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Social Problems — Women's Issues in Pakistan

📊 Introduction — scale of the issue

  • Women make up about half of Pakistan's population, yet rank near the bottom of most global gender-parity measures.
  • WEF Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI) — Pakistan's ranking (verify the latest before the paper):
    • 2025 report: last — 148th of 148 countries (rock bottom globally); overall parity score 56.7% (down from 57% in 2024)
    • Trend: 2024 — 145th of 146; 2023 — 142nd of 146; 2021 — 153rd of 156
    • By pillar (2025 parity scores): educational attainment ~85%, but political empowerment only ~11%, with economic participation falling further — Pakistan sits near the bottom on economic participation, education and health, and comparatively higher, though still low, on political empowerment (its least bad pillar)
    • Consistently grouped near the global bottom, alongside countries like Afghanistan
  • At the current pace, the WEF (2025) estimates it will take 123 years to close the overall global gender gap — and about 162 years for political empowerment alone (globally, 68.8% of the gap is now closed)
  • Pakistan's relatively better political-empowerment rank is criticised as partly tokenistic — reserved seats put women in assemblies, but real decision-making power is often limited
  • 📌 Cite recent high-profile cases to sharpen answers — e.g. the Zainab Ansari case (2018), Dua Mangi abduction (2019), the 2020 Lahore motorway gang-rape case — and update with the latest before the exam

📚 Theories on gender stratification

  1. Structural functionalism — (traditional/critiqued view) frames distinct gender roles as functionally complementary, so society runs smoothly:
    • Man's role — socialise outside, earn income, and support the family's needs and wants (seen as suited to his traits)
    • Woman's role — take responsibility for children and the household, drawing on "emotional / nurturing" traits
    • ⚠️ Now widely challenged for naturalising inequality — it treats the roles as fixed rather than socially assigned
  2. Oakley's theory of social constructionism — Ann Oakley's key distinction: sex is biological, gender is socially constructed — roles are learned, not natural. How society constructs them:
    • Manipulation — dressing girls in delicate clothes; different toys (guns/cars for boys, dolls for girls); colour-coding (blue vs pink)
    • Verbal socialisation — girls told to speak softly/gently, boys encouraged to be assertive/aggressive
    • So gender roles come from upbringing, not biology
  3. Social conflict — gender inequality is a product of unequal power relations and resource control between men and women, paralleling class conflict.
  4. Beauvoir's theory of the "Second Sex" — Simone de Beauvoir argued woman has historically been defined as the "Other" relative to man as the default/norm — a foundational feminist theoretical concept.
  5. Standpoint theory — knowledge and social understanding are shaped by one's social position; women's (and other marginalized groups') lived experience/standpoint offers a distinct and valid vantage point on social reality.
  6. Matrix of domination / intersectionality theory — gender inequality intersects with other axes of inequality (class, race/ethnicity, religion) to produce compounded, overlapping forms of disadvantage — not experienced identically by all women.
  7. Feminism — the broad political/theoretical movement analyzing and challenging gender-based inequality across social, economic, political and cultural domains.

🏷️ Traditions affecting women in Pakistan

  1. Economic dependence — the mindset that the man earns and the woman depends on him; that dependence strips her of the power to claim her rights
  2. Stereotypes — women seen as "good only at housework," so politics and decision-making are treated as not their domain
  3. Honour killing — a woman killed for supposedly damaging family/clan "honour"; called karo-kari, tor and other names across provinces, but the same underlying concept
  4. Vani / Swara (compensation marriage) — a young girl married off to a rival family as compensation for a murder committed by a male relative
  5. Marriage to the Quran — in some families (e.g. certain Sayed families) a woman is "married" to the Quran and kept home for life, to stop her share of property leaving the family
  6. Illiteracy — daughter as "liability, not asset" — money is spent educating the son (who "stays"), while a daughter's education is seen as a waste since "she'll marry and leave"
  7. Walwar (bride price) — mainly in parts of KP/Balochistan; the groom pays the bride's parents, a younger girl fetching more money — treating women as purchasable
  8. Child / early marriage — despite laws, still reported in rural areas (e.g. the Ghotki cases); it destroys childhood and forces adult responsibilities on a girl too early
  9. Restricted liberty — limits on mobility and decision-making

