here is much talk about gender equality at the global and domestic fronts. Global community has signed a plethora of international conventions, covenants and sustainable development goals to achieve gender equality and empowerment for all women and girls. However, not a single nation in the world today can claim to be a gender-equal or a gender-just society. According to UN Women, the latest data on SDG-5 shows that at the current rate it will take another 286 years for the world community to close the gender gap.

A perennial challenge to gender equality stems from a patriarchal capitalist system that thrives on a hierarchical gender-based social order. The burden and cost of care economy are borne mostly by women. Human labour is produced within the institution of the family through free domestic labour of women and supplied to the capital markets for production and exploitation. The discourse of human rights and gender equality is incompatible with patriarchal capitalism that is based fundamentally on inequalities along class, gender, race, religion and ethnicity lines. There is an unresolvable tension between the logic of capitalism and gender equality.

The situation in Pakistan is no different. Despite national and provincial policy commitments, establishment of women specific institutions to oversee the gender equality agenda and passing of a plenty of pro-women legislation, gender equality has not been institutionalised in the governance structures of the state and the society.

The state institutions are not only dominated by men but are also lacking in gender sensitivity and gender capacity leading to gender biases and discrimination. The gender biases have resulted in wide gender gaps in all spheres of life. For example, the literacy rate amongst women is 51.8 percent as compared to 72.5 percent in men. The gender gap is much bigger in places like Balochistan, where only 25 percent of women are literate. 176 women die per 100,000 live births because of poor health conditions, early marriages, frequent pregnancies, malnourishment; 40 percent women in their reproductive age are anemic. Only 24.3 percent women are working in the formal sector of economy compared to 81 percent of men. 77.7 percent of the informal sector labour consists of women. Male and female wage differential is at 50 percent with Rs 500 billion current wage gap. Only 2 percent of women are in senior leadership and management positions. Despite gender quota and legal provisions, there are only 20 percent women in the parliament. Gender based violence is on the rise. Failure of the justice system is the biggest threat to women’s lives and security. Conviction rate in sexual crimes against women is less than 3 percent. This shows that Pakistan is far away from achieving gender equality.

What is changing in Pakistan is women themselves. They are pushing the socio-cultural and institutional boundaries and exercising their agency. They are defying gender roles and asserting their personal right over their own bodies and sexuality. Women are proving their capacities and capabilities wherever they are given the opportunity. Women have achieved gender parity in tertiary education. An increasing number of women are entering civil service. The number of women in federal and provincial bureaucracy has increased around 20 percent over the last few years. Women are holding important positions in police, judiciary and civil bureaucracy. They are claiming political space by joining political parties. An increasing number of women are registering as voters, turning out to exercise their right to vote and contesting elections on general seats. Young educated women from urban backgrounds are organising feminist collectives and challenging public and private patriarchy.

The discourse on gender equality has been appropriated by the state due to international and grassroots pressure from women’s movements. The push for gender equality as the multiplier to achieve other development goals came from international development aid agencies. Pakistan has failed, however, to make serious efforts to translate discursive commitment into practice. Successive governments have failed to provide equal access to opportunities and resources and provide protection and security to women.

The biggest challenges faced by women today are (a) lack of institutional will, capacity and resources to implement policy commitments to gender equality; and (b) securitisation of women’s movement.

Feminist consciousness is rising in urban Pakistan amongst the educated youth who have taken over the digital space. They challenge gender stereotypes and hit sexual division of labour that is the material base of patriarchal order. This has given rise to patriarchal anxiety. The tensions between women’s rights protagonists and conservative forces of religio-political Islam can be seen at its peak closer to International Women’s Day on March 8 every year.

Young feminists under the banner of Aurat March had started organising the Women’s Day celebrations in various cities since 2018. They created open spaces for women to gather on March 8 and voice issues that concern them the most. The placards and slogans that caught the attention of conservative patriarchal forces were those where women were raising issues related to their individual rights over their bodies, sexuality and reorganisation of domestic labour. The radical extremist groups started threatening women’s rights activists, accusing them of being donor-funded Western agents, attacking the Aurat Marches and bringing out women in purdah in Haya Marches.

An atmosphere of fear and threat has been created around the Women’s Day. Instead of siding with women, the state has weaponised the security discourse to stop women from coming out in public spaces on March 8. The security narrative and social reaction to Aurat March slogans have succeeded in dividing the movement. This year some of the women across Pakistan are not coming out on March 8 to celebrate the International Women’s Day due to threat perception. They are bringing together working class women on a public holiday instead of on March 8.

In the patriarchal social and political context in Pakistan in which women face dual opposition and resistance to their rights from the state and religious groups, gender equality is no more than a myth.

The author is a human rights activist and a former director of the Gender Studies Department at the QAU. She can be reached at drfarzanabari@gmail.com