Over the 20th century, the entire world became more gender equal. Or so I thought. But Pakistan has rocked my priors. Female employment has slightly risen, especially in towns and cities. Meanwhile, young Pakistani women are more sexist than their grandmothers. What is going on?
So much to discuss from this article! Would have loved to meet you if I was back in Lahore. I grew up, and my family still lives, in a "lower-class" area of the city. Pakistan is a very paradoxical country and I often find myself checking myself when making statements about it. I wish we had more statistics that took urban/rural or economic class into account. For example, a very common story I've heard from domestic labour (house maids, cleaners etc.) is that the men in their family are not really earning or just don't earn enough so they have to do all the labour.
Some more thoughts:
There is just a very pervasive trend of Islamic conservatism in society that cuts across the economic divide. Pakistani media personalities also tend to all have a religious bent. The ones who don't have to check themselves. The most common exhortation I notice across social media is that we aren't religious enough, and our lack of religion is the main reason for the deterioration of our society. The most popular leader, Imran Khan, also had a very explicit religious bent. I'm sure this leads to what your findings say. I'm not at all surprised by them. This has largely been my anecdotal experience.
Women don't really venture out of their houses for leisure so much, yes. When you go to Lahore, you will see huge swathes of people in public areas, but exceedingly few women. This may wary depending on the place though. You will find majority women in clothing markets like Liberty Market, but rarely any in the markets of Hall Road for example. Societal expectations play a huge role in this. It's not considered "proper" for women to be out and about. My house has a small park in front of it. They even designated it a "ladies park" some time ago. I never see any ladies in it. Ugh, I can go on and on with personal anecdotes here.
Not surprised by employers not preferring women either. Men will largely keep working because they have to but there is the expectation that women often drop out once they get pregnant, or maybe their household (they largely live with the husband's family) would object one day to their working and they would have to leave their job. You will find women who've finished med school staying at home, because their in-laws don't want them to work.
Purely from observation I'd wager that FLFP is higher amongst families at either extremes of the socioeconomic pecking order. Women from lower socioeconomic classes are more likely to need the income and hence work, often in agriculture (sometimes unpaid in family farms), in factory work (textiles primarily), and as housemaids. Women from higher socioeconomic classes are typically from more liberal, elite families where the stigma of a women going to work is lessened, and where they have access to jobs deemed more 'acceptable' for women, such as office work. It’s in the in-between of these two where I'd expect FLFP to be the lowest. Again, I have no hard statistics to back this up, but I do think this is part of the explanation for the U-shaped 'FLFP by Education and Residence' Graph in your post.
I would also guess the same phenomena occurs with religiosity, where families from both the highest and lowest socioeconomic classes both display less religiosity than the middle majority. Families from lower socioeconomic classes have limited access to formal religious education, their practices are more influenced by local traditions and customs rather than Islamic teachings, so there is usually less of a rationale for them to be against their wives/daughters working. Likewise, families from higher socioeconomic classes are more exposed to western media, educated, and secular and so their men are more likely to accept their wives/daughters working, and their women are more likely to push back against attempts to limit their economic freedom. I'd guess there is a strong link between religiosity of oneself, one's family, one's community, and the likelihood of FLFP.
An anecdotal example of this; in my last visit to Pakistan a few months ago I saw only two people with tattoos – something that is incredibly taboo from a religious perspective. I saw a young woman with tattoos at a wedding in a prominent venue in Lahore, where various bureaucrats, two famous cricketers from the national team, a well-known actor, musicians, and overseas Pakistanis were present. I also saw a young guy in a barber shop with tattoos, who was clearly not as well off - there is a small subculture of urbanised youth who imitate western fashion trends, dye their hair, and even tattoo themselves. Think Mods and rockers except Pakistani – lol.
As you point out the period of Islamization under General Zia ul-Haq undeniably had a role in this. My grandmother – who was born under the British Raj pre-1947, says that growing up the Hindu and Muslim girls would celebrate each other’s Eid’s and Diwali’s. She once told me that there was nothing wrong with a Hindu girl marrying a Muslim boy, it is hard to imagine most women in Pakistan holding that view today!
One of the side effects of the arrival of Islam to the Indian subcontinent was that it severely weakened the caste system in Muslim-majority areas. In fact, some people converted specifically to escape the caste system - particularly Dalits. Sufiism is especially heavy on themes of egalitarianism. Unlike some interpretations of Hinduism, and like other Abrahamic religions, there is the notion of the equality of all believers. So, while we don’t suffer as much from the issues of caste, cultural classism is still incredibly prevalent in Muslim-majority areas such as modern-day Pakistan. It is ok for a woman that is a member of the liberal elite classes to wear western clothes, go out to malls, etc, but not for a woman of the lower classes. Being in a low-trust society with weak institutions lends itself to nepotism, corruption, and insular tribe-like communities; In Punjab a Rajput will not marry outside of their Biradari, In Sindh people will not vote for anyone outside their feudal lord’s family, Some Pashtun tribes arrange marriages within the same tribe to maintain tribal identity, etc. It also (probably) lends itself to an overly patriarchal society.
Anyways, that’s just my two cents. Have a good trip in Pakistan :)
Can't speak for Pakistan but I'm shocked by all the patriarchal, anti-feminist, and anti-women in general rhetoric spewed on the internet. And this whole performative #TradWife trend is yuck. What the hell is going on?
Why does your data all end in the year 2000? You're missing an entire generation. Do you think if the Gulf monarchies go bankrupt in a post oil world, islamism will weaken or die out like how the fall of the USSR led to the fall communism across the world?
