By Pakistan Ink Staff (Shizza Hashmi/Hamna Aleem/Fatima Khan/Haider Gardezi/Noor Usman Rafi/Mohammad Sohaib)
Islamabad — It’s March 8 and the annual International Women’s Day is being celebrated around the world to support women empowerment and gender equality.
Pakistan Ink reporters reached out to Pakistani women from different walks of life and asked them about the major challenges women face in the country and the social change women would like to see in Pakistan to make women’s lives better.
READ: Part I and Part II of our International Women’s Day series
Here are some of the responses (some replies have been edited for clarity):
“Biggest social challenge for women is, I think, lack of respect in the work field. In fact, just when the woman steps out of the house, the lack of respect that she has to face, the mentality of the society, the social conditioning, that if a woman is stepping out that means one can cross all boundaries. So I think that’s the biggest social challenge. The fact that people think it’s not important to educate a woman, that’s a social challenge as well.”
— Ayesha Omar, actor and singer
“All we need is to empower women through quality education to lead our society, and Pakistan on the whole, towards a brighter and prosperous future.” — Khadija Mushtaq, Executive Director of Roots School System DHA-1 Campus
“In my opinion, family expectations which are necessarily shaped by cultural and social practices in Pakistan are the biggest challenges for Pakistani women. This challenge has always been there … but increased in recent times because of changing economic role of women in household and family income. Now, there is a reluctant acceptance of women(‘s) economic roles in most middle class families… (but) there is an open rejection of her role in decision making in the family matters … This can be and must be resolved, especially if we want to save our family unit. The only way is the education of the family and women about the realistic expectations from each other especially in the modern Pakistani context. Unfortunately this is a long and complex task and needs institutional involvement which currently is nowhere to be seen. Schools and educational institutions along with the social outreach organizations can play important role in this.”
— Batool Atta, PhD candidate at Michigan State University, Department of Curriculum, Instruction & Teacher Education
“(If I get a chance to resolve employment discrimination,) I’ll definitely try my best to pass a law or something according to which every workplace should provide equal vacancies for men and women.” — Mahrukh Talat, NUST student
“Objectification of women is a major yet unnoticed problem in Pakistan, which has been accepted by the society, be it in movies, songs, adverts aiming to sell a product. The society still hasn’t understood the terrible consequences of selling a glamorous, sexual image of females to males. Wherever we look, we would see this around us. The other main problem is harassment of women at home and at work. These two problems are connected because of the portrayal of women in the media as objects. This has now enabled men to treat women in the same way in real life, and has resulted in different forms of harassment, disrespect and physical abuse towards women in our society.”
— Ayesha Usman, a medical doctor
“Insecurity (is a big social challenge for women.) Women are considered weak and dumb. Their social status remains vulnerable in a society dominated by males…If I ever get a chance I will give women the rights our religion (Islam) gave them 1,400 years ago. Only if we abide by the Quran and respect women, we will be able to create a respectable society.” — Tasneem Tariq, a housewife
PAKISTAN INK 
2 thoughts on “International Women’s Day 2015: Pakistani Women Speak Up (Part III)”