🚨 Violence against women in Pakistan

  1. Dowry-related violence
    • Dowry is treated as necessary for a "successful" marriage; a bride who brings little faces taunts, torture, even murder ("stove-burning" deaths staged as kitchen accidents) — research links these to saas–bahu or spousal conflict
  2. Acid throwing
    • Often revenge by a spurned man when a girl refuses him or marries elsewhere; acid causes permanent facial damage, devastating her life
  3. Domestic violence
    • Very widespread — older studies (e.g. Thomson Reuters, 2011) cite up to ~70–90% of women affected (dated — quote a recent figure before the exam)
    • Frequently not registered — police often "settle" or suppress the complaint rather than act, so cases keep rising

⚠️ Consequences of women's marginalisation

  1. Economic loss — excluding roughly half the population from work suppresses GDP and household income
  2. Health & mortality — high maternal mortality, poor nutrition, restricted healthcare access
  3. Intergenerational disadvantage — uneducated mothers → less-educated, poorer children (the cycle repeats)
  4. Violence & insecurity — normalised violence, honour crimes and harassment restrict women's freedom and safety

⚖️ Legal & policy framework (Pakistan)

  • Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act 2010 (amended 2022)
  • Criminal Law (Anti-Honour Killing) Act 2016 — closes the "forgiveness" loophole in honour killings
  • Anti-Rape (Investigation & Trial) Act 2021 — special courts, anti-rape crisis cells, bars the two-finger test
  • Punjab Protection of Women against Violence Act 2016 and other provincial laws
  • Acid Control & Acid Crime Prevention Act 2011
  • Constitution Articles 25 & 34 — equality of citizens and full participation of women in national life
  • (Verify the latest amendments before the exam)

💡 Remedies

  1. Female education — the single biggest lever; enforce girls' schooling (Article 25-A)
  2. Economic empowerment — skills, micro-credit and safe workplaces to raise female labour-force participation
  3. Strict enforcement of the laws above (the gap is implementation, not legislation)
  4. Engage men, elders & religious scholars to shift patriarchal customs (vani, walwar, honour codes)
  5. Awareness & safe reporting — helplines, women's shelters (Darul Aman), fast-track courts
  6. Political & institutional inclusion — sustain reserved seats and leadership pathways
  7. Legal literacy — many women don't know their rights under the PPC/CrPC and special laws; awareness lets them use protections (while guarding against misuse)

✅ Revision checklist

  • Define sex vs. gender per Oakley precisely
  • Match each of the 7 gender-stratification theories to its core claim
  • Define vani, walwar and "marriage to the Quran" precisely — these are distinctly Pakistan/South-Asia-specific customs and are easy, high-value MCQ/short-answer material
  • List all 3 forms of violence against women covered here, and link honour killing and domestic violence back to the Social Control page's discussion of informal control gone wrong
  • Quote Pakistan's latest GGGI ranking (verify before the paper) and the sub-index pattern (weakest on economic/education/health, strongest on political — with the tokenism critique)
  • Apply the theories with examples — functionalism (complementary roles), Oakley (toys/colours/verbal socialisation), conflict (male resource control)
  • Define vani/swara, walwar and marriage-to-the-Quran; explain the daughter-as-liability mindset
  • Explain dowry violence (stove-burning), acid throwing, and under-reported domestic violence
  • Cite the key laws (Anti-Honour Killing Act 2016, Anti-Rape Act 2021, Harassment Act 2010, Acid Control Act 2011)
  • List the consequences and remedies (female education, enforcement, economic empowerment)