Gender Studies

Mohsin Ali
PAAS
• What are your
expectations from the
subject?
•Reviewing the
official syllabus
 First Part
• Introduction to Gender Studies

• Development of Gender Studies in the USA, Europe and

Pakistan

• Social Construction of Gender

• Nature versus Culture Debate

• Queer Theory
 Second Part
• Theories
– 8 to 9 total theories
– 4 most important ones are: Liberal, radical, marxist feminism and post-
modern feminism.

• Movements
– 1st wave
– 2nd wave
– 3rd wave

• Feminist Movement in Pakistan

• UN conferences and efforts towards women

 Third part
• What is the concept of gender and development.

• Development Approaches

• WID, WAD and GAD

• What about the below mentioned topic?

– Gender analysis of development theories
 Fourth part
• Status of women in Pakistan
• Women and Health
• Women and Employment
• Women and Education
• Women and Politics
• Women and legislation
• Violence Against Women
• Case Studies
• Question (2017)
– What is the status of women’s health
in Pakistan? How it could be improved
within the available economic
resources?
• Question (2017)
– Define and discuss the discipline of
gender studies and also differentiate
between women studies and gender
studies.
 Examiner’s View Point
• Does the aspirant belong to my family?

• Does he comprehend the nuts and bolts of

Gender Studies?

• Knowledge of relevant authors, facts and

figures
•How should we
attempt the
answer?
• Comprehensive Introduction
• Cover all aspects of the
question
• Be concise and be specific
• Maximum Headings
• Quotations of Authors
• Use of jargons
• Legible writing
• Where necessary relate to theory
• Examples from your own country
• Examples from international
world
• SWOT Analysis
• Conclusion
 Objective Portion
• 50 Concepts of Gender Studies

• Past Papers

• Women related data

– Health
– Education
– Politics
– Legislation on women related issues
• International Convention on Women
– The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is
an international treaty adopted in 1979 by the
United Nations General Assembly.

• International Conferences on Women

– Mexico City in 1975, Copenhagen in 1980, Nairobi
 in 1985 and Beijing in 1995
 Books on Gender Studies
• Gender Studies by Amanullah Gondal
– M.O.A publisher

• 50 Key terms of Gender Studies

– Jane Pilcher & Imelda Whelehan

• Notes by Syed Hammad

 Online Sources
• https://www.unwomen.org/en
• http://
www.5wwc.org/conference_background/1985
_WCW.html
• https://
ec.europa.eu/info/policies/justice-and-funda
mental-rights/gender-equality_en
• https://womenlobby.org/
 Women Studies
• Common definition
• Women’s Studies is an academic field that
draws on feminist and interdisciplinary
methods in order to place women’s lives and
experiences at the centre of the study, while
examining social and cultural constructs of
gender, systems of privilege and oppression,
and the relationship between power and
gender.
 Women Studies
o Origin: 1960s & 1970s

o Second wave of feminism

o Feminists focused on the way ideas and
knowledge excluded women’s ideas, life situation
and interests.
o New political dawn
o Academic field
 Subject Matter
• Past & Present of women’s life.

• Women’s roles, experiences and achievements

• Ascertaining the factors responsible for dependent status of

women.

• Differentiating terms: sex & gender

• Historically and culturally determined construction of sex and

gender.

• Development of a feminist epistemology (theory of knowledge)

• Sabeeha Hafeez says that
• The aim of Women’s Studies is to create and
imbibe anti-authority, anti-hierarchy and
anti-patriarchy norms in people through
innovative changes in content and process of
instruction the class room.
 Why?
• Critical response towards lack of interest shown in half of humanity.

• Focus on critique of traditional social sciences and their exclusion of

female experience.
– History, sociology, international politics, and others

• Realisation that social, political and economic inequality is perpetuated

because of lacunae of women’s ideas and viewpoints in higher
education curricula and research.

• Fill the knowledge gaps and complement the existing knowledge base.

• Necessary for incorporation of unbiased views on women leading to

prevalence of justice in the society.
 Development of the subject
• First course developed in the US in 1960s.

• 1970: less than 20 women courses

• 1970: first women’s studies prog. was approved in San Diego State University.

• Development of courses in college and higher education in the UK

• 1980: first MA in Women Studies in University of Kent, England.

•
• 1977: National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) was formed acting as
communication network to enable the exchange of syllabi and research.

• Early 1990s: professional association, initially called the Women’s Studies Network (later
to be renamed the Feminist and Women’s Studies Association) in the UK.
• Various modules and courses were introduced in
Australia, Europe, Asia and Middle East

• Mary Maynard:
– It became something of a global educational
phenomenon

• Formal and Informal presence.

– Former: Women studies recognised as distinctive field
– Latter: Existing subjects offer courses that specifically
deal with women’s studies or gender differences.
 Contested Status of Subject
• Mary Evans: one of the ironies of the history of women’s
studies in Britain in the 1980s was the increased toleration
for it.

• Much as students flock to women’s studies classrooms, it is

also true that many seek the security of established
disciplines.

• Why?
– b/c employers were willing to induct graduates whose discipline
they recognise and whose value they understand.
 Legitimacy of Women’s Studies
• Adrienne Rich’s essay ‘Toward a Women Centered University’ in 1973

• Women’s studies has produced knowledge that is of direct

consequence for women and society at large.

• It has raised the consciousness level of students and gave them ideas.

• Now, what they do with the ideas they learn is incalculable.

