IntelliPhant

Emancipation of women is broad based idea that includes eradication of all forms of subjugation against women. In western way of life, philosophy of women liberation is a cherished idea.

In eastern civilizations an excess baggage of the cultural of male dominance and an induced skepticism about the philosophy of women liberation puts a very bad taste to the acceptability of the idea even among women themselves.

Do you believe that a women living in so called developed western society is really emancipated from all from of subjugation or the acceptance of the very notion of equality among the genders has enslaved women more by pushing them into a quagmire of additional responsibilities.

What kind of freedom women would require to function meaningfully in the development of an eastern society like Pakistan.

ravage

what quagmire of additional responsibilities has enslaved women more?

the minimum rights women in our society should have:

1. Freedom to pursue education and careers. This includes removing legal and social impediments... things like harassment of women who work in offices (heres an example of what Im talking about).. stigma for these women when it comes to marriage etc etc.
2. A greater representation in the legal system. I am not aware of any female judges, and Im not sure if thats legal bar or merely a professional one on women. Either way its not right.
3. Parity of treatment as far as sexual conduct goes. This is not to argue for sexual freedom, but that the status in society of sexual misconduct by men and women should be the same. It is not, by any stretch of the imagination. Whatever limitations of sexual freedom there are on women, should be on men.
4. Government aid to either eliminate the issue of dowry, or incase that is not possible, support from the government to provide dowry. Traditionally if work is the domain of men, and the government (is supposed to) provide income support, it should also look after the fortunes of women. Many are too poor to marry.
5. Social support on domestic violence.

There has been quite a lot of progress when it comes to education for women. In my mom's time, she was the first in her area to complete a masters. Now a good education is considered a pre-requisite, if for nothing but marriage. Having said that the education must not be leading towards marriage alone.

IntelliPhant

In societies like Pakistan even if a woman is financially supporting a family, she still has to, and generally is expected to, fulfill all other responsibilities that are accepted as norms. For example she has to prepare breakfast for the members of the family that may include MIL and FIL and/or a few other extended family members.
She has to arrange for lunch and supper, make sure cleanliness of home, and kids. She has to make sure that all the social relations that might be to primary to her husband and secondary to her are given equal or better attention.
She hardly gets any appreciation for financial support, hardly ever gets appreciation for making up and taking care of the family unit.

One can argue that it is easy for a working lady to arrange for a mate or servant, a butler and a sweeper for all the responsibilities, fact of the matter is that in a vast majority of such households where first lady of the house is working is not because of a need is appreciated by the woman herself to use her skills or to pursue a career, it is rather a mutual appreciation of family members that it is imperative for the woman to help and support working male of the family to keep up with the living standards.

In most of these situations an effort to arrange a helper for the household responsibilities is generally contested by other needs, interests and extended family members, unless the gap between what is expected to be paid to the helper and what is earned by the lady is huge.


I will comment on the rest of your your reply later. How about emancipation of a western lady, is she really free from all forms of subjugations, or this slogan is a sugar coted poison to entrap her?

ravage

I agree with you, that is usually how it is. That isnt how it should be though. It is a progression of better treatment for women, and them being able to have decent education and careers is a good start. Them being able to keep the fruits of their labours is a second.

Some elements of care for children fall into the woman's lot. Others the male's.

I know families in our culture where that has been the case to a large extent, including my own.

Completely unsubstantiated and unjustified statement, and the converse in my experience. Women who grow up working hard to achieve excellence in their education do not suddenly confine their ambitions to whatever their family members appreciate. Invariably a majority or parity of students who top their school/college boards in Pakistan is female. Most students in our highly competitive medical schools are also female. These kids do not merely wish to get appreciation from family husbands/prospective husbands. It is a shame that you confine their skills, ambitions and thought processes to domestic bliss.

To give an example from my family, my mother who topped boards in Karachi all her life and paid her way through college to a Masters via scholarships because her parents wouldnt have paid for a girl had to overcome the reluctance of my father to let her work. and even then had to have her ambitions circumscribed to a work socially more acceptable (teaching). The latter is a tragedy, and should never have happened.

