The role of educated women in Pakistan's development

We look at the history and our religion, the women were allowed to do business and they were quite good at it, biggest example is Hazrat Khadija (may peace be upon her) the first wife of the Holy Prophet Mohammad (may peace be upon him). The role of women in country’s development and rapid growth is simply can not be ignored but the fact remains that their potential is not being fully utilised in Pakistan as yet.

Women in Pakistan are expected to adopt the role of a house wife and to serve the whole family. I have seen alot of talented, highly educated ladies who could become very good entrepreneurs, are spending their time in managing the house and the family despite their strong urge to set up their own businesses. The reason comes out as usual “they are not allowed by their families or husbands”

I consider that violation of basic human rights that our religion gave the women 1400 years ago. The man’s ego wont allow his life partner to earn equally or more than him. The in laws think that a women’s role is just to look after them. Come on folks! she has a heart too, she has her own dreams which she always put aside to play her role as a house wife. In my opinion women are far more better than us in time management, they are task oriented, better and multi tasking and far better in communication skills if they have a solid educational back ground. They manage kids, manage the house, look after her husbands parents and at times whole family, she manages the routine house hold, she is very good at budgeting and savings, very good administrator, very good at handling stress and pressure, good in convincing through logic and above all very patient. So why waste such a tremendous talent?

If we go through the statistics, nearly 65% of the female doctors dont do jobs after their marriages, 80% of business graduates sit at home after marriage, not even 10 % of the educated women are entrepreneurs and running their own business on their own, their scope of jobs is always limited to teaching, customer care, call centres, designing, training and fashion. They need a fresh break as they could do far better than that. Men by nature in Pakistan are un-organised and dont contribute any thing to manage the house apart from bringing the money to run it. The lady of the house needs his support as she works like a robot in a monotonous routine for years. Our Prophet may peace be up on him, used to do all chores at home by himself despite having more than one wives. But here in our society, the man needs his wife to get his house organised, his kids very well looked after, special attention to his parents, a nice clean and calm house, a VIP treatment to his friends and relatives, his ward robe organised, take care of family affairs, attend the family functions with enthusiasm, manage house hold from groceries to shopping for him and kids. If she could do all that why not try talents in her field of interest if she wants to try her luck in business or in a job.

I have met a lot of multi-talented ladies who are running big businesses excellently and managing their house equally good. In order to grow as nation we need their presence in all fields whether its education, IT, Telecom, Small and medium enterprises, Textiles, Banking, Health care, Fashion, Electronic and print media, HR and all other possible venues for them.

The biggest support they need is from their life partners who could convince their family members that they can do far better than what they are already doing provided given a fair chance to them to perform and prove their worth. They need to join hands with men to contribute to the over all growth of the country but for that they need equal opportunities in the jobs and assurance from their families that they can pursue their carriers in the way they want with out disturbing their family life. It is often considered that women who want to do job or want to set up their own businesses want an un necessary freedom and can be victim of modern society evils. But this is not the case, men have always kept double standards, they do things which they are not supposed to do in accordance with our religious norms and social taboos but on the other hand they would always build barriers and walls around women so that they can not get to know whats going on in the world around them and lead a life of a well’s frog! If men know how to carry themselves in the society so should be the women, its a mere dilemma that men always considered them the best in decision making and handling crisis but I have seen working women performing miracles in the work they do by adopting firm business and work ethics and above all cause of their natural ability to cope hard work and stress. It time for all women to stand up and speak for their basic living right and with their presence already in the national assembly, raise their voice to get his right to change the world around them which is wrongly dominated by the men. they have education, talent and a strong will to compete men in all fields of practical life. there presence should not be limited to certain agreed and determined fields by our society, they should be given a chance to pursue their dreams, earn their own livelihood, become less dependent on men who always use women’s dependency as their weakness. We need a rapid growth to have a strong stance against the overall economic turmoil in the country and across the world and for that we should allow women to come forward and join hands with men to be part of the progress and growth of Pakistan in the days to come.

Economic indicators suggest that life will be very tough in the coming years, a single earning hand in a house hold wont be sufficient to survive. Government can not always come to our support and if you talk of Pakistani governments officials and our leaders, they are too busy in making a life time fortune in the time they are in government and power, so realistically we should not be relying on them at all. men and women have to work together to survive in the coming days. Our society has already seeing a change where kids now work and study at colleges at the parallel to cover their education expenses and the next step would be the partnership of men and women to carry the burden of expenses by equal sharing. I would request all women with bachelors, masters and PHD degrees and doing nothing, to come forward and join hands with all of us. They are as much entitled as men to choose their destiny in life, its not correct that if they are married they lead their life on men’s dictation whether its right or wrong. Our religion allows women to work and earn with certain conditions which are not at all difficult to manage. Its a dilemma that we would hire the most beautiful lady we can in our office but we will not allow our wives to go out and work with a reason that our society is not good enough to allow them to work outside. What is the out side world for women in Pakistan, its a world full of men like us who should learn to give respect to women at the work place then the society would easily accommodate alot more working women. We should develop a working environment where all parents and husbands send their daughters and wives with out any worry and second thoughts to their work places.

Its not all about dominating women, it should be all about accommodating them when they already sacrifice each and every second of their life for our comfort and ease. I am positive that Women in Pakistan certainly deserve more space and confidence from us than they are currently getting. Its their life as well but we are currently trying to control each movement in their life like puppet masters controlling the moves and moods of a puppet but women are human beings not robots or puppets, they have likes and dislikes, they have ambitions, they have plans for themselves also, they want to get fame out of their work and business, they want to achieve success, they want to be treated well, they need an understanding life partner, they need us to provide comfort to them in life, they need their share in the progress and development of Pakistan, they need to be in the field of work they find appropriate, they need to equal chances to earn their livelihoods, they need to maintain their grace and dignity, they need a bunch of family members around them who show confidence in them and ensure their full support to let them see success in life.

But a society dominated by men in Pakistan is hardly doing it, they want the out side world of theirs a total secret to their female life partners, they dont share rather they snatch and impose, they heart feelings rather then boosting the Morales with encouragement. We had a female head of the state by the name of Ms. Benazir Bhutto, whos was miles ahead of all male politicians of her time in terms of courage, determination, know how of internal and external politics, planning for the betterment of the deprived people in Pakistan and above all had all necessary administrative and managerial skills to manage and run a government dominated by 95% of men. She was better than most of them, if we cant accept it we should have a look at the independent analysis of experts and specialists in the field who still rate her death as a huge loss to Pakistan and democratic movement here.

Can we be a far more open minded and realistic when it comes to possible good role of women in Pakistan’s growth? I strongly urge that its about time that we all do it.