So much to discuss from this article! Would have loved to meet you if I was back in Lahore. I grew up, and my family still lives, in a "lower-class" area of the city. Pakistan is a very paradoxical country and I often find myself checking myself when making statements about it. I wish we had more statistics that took urban/rural or economic class into account. For example, a very common story I've heard from domestic labour (house maids, cleaners etc.) is that the men in their family are not really earning or just don't earn enough so they have to do all the labour.
Some more thoughts:
There is just a very pervasive trend of Islamic conservatism in society that cuts across the economic divide. Pakistani media personalities also tend to all have a religious bent. The ones who don't have to check themselves. The most common exhortation I notice across social media is that we aren't religious enough, and our lack of religion is the main reason for the deterioration of our society. The most popular leader, Imran Khan, also had a very explicit religious bent. I'm sure this leads to what your findings say. I'm not at all surprised by them. This has largely been my anecdotal experience.
Women don't really venture out of their houses for leisure so much, yes. When you go to Lahore, you will see huge swathes of people in public areas, but exceedingly few women. This may wary depending on the place though. You will find majority women in clothing markets like Liberty Market, but rarely any in the markets of Hall Road for example. Societal expectations play a huge role in this. It's not considered "proper" for women to be out and about. My house has a small park in front of it. They even designated it a "ladies park" some time ago. I never see any ladies in it. Ugh, I can go on and on with personal anecdotes here.
Not surprised by employers not preferring women either. Men will largely keep working because they have to but there is the expectation that women often drop out once they get pregnant, or maybe their household (they largely live with the husband's family) would object one day to their working and they would have to leave their job. You will find women who've finished med school staying at home, because their in-laws don't want them to work.
This is all anecdotal of course.
Purely from observation I'd wager that FLFP is higher amongst families at either extremes of the socioeconomic pecking order. Women from lower socioeconomic classes are more likely to need the income and hence work, often in agriculture (sometimes unpaid in family farms), in factory work (textiles primarily), and as housemaids. Women from higher socioeconomic classes are typically from more liberal, elite families where the stigma of a women going to work is lessened, and where they have access to jobs deemed more 'acceptable' for women, such as office work. It’s in the in-between of these two where I'd expect FLFP to be the lowest. Again, I have no hard statistics to back this up, but I do think this is part of the explanation for the U-shaped 'FLFP by Education and Residence' Graph in your post.
I would also guess the same phenomena occurs with religiosity, where families from both the highest and lowest socioeconomic classes both display less religiosity than the middle majority. Families from lower socioeconomic classes have limited access to formal religious education, their practices are more influenced by local traditions and customs rather than Islamic teachings, so there is usually less of a rationale for them to be against their wives/daughters working. Likewise, families from higher socioeconomic classes are more exposed to western media, educated, and secular and so their men are more likely to accept their wives/daughters working, and their women are more likely to push back against attempts to limit their economic freedom. I'd guess there is a strong link between religiosity of oneself, one's family, one's community, and the likelihood of FLFP.
An anecdotal example of this; in my last visit to Pakistan a few months ago I saw only two people with tattoos – something that is incredibly taboo from a religious perspective. I saw a young woman with tattoos at a wedding in a prominent venue in Lahore, where various bureaucrats, two famous cricketers from the national team, a well-known actor, musicians, and overseas Pakistanis were present. I also saw a young guy in a barber shop with tattoos, who was clearly not as well off - there is a small subculture of urbanised youth who imitate western fashion trends, dye their hair, and even tattoo themselves. Think Mods and rockers except Pakistani – lol.
As you point out the period of Islamization under General Zia ul-Haq undeniably had a role in this. My grandmother – who was born under the British Raj pre-1947, says that growing up the Hindu and Muslim girls would celebrate each other’s Eid’s and Diwali’s. She once told me that there was nothing wrong with a Hindu girl marrying a Muslim boy, it is hard to imagine most women in Pakistan holding that view today!
One of the side effects of the arrival of Islam to the Indian subcontinent was that it severely weakened the caste system in Muslim-majority areas. In fact, some people converted specifically to escape the caste system - particularly Dalits. Sufiism is especially heavy on themes of egalitarianism. Unlike some interpretations of Hinduism, and like other Abrahamic religions, there is the notion of the equality of all believers. So, while we don’t suffer as much from the issues of caste, cultural classism is still incredibly prevalent in Muslim-majority areas such as modern-day Pakistan. It is ok for a woman that is a member of the liberal elite classes to wear western clothes, go out to malls, etc, but not for a woman of the lower classes. Being in a low-trust society with weak institutions lends itself to nepotism, corruption, and insular tribe-like communities; In Punjab a Rajput will not marry outside of their Biradari, In Sindh people will not vote for anyone outside their feudal lord’s family, Some Pashtun tribes arrange marriages within the same tribe to maintain tribal identity, etc. It also (probably) lends itself to an overly patriarchal society.
Anyways, that’s just my two cents. Have a good trip in Pakistan :)
Pakistani-Brits present similar issues in the UK as well; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkxuKe2wOMs
Can't speak for Pakistan but I'm shocked by all the patriarchal, anti-feminist, and anti-women in general rhetoric spewed on the internet. And this whole performative #TradWife trend is yuck. What the hell is going on?
Why does your data all end in the year 2000? You're missing an entire generation. Do you think if the Gulf monarchies go bankrupt in a post oil world, islamism will weaken or die out like how the fall of the USSR led to the fall communism across the world?
Read it again. These are women born in 2000. I apologise for lack of data on attitudes of women born in 2020
SMH Alice, smh
Oh sorry about that. It's late here. Yeah this is a concerning trend. Do you see similar patterns in Sri Lanka and Nepal?