In Pakistan it is more likely to find men insecure about letting women work because they worry about what people will think about them as providers. It is an ignorant and male oriented line of thinking. Why should what women wish to achieve be judged in very male oriented views of "providing"?

I dont think the emancipation itself is a sugar coated poison to entrap her. She may not be free from certain forms of subjugation however I dont really see why the emancipation is to be blamed for any of them.

IntelliPhant

Ravage bhai, I did not open my eyes in a palace with a silver spoon in my mouth, neither did I start crawling on dirt of streets of a slum, I grew up in a middle class family where many women of my own extended family worked, majority of them were highly educated, talented and skilled in a certain field or subject but most of them worked or had to work not because of an urge to argue a position in a society but to compete with the ever growing necessities of lives around them.

In most of the scenarios those women were not given much of an appreciation they deserved for sacrificing a potential leisure that could have been offered to them had the onus of committing to keep a “way of life” was not shared by them either voluntarily or involuntarily. In this background my statement was substantiated precisely with my own observation both as a child and as a grownup, at the later stages of my life.

This statement, however, does not mean that exceptions are not there, and I have no issue in admitting that women who wanted to have a respectable recognition in the society by virtue of their own talent rather than recognition by virtue of inheritance or a social bond has always been present and today it is thriving because of available opportunities to them.

The culture of appraising and considering men as a “provider” is, unfortunately, a fallacy; it is rather a disavowal of a very unique service that a woman provides to a family both as a mother and as a wife. The very concept of a family is inconceivable, impracticable and unrealistic without a central figure being mother or a wife. It is a culture of quantifying with a dollar amount an intangible. However this intangible can be quantified if one third of the services are paid by an hourly rate to a mate.

Even a vary causal or extemporaneous observation of the broken family system of western world reveals the missing link, a link of a commitment that a lady of the home has to her family. I don’t believe that an educated woman while accepting among the options a position of a family maker accepts a position inferior to what she could have pursued otherwise. It is myopic to consider that she is wasting her education by not utilizing it for the society. She is rather doing a better service to the society on a broader scale.

Emancipation of women is a slogan that might put a lot of verbosity around the idea yet the main thrust comes from financial freedom. The idea of women emancipation found a real companion among a creed of so called “feminism”. Feminist, not all but most, were inspired and motivated by industrial revolution of west, thriving capitalism has opened up a space for a great number of low paid workers especially when slave labor in its absolute from was on the death bed.

In other words scarcity of low paid workers was one of the major reasons in propagating the sugar coated slogan of women emancipation. It however does not mean that all who spoke about freedom of women are motivated by a vested interest, in does not mean that drawing a woman out of her home has not played it its part in the overall materialistic development of the society.

In a bid to provide more financial freedom available to women, a western society ruled by laws of capitalism and overwhelmed by ever growing demand of man power, exposed women to an environment toxic her physical ability, tempting to her ethical and moral life and a to a recipe of disaster to her role of being a home maker.

We will keep talking, if you may desire.

USResident

I think this topic would be better served if we clearly defined what kind of subjugation was meant to be eradicated by emancipation of women. From my study of history it is not the subjugation of women which was the thrust the emancipation of women movements. This was but an after thought which came ot realization after women had to fill in the roles played by men during the civil war era's and world wars when the men were simply absent to perform their traditionally accepted responsibilities. The temptation to fill in for many responsiblities which were shouldered by men came once women had to force themselves into their roles. The civil and religious dominance of males over females is a tune later added to the notes of this symphony.

Go easy on me, you guys get intensely philisophical ... which really ain't my cup of tea.

IntelliPhant

^ The concept of subjugation is conditioned with the perception of rights, both an induced or acquired perception. For example, freedom of speech is relatively a new idea but its proponents are more vocal about it these days because of the fact that dispensation of ideas has become a powerful weapon in the hands of two conflicting segments of the societies. They are either relatively powerless or those who want to control the mass reflection of social behavior of a society.

All I want to say is that subjugation may reflect a “living list”, however all what may be included in the fine print of list owes its existence from two main categories;
1) Right to live
2) Right to decide how to live.
Where no one, in this day and age, would contest and compete against the freedom of right to live, many may be antagonist to an idea of “right to decide”, especially when the responsibility of decision making is considered as a privilege rather than an onus.