• It is hoped that not only women’s studies have a legitimate disciplinary

position within the academy, but also its location there helps sustain
feminist work outside.
Rebranding of Women’s Studies into Gender
Studies

• Recognition of diversity not only between genders

but also within genders.

• There are various differences including the

composition of genders across ethnicities, race,
classes, nationalities, disabilities, colours and others

• Other aspects
– Men’s studies and queer theory
• 1990s: a few job opportunities for women’s studies graduates

• Other factors:
– Cuts in funding
– Decline in student grants
– Replacement of grants by loans

• 1990s & 2000s:

• Decline in students opting Women’s studies for graduate
programmes.

• New Subjects at Postgraduate level: commonly known as

Gender Studies.
 Rubina Saigol
• UN World Conference on Women (1985) in
Nairobi called for gender equality through gender
mainstreaming.
• This is the point of transformation of women’s
studies into gender studies.
• The focus on so-called male-streaming.
• Distortion of very notions of gender and feminism
• Gender came to be a substitute for the word
‘women’
 Gender Studies
• Gender studies is a field for interdisciplinary
study devoted to gender identities and
gendered representation as central categories
of analysis.
• This field includes women’s studies concerning
with women, feminism, sex & gender, politics,
men’s studies and queer studies.
Understanding of Gender Studies
• Takes into account that various genders exist
and they live not in isolation.

• Comprehending the difference between men

and women and other genders.

• Understand the pattern of behaviour

associated with masculinity and femininity
• How is masculinity and femininity
constructed in our society

• What stereotypes are associated with men

and women.

• How stereotypical models change over time

and what factors instigate such evolution
 Importance of Gender Studies
• Study the relationship among genders and how this
relationship complements each other.

• Comprehend needs of different genders and their role in the

society

• Identify the unique contribution of men, women and

transgenders

• Conduct research: theory, finding problems and suggesting

measures.
• Explicate the issues faced by various genders
in social setting, economy, and politics.

• Recommend way out to resolve numerous

gender related problems.

• Promotes the value of people regardless of sex

• Establishes healthy gender-related

expectations and models of identity.
Main Features of Modern Gender Studies

• Multi- and inter-disciplinary approach having an impact on

the production of contemporary knowledge.

• Continuous penetration of gender studies knowledge and

ideas in mainstream subjects like politics, international
peace, negotiation and diplomacy, sociology, law making
and others

• Feminism remains the central perspective in the study of

Gender Studies.
 Gender Studies & Women’s Studies
• The idea behind G.S. is that it is impossible to study women
as a unique group to effectively understand women’s
situation including their past and present conditions.

• One cannot simply investigate WOMEN to understand

violence, oppression, economic inequity, social exclusion
and the place of women in politics.

• Rather, the field of gender studies hold the key to

understand the women’s situation
• Monotonous study of women has no consequence in
empirical domain.
• The real picture can only be seen through gender relationship
in order to grasp an idea why men have mainly masculine
characteristics and women have feminine attributes

• Women belong to different races and ethnicities. Some has

higher privileges and some not.
• For instance, white women are more privileged than black
men.
• Thus, it is inappropriate to say all women suffer from the
same pattern of violence, inequality and oppression.

• Gender studies is concerned with studying the society from

various angles to reach a conclusion that could help
ameliorate lives of all who are oppressed.
• A theoretical and political shift
– Towards coalition of women studies with other related subjects
including men’s studies, Queer Theory, and Transgender Studies

• Name of G.S. is seen as an attempt to depoliticise feminist

academic work and even allow male or gay male
experience to take precedence over female experience
(Evans 1990)

• Post-colonialism and post-modernism played a critical role

in shifting focus from women’s studies to gender studies.

• Chronological Order
– Women’s studies precedes gender studies
 Mind the context
• Differing opinion on whether gender studies is the same as women’s
studies.

• For some, Gender Studies is almost the same as women’s studies. For
some scholars, it is not.

• For instance
– Anglo-American countries, both are different.
– In Nordic countries (except for Finland), both are same.
• Nordic countries: Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland.

• Thus, everyone’s understanding and demand for using these terms

would be different depending upon the discourse.
 Women’s versus Gender Studies
• Women’s studies deals with women and their
problems as well as the academic side of the
women’s emancipation
• Originated in 1960s

• Gender Studies focuses on gender relations,

gender equality, gender equity, queer studies,
race, culture, ethnicity etc
• Later, late 1990s
Women’s Studies Gender Studies

Women centred Male & female relationship, transgender

studies, men’s studies and others

Focus on binaries i.e. male and female Move away from binaries. Basically, non-
dichotomy binary approach (include several
experiences)

Closely linked with feminist thought, More cooperative, safer, depoliticised,

politics and radical thinking. neutral and academic discourse.

Restricted somewhat to western All-inclusive western perspective, Global

thoughts and academicians south etc

Focus on female body, life and Focuses on the body, life and
perspectives exclusively perspectives of men, women and those
who are not binaries

WID approach focuses on women GAD approach focuses on gender

 G.S. is Multidisciplinary
• What is Multidisciplinary?
• What is Interdisciplinary?
• How Gender Studies are both?
• Examples:
• A student of HR opting G.S. in post-graduation.
• Policy making involves participants from
various backgrounds
 Multidisciplinary Nature
• Multidisciplinary research in essence involves
two or more disciplines, each making a
separate contribution to the overall study

• It refers to juxtaposition of various disciplines

• It is actually additive, not integrative.

