Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Convenience of Subservience: Women and the State of Pakistan

  • Chapter
Book cover Women, Islam and the State

Abstract

The relationship between women and the state in Pakistan has been both compelling and paradoxical. After nearly a decade of state-sponsored attempts at stifling women’s voices in the public arenas and pushing back the boundaries of their social visibility, Pakistan has become the first state in the Islamic world to have a woman prime minister. A state media which until yesterday poured scorn upon articulate and assertive women is today faithfully and respectfully projecting the voice and person of Benazir Bhutto. In so far as the role of women in Muslim societies has symbolic connotations, it is tempting to see Benazir Bhutto’s advent as something of a psychological ‘revolution’. A Western cartoonist hinted as much while portraying her in an impish mood asking a line of attendants veiled from head to toe: ‘How do you like your new outfits, Gentlemen?’1

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. Cartoon entitled ‘The First Female Leader of a Muslim Nation takes Revenge’ by Tony Auth in the in the Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia), 18 November 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Government of Pakistan, Report of the Pakistan Commission on the Status of Women (Islamabad: Government of Pakistan Press, 1986) p. 31.

    Google Scholar 

  3. cited in Sarfraz Hussain Mirza, Muslim Women’s Role in the Pakistan Movement (Lahore: Research Society of Pakistan, second edition, 1981) p. 7 [emphasis added].

    Google Scholar 

  4. See Hanna Papenek, ‘Purdah: Separate Worlds and Symbolic Shelter’, in Hanna Papanek and Gail Minault (eds), Separate Worlds: Studies of Purdah in South Asia (Misouri: South Asia books, 1982) pp. 3–53.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanawi, Bihishti Zewar, in Urdu (Lahore: Taj Company, 1344 hijri [1923]).

    Google Scholar 

  6. See Barbara Daly Metcalf, Perfecting Woman: Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanawi’s Bihishti Zewar: a Partial Translation with Commentary (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).

    Google Scholar 

  7. See Gail Minault, ‘The Extended Family as Metaphor and the Expansion of Women’s Realm’, in Gail Minault (ed.), The Extended Family: Women and Political Participation in India and Pakistan (New Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1981) p. 9.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Michelle Maskiell, ‘Social Change and Social Control: College-educated Punjabi Women, 1913–1960’, Modern Asian Studies 18 (1984) 2, pp. 9 and 25, fh. 38.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Javed Iqbal (ed.), Stray Reflections: A Note-Book of Allama Iqbal. (Lahore: Sh. Ghulam Ali and Sons, 1961) pp. 64–5,

    Google Scholar 

  10. cited in Sheila McDonough, ‘Metaphorsof Change in Early Iqbal’ in C. M. Nairn (ed.), Iqbal, Jinnah, and Pakistan: the Vision and the Reality (Syracuse: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, 1979) p. 116.

    Google Scholar 

  11. This is apparent in the writings of both Begum Jahan Ara Shahnawaz, Father and Daughter: a Political Autobiography (Lahore: Nigarishat, 1971)

    Google Scholar 

  12. and Begum Shaista Akhtar Banu (Suhrawardy) Ikramullah, From Purdah to Parliament (London: Cresset Press, 1963).

    Google Scholar 

  13. Syed Sharif-ud-Din Pirzada, The Pakistan Resolution and the Historic Lahore Session (Karachi: Pakistan Publishers, 1968) p. 35

    Google Scholar 

  14. See Ayesha Jalal, The State of Martial Rule: the Origins of Pakistan’s Political Economy of Defence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), Ch. 6.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Government of Pakistan, Report of the Pakistan Pay Commission (Karachi: Government of Pakistan, 1949) p. 46.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Government of Pakistan, Constituent Assembly Debates (Karachi: Government of Pakistan, 1952) IX, 24 March 1951, pp. 216–17. (Henceforth CA.D., followed by volume, date and page number).

    Google Scholar 

  17. See Khawar Mumtaz and Farida Shaheed (eds), Women of Pakistan: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back? (London: Zed Press, 1987) p. 54

    Google Scholar 

  18. West Pakistan Government, The Muslim Family Law Ordinance, 1961 (Lahore: West Pakistan Press, 1968) section six.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Government of Pakistan, Pakistan Manpower Institute, Khalida Shah, ‘Women’s Participation in the Labour Force in Pakistan — a Macro Level Profile’, in Employment for Women in Pakistan (Islamabad: Government of Pakistan Press, 1983) p. 49.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Government of Pakistan, Pakistan Population Census (Karachi: Government of Pakistan Press, 1962), bulletin no. 4,

    Google Scholar 

  21. cited by M. Sabihuddin Baqai, ‘Some Considerations of the Impact of Education of Women on Development of Human Resources’, in Aquila Kiani (ed.), Sociology of Development in Pakistan (Karachi: Social Research Centre, University of Karachi, 1971) p. 65.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Mumtaz Ahmad, ‘Ideology, Power, and Protest: Toward Explaining Islamic Revivalism in Pakistan’ (Georgetown University; Centre for Stategic and International Studies, unpublished paper for a workshop on Islamic revivalism, 4 January 1983), pp. 18–19.

    Google Scholar 

  23. M. Sabihuddin Baqai, Changes in the Status and Roles of Women in Pakistan (An empirical study in Karachi Metropolitan Area) (Karachi: Department of Sociology, University of Karachi, 1976) pp. 15–24.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Shahnaz J. Rouse, ‘Women’s Movements in Contemporary Pakistan: Results and Prospects’ (University of Michigan, working paper no. 74, December 1984).

    Google Scholar 

  25. Government of Pakistan, Constitution Act of 1973 (Islamabad: Government of Pakistan Press, 1973) article 25 (1).

    Google Scholar 

  26. Government of Pakistan, Report of the Commission on Women’s Rights, in Urdu, in Musawat Siyasi Edition [Lahore], 20 August 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Government of Pakistan, A Collection of the Islamic Laws (Islamabad: Government of Pakistan Press, 1980) Hudood Ordinance, 1979, VI, 1–9.

    Google Scholar 

  28. See Anita M. Weiss, ‘Women’s Position in Pakistan: Sociocultural Effects of Islamization’, Asian Survey, XXV (August 1985) 8, and Mumtaz and Shaheed (eds), Women in Pakistan, pp. 103–105.

    Google Scholar 

  29. see Michelle Maskiell, ‘The Effects of Islamization on Pakistani Women’s Lives, 1978–83’ (Madison: University of Wisconsin, paper prepared for the South Asia Conference, 1983).

    Google Scholar 

  30. Weiss, ‘Women’s Position in Pakistan’, Asian Survey, XXV (August 1985) 8, p. 872,

    Google Scholar 

  31. J. Henry Korson and Michelle Maskiell, ‘Islamization and Social Policy in Pakistan: the Constitutional Crisis and the Status of Women’, Asian Survey, XXV (June 1985) 6, p. 600.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Ayesha Jalal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Richmond College, London, UK

    Deniz Kandiyoti (Senior Lecturer) (Senior Lecturer)

Copyright information

© 1991 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Jalal, A. (1991). The Convenience of Subservience: Women and the State of Pakistan. In: Kandiyoti, D. (eds) Women, Islam and the State. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21178-4_4

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation