab are only the most visibly attractive manifestations of that intrusion. They may be legally enforced, or they may not, but even when they are not legally enforced for women, the cultural pressure to wear them remains strong, far stronger than any similar cultural elements in the West. So to focus only on the clothing misses the point, even though clothing is the most convenient item to bring to the fore in an attempt to illustrate the chasm between the West and the muslim world.

I have sufficiently demonstrate the degree of said governmental intrusion. Now all you have to do is address the original complaint and examine the legal and cultural pressure points upon women that compelled said original complaint. The irony cannot be more delicious, that I see men defending these pressure points upon women while claiming that muslimahs are 'free' to pursue their dreams despite the chasm between the two societies.

The practice of Islam in Pakistan cannot be said to be the dominant version. If anything, we can say that as far as applied Islam goes, Pakistan is an anomaly. Without the notional 'the West', Pakistan can rightly claim to be the most progressive of all brands of applied Islam. But 'the West' does exist and we grossly outpace any brand of applied Islam and that beggared the original complaint. Do go back and read it again.
 
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The irony cannot be more delicious, that I see men defending these pressure points upon women while claiming that muslimahs are 'free' to pursue their dreams despite the chasm between the two societies.

:lol::lol::lol:

I wish my wife were here to tell how wrong you are. Sure there is pressure on Pakistan in certain parts of Pakistan, but this is not Pakistan circa 1980's... This is Pakistan 2010... And a lot has changed; sadly the "west" and observers such as your good self continue to see Pakistan through the prism of backwardness and man's dominance over woman.

Hey, whatever floats your boat? But to say that there is a chasm between the two societies. What Chasms? Those Chasms you refer to are not "Islamic" but cultural.

Kindly learn to address the difference between the two, and don't quote application of Islam, because Islam is not a law or a act to be applied, it is a religion that is "practiced".

There is a big difference between "application" and "practice".

Regards,
 
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