 Interdisciplinary Nature
• Interdisciplinary research, in contrast, involves
integration of various fields through
collaboration by a team of scholars.

• It is the integration of various perspectives,

knowledge, concepts or theories, & techniques
from various fields to come up with a solution
that is beyond the scope of a single discipline.
G.S. is a multidisciplinary
and interdisciplinary
subject.
• Compartmentalization of knowledge is impossible.

• Sexes and genders are different. Their experiences are different. Their
problems are un-similar.

• Analogy:
– Climate Change affects various sections of society, and thus require
understanding it from various fields.
– The same is the case with G.S.
• Gender is pertinent in various fields including
literary theory, arts, drama and film studies,
history, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and
others.

• For each one, the approach towards how and

why gender is studied may be different.

• G.S. involves in itself the work of feminists,

historians, sociologists, medicine professionals,
thinkers, activists.
Gender studies permeates all disciplines and
vice versa.
• Economists:
– How economics defines gender roles?
– Which groups are marginalised?
• Anthropology:
– How men and women adopted certain kind of behaviour
– How gender is a social construct?
– How is gender perceived in different culture?
• Psychology:
– What is human nature?
– What is the nature of human sexuality?
• Biology:
– What are the biological differences among men, women and transgender?
 Integration versus Autonomy
• Integration Supporters
– Integration of feminist academic work wihtin
already existing fields like sociology, history,
political science, international relations, and others

• Autonomy Supporters
– They support the separation of feminist academic
work from existing fields. They aim to
institutionalise a separate academic status.
• The debate is all about the location of
women’s studies in the university:
integrationists versus separatist
postures.

• The debate b/w women activists within

existing disciplines and those who
worked at women centres.
 Background & Origin of the debate
• Women’s studies was considered an arm of feminist movements significantly
linking itself with politics of knowledge, social change, and political change.

• Women’s studies inclusion in the academia was considered crucial as it provided

feminist politics an institutional location.

• 1960s Onward:
– women centres started to appear in the USA and other countries
– Feminist courses unfolded in various fields.
– In discipline after discipline, feminist challenged the established research
methodology in which human beings were considered men.
• women’s authors, history, women’s everyday life, women’s work and so on
were made objects of research within the framework of other disciplines viz.
literary studies, history, anthropology, sociology and others

• 1970: less than 20 women courses

• 1970: first women’s studies prog. was approved in San Diego State University.

• 1977: National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) was formed acting as

communication network to enable the exchange of syllabi and research.

• 1979: ‘Is Women’s Studies an Academic Discipline?’ was the title of the first
annual session of NWSA

• 1982 annual session of National Women’s Suffrage Association and Women’s

Studies Quarterly
 Question
• How to pursue women’s studies in higher education?

• Should feminists seek to influence the academy from

within particular disciplines or establish an
autonomous field drawing on interdisciplinary
theories and methods

• WHAT DIRECTION SHOULD THE PROCESS OF

INSTITUTIONALISATION TAKE?
 Arguments for Autonomy
• In the 1980s, Renate Klein showed that
– women’s studies had a long way to go until it became a separate field of it own,
rather than an ‘add-on’ within the present male-centred compartmentalization
of knowledge-making.

• Necessary to preserve connection with women’s movement

• Integration would lead to co-optation by the very institution that

excluded women for long.

• No bounds of established disciplines’ theories and framework

• Reflected the legacy of suspicion of the academy’s patriarchy

o Griffin and Hanmer 2001
o Some researchers argue that feminist studies should seek an autonomous status for
strategic reasons.

o Autonomy would give ability to make decisions on hiring, syllabi, resources and
university politics.

o Cultivate distinct feminist theories and methodologies

o Develop visible professional identity and power-base

o Independent decision making was thought to be crucial in legitimizing feminist

scholarship and guaranteeing its future.

o For separatists, women’s studies be studied as a unit rather than scattered

throughout all other disciplines; that, as a whole, its content, while
interdisciplinary, is greater than, and different from, the sum of its parts.
 Arguments for Integration
• Autonomy would lead to ghettoization

• Reduce the impact of women’s studies across the institution

• Important to take steps in each discipline or department to

confront gender-blindness, transform disciplinary epistemology
and methodology and include feminist perspective in each canon.

• Integrationists claim that mainstream change and women-

centrality could only occur when women’s studies permeates the
mainstream of the curriculum.
 Ghettoisation
• A ghetto is a part of the city in which members
of a minority group live especially because of
social, political, legal or economic pressure.
• Autonomous discipline could not appropriately critique the
organisation of knowledge in modern academia.
– It would be too separate to influence other subjects.

• Funds and Interests

– Lack of wherewithal is dangerous for the subject.
– Minutiae of interest could lead to its extermination from academia at
least from specific organisation.

• Integration can effectively deal with both minute resources and

interests, albeit it would be within the domain of another
subject.
 Your
Perspective?
 Factors to be considered
• Linkage between academia and feminist
movements
Hemmings:
Relationship between academia & feminist
movements in different countries often
defines the autonomy vs. integration debate.

• Institutional support
o Market demand of the degree
o Eg: In 1980s, there was healthy demand for
Gender/Women’s Studies graduates.

o Taking into account developmental status of

the country
o Eg: Pakistan is nearly developing country.
o Inadequate political will
o Underdeveloped Academia
o Narrow societal support
o Scarcity of funds
Status of Women’s/Gender
Studies in Pakistan

Unique relationship between

action and reflection
 General Understanding
• Academic discipline came into existence five/six
decades ago.

