Elusive equality

The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day (March 8) is ‘Invest in women: Accelerate progress’, an indirect but still apt way of reminding the world that it is no coincidence that the most prosperous, advanced, and safe countries tend to have, relatively speaking, the most empowered women. This would seem like an obvious point. After all, neglecting women means turning your back on around half your population. And yet, many continue to act like none of this is common sense. The UN estimates that the annual deficit in spending on gender equality measures needed to achieve gender equality by 2030 is around $360 billion. If current trends persist, more than 340 million girls and women will still live in extreme poverty by the 2030 gender equality deadline, with nearly a quarter experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity. Under a worst-case climate scenario, which appears to be getting ever more likely with each passing year warmer than the last, an additional 236 million women and girls will be food insecure.

The vast majority of these women will belong to developing countries in the Global South. Countries like Pakistan. The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report has the country ranked 142 out of 146 countries with a 57.5 per cent gender parity, far lower than the regional average of 63.4 per cent which is the second-lowest out of the eight regions covered in the report. This woeful score is still Pakistan’s highest since 2006, which only proves that our historical record when it comes to gender equality is so bad that simply being a little less awful for women can lead to a noticeable improvement. This score paints a picture of a country where gender gaps are closing but much too slowly. This might be somewhat surprising given that the country’s highest rank is in the political empowerment dimension, which may explain the raft of gender-progressive bills passed in recent years such as the Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace (Amendment) Bill, 2022 and anti-domestic violence and gendered violence bills passed at the provincial level in Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan. However, much of this political empowerment is arguably cosmetic. Most women in Pakistani politics still have to put up with a disproportionate amount of abuse and unfair aspersions, a trend the abusive response to the new CM of Punjab aptly illustrates.

What all this means is a situation where women’s equality ends up being a top-down phenomenon. Bills and laws are drafted to try and bring about change rather than being reflective of actual change. Take for example the fact that although 90 per cent of women in Pakistan claim to have faced some form of domestic violence, an estimated half never report the abuse and might even face resistance from the police in registering a case if they choose otherwise. Laws and legislation enshrining women’s rights and equality are drafted, but when it is time for the state apparatus to walk the talk, many women are either left hanging, told to put up with it or even that they are somehow to blame for their problems.

The likelihood of being dismissed or silenced in this manner rises as one goes down the socio-economic ladder. Given that most Pakistanis are not prosperous, the vast majority of women have few protections they can rely upon. The female labour participation rate in Pakistan is just slightly over 24 per cent as compared to around 80 per cent of men and the gap is particularly acute at the top of the economic pyramid with women making up a mere 5.71 per cent of legislators, senior officials and managers as per the WEF report. Empowerment on paper divorced from material empowerment or empowerment in terms of one’s place in the unwritten social hierarchy can only help women so much. What is needed is a fundamental change in the attitude towards women, reshaping notions of what they are expected to do, say or think and how others are allowed to treat them. Legislation can only go so far in bringing this about.