• Main origin of women’s studies

– Action, History, Philosophy and Literature

• However, history goes a long way back.

– Women have been expressing their wants, needs, desires,
sorrows, joys, love and hate for centuries, through the oral
traditions of storytelling, singing and lullabies
• In the 19th and 20th centuries, feminism as an
intellectual discourse as well as political activism
developed rapidly

– various schools of thought emerged

– contributed immensely to an understanding of women and

their relationship to social, cultural, economic, political and
ideological structures

• The publication of Mary Wollstonecraft’s book is often

taken as a starting point of women’s formal entry into
public political and intellectual discourse
• As Gender/Women’s Studies
developed within an interaction of
theory and practice, there is a
unique and special emphasis in the
discipline on the relation between
action and reflection.
 Mary Wollstonecraft
• Today Wollstonecraft is widely recognised as a
principal architect in the fight for sexual equality. Her
work is still published around the world.

• Her life experience

– Mary was born into prosperity but her father, a drunk,
squandered the family money.
– Like her mother, she often suffered abuse at his hands.
– Her older brother, Ned, received an extensive formal
education
– But, Mary spent just a few years in a day school.
– The disparity rankled.
 Why should she be denied the
opportunities afforded to her
brother just because she was a girl?
She resolved, with characteristic
determination, to educate herself.

• By the age of 25, Wollstonecraft had opened a

small girls’ school with her two sisters and her
friend Fanny Blood. It was a financial struggle.
• Intellectual Satiation
– She befriended Richard Price
• minister & fellow of the Royal Society and a committed advocate of
political reform.
– Price counted Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin among his
clique of radical friends.
– Wollstonecraft discovered a forum for debate among this group
of enlightened thinkers, grasping the opportunity to shape her
own ideas.

• Governess of Ireland
– Mary soon came to despise her mistress.
– In Lady Kingsborough she saw everything she disliked in
fashionable femininity.
• Describing her as ‘frivolous’ with ‘neither sense nor feeling’.
• Return from Ireland to London
– New purpose as an author.
– The radical publisher Joseph Johnson agreed to publish
Wollstonecraft’s first book
• the didactic Thoughts on the Education of Daughters.
– At Johnson’s weekly dinners Mary met and shared ideas with
radical thinkers including Thomas Paine, Anna Barbauld and
William Godwin.

• French Revolution
– A more equal society seemed within reach with the revolution
unfolding across the channel in France. It was the change Mary's
radical set longed for.
– She quickly penned a furious defence of the revolution's
egalitarian ideals: A Vindication of the Rights of Men.
• 1792 - A vindication of the rights of woman

• Wollstonecraft had written passionately in defence of the

revolution's ideals. Now she went further and claimed equality
for her sex.
– How could true liberty and equality be achieved if restricted to men
alone?

• In her best-selling book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,

Wollstonecraft took the principles of the revolution to their logical
conclusion.
• Wollstonecraft outlined a vision of equality between the sexes.

• . If women were afforded the same opportunities and education,

she wrote, they could contribute as much to society as men
Relationship b/w Action & Theory
• Action gives rise to theory, which guides and limits further action, and in turn
the action refines, challenges or changes the theory
– A dynamic discipline
– Relied fairly heavily on women’s experiences and their everyday lived realities.

• Ever since the realisation that women experience the world in ways that are
sometimes radically different from men’s ways of seeing, knowing,
understanding and acting
– women’s oral histories, oral testimonies and personal stories have played a central role
in the development of the methods that are employed in Gender/Women’s Studies

• Gender/Women’s Studies, therefore, is not simply about academic discourse

or struggles for rights and justice. It is about both, each contributing to an
understanding of the other.
 Pakistan’s Women
• Miss Fatima Jinnah
– an inspiration to the women of Pakistan
– Women’s Relief Committee
– played a vital role in the settlement of refugees in the new state of Pakistan

• After the Quaid’s death, She fearlessly pointed out the lapses of the rulers on a regular basis

• In 1964, after Khawaja Nazimuddin died, the Combined Opposition Parties (COP) nominated
Miss Jinnah as their presidential candidate
– a massive step towards the political empowerment of women
– put an end to the knotty question of a woman’s right to become the head of a Muslim State,
– even the Jamat-iIslami gave her its grudging support, albeit under the concept of it being “the need of
the hour.”

• Surprisingly, the APWA and its leaders, including Begum Raana Liaquat Ali Khan and Begum
Fida Hussain, opposed Miss Jinnah and actively campaigned for President Ayub Khan
 Early Women Legislators
• Members of Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly
– Begum Shaista Ikram Ullah
– Begum Jahan Ara Shahnawaz

• Success:
– Muslim Personal Law of Shariah passed
– women were granted the right to inherit
property, including agricultural land.
United Front for Women’s Rights (UFWR)
• Formed under the leadership of Begum Jahan Ara Shahnawaz.

• In 1955 PM Mohammad Ali Bogra took a second wife which

instigated women organizations to launch a campaign against his
second marriage.

• Under pressure from UFWR and APWA, the Government formed a

commission headed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Mr.
Justice Rashid, to study the existing laws of marriage, divorce,
maintenance and custody of children and recommended
modifications to bring them into conformity with the dictates of
Islam.
 Charter of Women’s Rights
• Prepared by Begum Jahan Ara Shahnawaz

– “Equality of status, equality of opportunity, equal pay for equal work and guarantee of
rights for Muslim women under the Muslim Personal Law of Shariah”

• The Charter was passed by the Constituent Assembly with an overwhelming

majority

• Mr. Zafarullah opposed the bill.

– It was his contention that a newborn state could not afford this “luxury”, especially as
British Prime Minister even Mr. Churchill had refused to agree to equal pay for equal work
for women in Britain

• Great victory for both the lady parliamentarians in particular, and the women of
Pakistan in general.
 1956 & 1962 Constitution
• 1956 Constitution
– Seats reserved for women on the basis of special
territorial constituencies.
– Granted women dual voting rights – one for
general seats and the other for the reserved
women’s seats

• It was abolished in the 1962 Constitution

 1973 Constitution
• Begum Nasim Jahan and Begum Ashraf Abbasi
– Two lady members of the Constitution Committee
– Worked to promote greater gender equality
• declaring all citizens to be equal before the law
• stipulating no discrimination on the basis of race, religion, caste or sex for
appointment in the service of Pakistan
• guaranteed reserved seats for women in Local Bodies

• The principle of female suffrage for the reserved women

seats was not revived in the 1973 Constitution.
– APWA and other women organizations, and a determined effort
made by Begum Nasim Jahan in the National Assembly,
 APWA
All Pakistan Women's Association 
• Founded in 1949 by Begum Ra'ana Liaquat Ali Khan
• a voluntary, non-profit and non-political organisation

• Begum Rana Liaquat said that

• the role of women is no less important than that of men.

• APWA has been a very active organisation since its founding, with branches in 56 districts across Pakistan,
and even in rural and urban areas

• APWA received the UNESCO Adult Literacy Prize in 1974 and later the Peace Messenger
Certificate in 1987.

• In 2016, at the 68th anniversary of APWA's founding, an annual dinner at the 

High Commission of Pakistan, London was held to pay tribute to the APWA founder, Begum
Ra'ana Liaquat Ali Khan.
 AIMS
• The informed and intelligent participation of the
women of Pakistan in the growth and development of
their country.

• The advancement of the welfare of Pakistani Women

through the Improvement of their Legal, Political,
Social and Economic status.

• The promotion of educational and cultural

programmes and policies all over the country.
 1980s – A Major Turning Point
• Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamisation Era
– women politicians seemed to have virtually
disappeared from the landscape
– The Hudood Ordinances of 1979
– Islamisation of the judiciary by creating a parallel
religious judicial system
– major changes in education and the media in the
name of Islam.
 1980s – A Major Turning Point
• Hudood Ordinances
– (i) Offence against Property Ordinance 1979
– (ii) Offence of Zina Ordinance 1979
– (iii) Offence of Qazf (false accusation)
– (iv) Prohibition Ordinance (1979)
– (v) Execution of Punishment of Whipping Ordinance 1979
• Zina and Qazf become highly controversial because
of its frequent invocation and misuse against
women.
 Feminist views
• The collusion of the public and private patriarchy to
regulate societal morality and control women’s
sexuality

• A spate of discriminatory laws were passed that

affected women directly.

• Raised serious questions, not only regarding the

status and position of women in society, but about
the direction that the state was taking more generally
• Create a state dominated by the clergy, and
based on a version of Islam highly detrimental
for the rights of women and religious minorities.

• Offence of Zina Ordinance used against women

– For exercising their legitimate constitutional and
Islamic right to marry with their own choice or
raising voices against various forms of oppression
and injustices in their gendered social relations
 Zina Ordinance
• The Zina Ordinance criminalized all forms of adultery and
fornication outside the valid marriage

• Same level of proof in cases of Zina as well as Zina-bil-jabr

• Required to bring four pious male Muslim witnesses

• Rape victims risked being prosecuted for adultery if their case of

their accusation of rape did not lead to the conviction of the rapists

• Women were frequently accused of adultery by their husbands and

parents in retaliation for defying their authority
• Extremely difficult for women to obtain bail as
adultery was made a non-bailable offense and lower
courts were not allowed to release women on bai

• According to the Human Rights Commission Report,

women aged over 70 years to girls as young as 11
had been imprisoned on charges of zina

• Physical and Sexual Abuse

– Dorothy Thomas wrote in an article in 1992 that more
than 70 percent of women in police custody were
subjected to rape by police officials
• Law of Evidence:
– Two women = one men

• Rubina Saigol
– The law of evidence 1984 effectively made women the
second class citizen.

• (Shirkat gah, 2004:2)

– The injustices caused by Hudood Ordinances were
evident from the fact that 95 percent of accused
women who were found guilty by the trail court were
subsequently acquitted by the appellate court
 Outcome
• Women Action Forum (1981)
• Mainstream Women Activism
– Action: Protests & Political Activism
• Reflection: Research & Intellectual Discourse
• Creation of Ministry of Women’s Development at federal level
and Women’s Development Department at provincial level
– MoWD suggested creation of 5 Women’s Studies centres.
• National Plan of Action in 1998
• Establishment of National Commission on the Status of Women
in 2000
• Pakistan acceded to Convention for the Elimination of All Form
of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
 Analysis
• Breakdown of collective effort
– WAF
• No accepted foreign funding
• Self-sufficient
– Individual Activist
• Accepted foreign funding

• Integrationist View got acceptance

– Inclusion of women in every sector.
• Education, Health, Sanitation, Policy Making, Governance, Civil
Services etc
• Popularity of new concepts
– Women in Development, Gender & Development, Gender
Training and others

• From women activism to gender training

– 3, 5, 10 days training session. Highly technocratic. Global
political economy of gender.

• Sabeeha Hafeez
– The problem with these training prog. Is that rather than
targeting the source of patriarchy they most taught the victims.
• Foreign concepts like Harvard Analytical Framework
used for gender discourse
– Useless as it was ahistorical and far away from ground
realities
– Raw numbers became the measurement of success

• Focus on individuals rather than social collective as

the interface of patriarchy
– For instance, powerful men were seen as patriarchy
insteead of the whole system and structure of the society.
• Politico-legal achievements
– Musharaf’s Era Quota
• 10% in government services
• 17% in parliament
• 33% in local govt tier

• Protection of Women Act in 2006 reformed most controversial parts of

Hudood Ordinances
• Protection against harassment in the workplace Act 2010
• Prevention of Anti-Women Practices Act 2011
• Acid Control and Acid Crime Prevention Act 2011
• Enforcement of Women Ownership Rights Act 2012

• Anita Weiss
– The 2006 Act was the culmination point of women’s activism that began
shortly afterwards Zia’s promulgation of discriminatory laws.
• Exclusivist Movement
– No mass contact movement
– Religious women outside contact
• Anita Weiss
– In the interview with the staff of Al-Huda centre,
female education institution, their views were
clear about protecting women’s rights including
right to education, inheritance and others.
 Jargons
• Gender Segregation
• Heterosexual and homosexual
• Masculinity
• Femininity
• Feminism
• Men’s Studies
• Women’s Studies
• LGBT+
• Androcentrism
• Consciousness Raising
• Difference between Sex and Gender
• Gendered
• Dichotomy
• Identity Politics/Politics of Identity
• (the) Other
• Patriarchy
• Sexual Contract
• Stereotype
• Etcetera
 Gender
• The concept of gender, as we now use it came
into common parlance during the early 1970s.

• It was used as an analytical category to draw a

line of demarcation between biological sex
differences and the way these are used to
inform behaviours and competencies, which
are then assigned as either ‘masculine’ or
‘feminine’.
• The purpose of affirming a sex/gender
distinction was
– to argue that the actual physical or mental effects
of biological difference had been exaggerated to
maintain a patriarchal system of power and to
create a consciousness among women that they
were naturally better suited to ‘domestic’ roles

In a post-industrial society those physiological sex

differences which do exist become arguably even
less significant
women are generally long outliving their reproductive functions,
and so a much smaller proportion of their life is defined by this.

• Ann Oakley’s pathfinding text, Sex, Gender and Society (1972)

lays the ground for further exploration of the construction of
gender.
– She notes how Western cultures seem most prone to exaggeration of
gender differences.
– She argues that our present gender roles centre round women’s role as
housewife and mother.

• There is also the more vaguely conceived belief that any

tampering with these roles would diminish happiness.
• But this type of argument has a blatantly disreputable history and
should have been discarded long ago
• Simone de Beauvoir had explored this distinction in The
Second Sex two decades previously with her statement that
– ‘One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’ (de Beauvoir 1972:
295).

• De Beauvoir’s discussion makes clear the ways in which

gender differences are set in hierarchical opposition.

• Where the masculine principle is always the favoured ‘norm’

and the feminine one becomes positioned as ‘Other’.

• For de Beauvoir femininity civilisation was masculine to its

very depths, and women the continual outsiders.
 Sex vs Gender
• The majority of feminists in the 1970s seemed
to embrace the notion of gender as
‘construct’ and popular youth culture seemed
to endorse this in the 1970s’ passion for
‘unisex’ clothing.

• However, Shulamith Firestone is one

exception.
• Firestone suggested in The Dialectic of Sex (1970)
– patriarchy exploits women’s biological capacity to reproduce
as their essential weakness.

• The only way for women to break away from the

oppression, she argues, is to use technological advances
to free themselves from the burden of childbirth.

• Moreover, she advocates breaking down the biological

bond between mothers and children and establishing
communes where monogamy and the nuclear family are
things of the past.
• Few feminists were ultimately sympathetic to
Firestone’s view of childbirth and the mother–
child bond.

• Those feminists, such as cultural feminists, who

questioned whether all key differences are an
effect of culture rather than biology.

• They preferred to value and celebrate the

mothering role as evidence of women’s ‘natural’
disposition towards nurturance and pacificism, and
would be loath to relinquish it even if they could
 Colloquial vs non-colloquial use of Sex and
Gender word

• As feminism matures, ‘gender slips uneasily

between being merely another word for sex and
being a contested political term’

• In colloquial usage, however, there is a constant

slippage between sex and gender so that, for
example, people are generally asked to declare
their ‘gender’ instead of sex on an application form
 Gender Segregation
• Gender segregation occurs when women and men are located
separately from one another, while otherwise participating in a broadly
similar set of activities.

• Pilcher & Whelehan:

– In contemporary Britain, as in many other Western industrial societies, paid
work is also segregated by gender.

• The separation is not complete, but a range of evidence shows that

women and men tend to engage in different types of jobs, and/or at
different levels within job hierarchies, with important consequences for
pay, and for prospects for training and promotion, among other things.
• Given the importance of paid work for the material
and other key benefits it brings, many writers have
focused on gender segregation in paid work in their
analyses of power inequalities between women and
men.

• In an article first published in 1976, Hartmann (1982)

identifies
– job segregation as the ‘primary mechanism in capitalist
society that maintains the superiority of men over women’
• Heterosexuality
–It is a romantic attraction or sexual
behaviour between persons of
opposite gender or sex.
–Straight individuals are
heterosexual
• Homosexuality
– A sexual behaviour in which
individuals of same gender or sex are
attracted to each other.
– Gays and Lesbians are homosexual
persons.
 Patriarchy
• Literally, patriarchy means rule by the male head of a social unit

• A family or tribe, for example

• The patriarch, typically a societal elder, has legitimate power

over others in the social unit, including other (especially,
younger) men, all women and children.

• However, since the early twentieth century, feminist writers

have used the concept to refer to the social system of
masculine domination over women.
 Pilcher & Whelehan
• Patriarchy has been a fundamentally important concept in gender
studies, leading to the development of a number of theories that aim to
identify the bases of women’s subordination to men.

• Three of the most important theories in which patriarchy is a central

concept are those commonly labelled as ‘radical feminist’, ‘Marxist
feminist’ and ‘dual systems theory’.

• In ‘radical feminist’ analyses, patriarchy is regarded as the primary and

fundamental social division in society.

• In some radical feminist analyses, the institution of the family is identified

as a key means through which men’s domination is achieved (Millet 1977)
 Matriarchy
• According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED),
matriarchy is a form of social organization in which the
mother or oldest female is the head of the family, and
descent and relationship are reckoned through the
female line; government or rule by a woman or women.

• A popular definition, according to James Peoples and

Garrick Bailey, is "female dominance".

• Within the academic discipline of cultural anthropology,

according to the OED, matriarchy is a "culture or
community in which such a system prevails"
 Sexism
• Sexism is a discrimination based on sex or gender, especially
against women and girls.

• Although its origin is unclear, the term emerged from the

second wave of feminism.

• Sexism can also be a belief that one sex is superior to another

sex.

• The extreme form of sexist ideology is misogyny – the hatred

of women.
• The function of sexism is to sustain patriarchy
or male domination through ideological and
material practices of individuals, collectives
and institutions that oppress women and
girls on the basis of sex or gender.
• Examples
– Men who work long hours are ‘workaholic’,
while career-focused women are selfish.
– Receiving unsolicited comments on one’s
body.

• Stop Street Harassment (NGO)

– 81% of women have been catcalled (taunt),
groped, yelled at, stared at, intimidated,
followed or harassed online.
 Heterosexism
• The word ‘heterosexism’ derives directly from the feminist
creation of the term ‘sexism’ during the late 1960s.

• The first usage of the term heterosexism is given as 1979 by the

Oxford English Dictionary.
• And it is defined as
–‘prejudice and antagonism shown by
heterosexual persons towards homosexuals

• It indicates that lesbian feminists in particular still felt that much

of feminist discourse accepted the centrality of ‘heteroreality’.
• Gay and lesbian groups within and outside feminism
began to feel the need to distinguish between
sexism – directed at all women – and heterosexism,
which indicates the prejudicial treatment of gay and
lesbian individuals and the assumption that
heterosexuality is the sexual choice of all people.

• The concern, particularly from gay and lesbian

groups, was that even if a patriarchal ideology could
be successfully challenged, such a revolution in
consciousness would not necessarily alter deeply
entrenched homophobic prejudices
• Diane Richardson states heterosexuality is gendered
and also acts principally to socialise women into
acceptance of monogamous nuclear family life.

• heterosexuality, rather than being regarded as a set of

sexual practices or preferences expressed by a clearly
defined group, is simply related to ‘normality’.

• Whereas homosexuality is expressed in terms of

deviance, as if an individual’s life is defined by their
sexuality
• One of the most controversial essays on this theme is
Adrienne Rich’s (1980) ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality and
Lesbian Existence’.

• Intention behind the essay was, as she says in her preface,

‘for feminists to find it less possible to read, write, or
teach from a perspective of unexamined heterocentricity’

• For women in particular Rich asserts that heterosexuality

is an instrument of patriarchal power, which shapes their
lives in ways that are perhaps yet to be analysed and
means that heterosexuality is seen not only as the most
desirable, but the inevitable journey in a woman’s life
 Identity Politics
• Literal meaning of identity politics (Merriam
Webster)

• Politics in which groups of people having a

particular racial, ethnic, religious, social or
cultural identity tend to promote their own
specific interests without regard to the
interests of any larger political group.
• Identity politics was the term used to describe, at times,
bitter disputes between different feminist groups

• The utopian vision of ‘sisterhood’ – the collecting

together of all women under the same political banner
– was in part responsible for the burgeoning interest in
feminism and the emergent Women’s Liberation
Movement.

• It was inevitably going to come under fire once more

women who weren’t white, middle class, heterosexual
and university-educated became involved
 (Evans 1979: 225)
• The rage, the sensitivity, and the overwhelming, omnipresent
nature of ‘the enemy’ drove parts of the women’s movement into
ideological rigidities, and the movement splintered as it grew.
• Who could say what was the central issue: equal pay? abortion?
the nuclear family? lesbianism? welfare policies? capitalism?
• Groups formed around particular issues, constituencies and
political styles, many sure that they had found the key to women’s
liberation.
• After 1970, women’s liberation groups in all parts of the country
suffered painful splits variously defined as politico-feminist,
gay/straight, anti-imperialist/radical feminist.
• It wasn’t just the individual identity and
background of participants that could split the
groups and eventually the movement:

• Conflicts about what a feminist identity should

mean became just as important, as well as the
question of who had the right to decide.

• If everyone’s opinion is equally valid, who is to

mediate between them to form a shared agenda?
Examples
– White Women vs Black Women
– Liberal versus radical feminists

• Lesbian Feminism struggle to become part of

feminism discourse / struggle.
• Gloria Jean Watkins better known
by her pen name bell hooks, is an
American author, professor, 
feminist, and social activist. 

• bell hooks agrees that

‘sisterhood’ as a concept was
dominated by the definitions of
bourgeois white women

• Sisterhood was often seen as the

emotional appeal masking the
opportunism of manipulative
bourgeois white women
• Lesbian Feminism struggle to become part of feminism
discourse / struggle.
– First Congress to Unite Women by US National Organisation for
Women (NOW) purposely excluded lesbian organisation.

• During Second Congress to Unite Women by US NOW, Lesbian

feminists resisted the exclusion forcefully.

• In 1970, feminist author, activist, and NOW co-founder Betty

Friedan referred to lesbians as a ‘Lavender Menace.’

• She believed their open participation in the organisation would

hinder the respectability of the march toward women’s rights
and make feminist activists look like unsound man-haters.
• Lavender Menace

• The Lavender Menace or revolution was an

informal group of lesbian radical feminists
formed to protest the exclusion of lesbians and
lesbian issues from the feminist movement at
the Second Congress to Unite Women in New
York City on May 1, 1970.
 Consciousness Raising
• The idea was that women should regularly collect in
small groups over an agreed period of time and give
accounts of their own lives and how they ‘became’ a
‘woman’

• Consciousness raising became one of the key

activities that underpinned second wave feminism
and made it distinct from its forebears, and
announced the emergence of a very different kind
of political organisation
• It was hoped that their problems are not unique and
individual, but rather all too common and produced by wider
social relations and institutions.

• A cohesive group of women who would get to know each

other very well and therefore build up a strong relationship
of mutual support.

• It embodied the central edict that ‘the personal is political’

– intended to awaken women to injustices of their social position
– encourage them to actively reassess their personal and emotional
lives
– So that in a real and literal sense feminism was expected to have a
life-changing effect on each of its participants
 Dichotomy
• A dichotomy means a division into two.

• In the seventeenth century, Descartes based his philosophy of

knowledge on the idea of a fundamental difference between mind and
body.

• This philosophical principle is widely regarded as having a crucial

influence on the development of Western theories of knowledge, where
reality is understood as if it were comprised of sets of ‘either/or’ pairings.

• Some examples of dichotomous thinking are reason/emotion, true/false,

normal/deviant, public/private, hard/soft, knowledge/experience,
objectivity/subjectivity, and male/female
• Feminist writers are especially critical of dichotomous
thinking because of the tendency for the dominant element
of any dichotomous pairing to be associated with
masculinity, while the subordinate element is associated
with femininity

• For feminist writers, then, the habit of thinking in

dichotomies is not a neutral or benign way of
understanding the world.
• Rather, it is a way of thinking within which patriarchy, and
other relations of domination, are fundamentally embedded.

• ‘In short, the political significance of dichotomous thinking

is that it maintains inequalities of power’
 Androcentrism
• Androcentrism literally means a doctrine of male-centredness.

• Androcentric practices are those whereby the experiences of men are

assumed to be generalisable.

• An early use of the term ‘androcentric’ was made by Charlotte Perkins

Gillman who subtitled her 1911 book, ‘Our Androcentric Culture’.

• In feminist analyses, most societies, historically and in the present, exhibit

androcentric tendencies whereby their culture, knowledge, organisations
and institutions reflect and reproduce the dominance and power of men.
• In Britain up until at least the 1980s, ‘mankind’ and
‘men’ were widely used in a generic way, instead of
the more gender-neutral ‘humankind’ or ‘people’.

• Similarly, the pronoun ‘he’ was routinely used in

preference to ‘she’, or even to ‘he or she’

• Feminist analyses have problematised the generic

use of masculine nouns and pronouns, arguing
that such linguistic practices both reflect and
contribute to the marginalisation of women and
are symbolic of their status in general.
 Queer Theory
• Theory developed in 1980s

• Queer means abnormal

• Adoption of term by gay and lesbian activists like Queer Nation, OutRage and
others in the USA and Europe.

• A deliberate use of the word

• Reason: To inject visibility into radical discourse of gay-ism and lesbianism.

• Once used as offensive, the term ‘queer’ is now used against the knowledge of
its past meanings to ‘offend’ the general public
• ‘Queer’ has come to be associated with a new militancy in gay and
lesbian politics – a determined push for visibility and a celebration of
the transgressive.

• In principle this is a stance that denies and interrogates the privileges

of heterosexuality and tries to openly question dominant ideas of
normalcy and appropriate behaviour.

• Objective:
– The adoption of the term ‘queer’ suggests a blurring of boundaries between
straight and gay sex and validates those who would in the past have been
considered sexual ‘outlaws’.

• Adopting a ‘queer’ position amounts to a celebration of one’s ‘outlaw’

status as well as actively denying the meanings attached to sexual
identity
 Gender Mainstreaming
• G.M. is the public policy concept of assessing the
different implications for people of different
genders of any planned policy action.
• Gender Mainstreaming means integrating gender
equality perspective at all stages and levels of
policies, programmes and projects.
• It aims to solve gender inequalities.
• It is, basically, a tool for achieving gender
equality.