Let’s take “right to decide” as a starting point for your rationale, its ramification and its off-shoot of financial independence. Is a financially independent woman more emancipated, if so what is the cost, both tangible and intangible

USResident

Sure lets discuss and see where it takes us. I would say that even the "Right to live" is contested in many parts of the world based on gender. This was something as we know was put an end to with Islam, as lucidly as it can be.


As you mentioned, and I agree, the right to decide, is accepted by many as a privilege as opposed to a responsbility. Yet those who bask in this privilege mostly abdicate themselves from its responsibility when questioned for its misuse.

Financial independence is a means to gain a share in the right to decide in societies or families where it is held as a privilege. This is probably IMO the root of insecurity it breeds in male dominated households. Those who view it as a privilege, obviously humans do not like to share in power or privilege. So really the perception here sets up our perverse behavior when viewing a woman as an equal share holder in a privilege that the man feels empowered to.

Now to your question if whether a financially independent woman is emancipated? I think I would first like to discuss, emancipated from what? What are the factors from which we are to view her as gaining emancipation. Does the role of a husband in Islam diminish with the financial independence of a woman? The roles of husband as part of the family in western and Islamic societies are different so the question cannot be answered similarly as the underlying ideology is what creates the perception of emancipation.

AlexB

How about a society with no "traditional roles" for males and females? I mean all people are treated as humans regardless of their gender, and each human being chooses the pass that fits best his/her personal preferences. What is wrong with that?

AlexB

Maybe this is off topic, but I'll ask anyway. When you say Western vs. Islamic do you mean Chrisitan vs. Islamic or something different? If it is different, do you think that Islamic cannot become "Western" in a way Christian became "Western"?

USResident

Single cell organisms

USResident

I mean societies or ideologies or religions where the husband is not the head of the household.

ravage

One could argue that most men do not work because they would like to work or because they are talented/skilled but because of ever growing economic necessities.

Fact is there are plenty of women who choose to work out of interest, and that is reflected in the diversity of educational paths chosen at an early age, where there is often little economic pressure.

It is a shame that they were not given much appreciation. Having said that what you saying is at best a description of how things are, not how they should be.

Which is a good thing, I hope we agree. Having said that I disagree that such women are 'exceptions'.

How so? Suppose we speak of a doctor. What service (informed by her specialized education) is a doctor trained for six years by the govt of Pakistan, which btw invested a substantial amount in her education, providing to the broader society by not working? Sure she'll be able to tell when her kids need to see a GP, but more likely than not even that basic discernment will be at a scale comparable to a matric-pass in a few years.

The same applies to many other fields such as architects, engineers etc etc. With the exception of home economics grads, women who dont utilize highly specialized education do waste it.

This is not to say we should force all such women to work. Should be their choice.

Completely unsubstantiated, sweeping statements. What basis do you have for this claim?

Explain how this worked. Which capitalists propagated the sugar coated slogan of women emancipation? Please provide some specific examples to make your case.

I'd appreciate some basis for this. Women have been working in primary income generating fields like agriculture in the east and west for millennia. While emancipation may have given her more access to her earnings, given them more respect for it and more of a say on what kind of work they do, women working wasnt unheard of before.

diwana

What a smart question!

I think there are few words we loosely use everywhere. We tend to intermingle religions with cultures and territories. Not a good habit.

Religions are not territorial nor they should be.

IntelliPhant

By word emancipation I mean proverbial “freedom”, freedom against anything visible or invisible that can restrict her ability to exercise her will and intent. I don’t want to go as deep as her ingrained “bias” that may hold her to exercise her will.

Historically men has assumed responsibility to earn livelihood not because of his intellectual ability to coin better means but because of his physical dexterity to do jobs that require more strength than skill, modern social system has inherited bifurcation of the responsibilities owing to the unique features and requirements inbred into the gender system. Although things have changed a lot from medieval age to dawn of this century yet physical dexterity is still heavy among the factors that are decisive in assumption of a social position around many societies and cultures.

Let’s jump back to the basics of dollar dream, money has become a symbol of strength, one who earns has the authority to decide, a decision from dispensing what has been earned to a decision of manifesting or reflecting hegemony over vital decisions. How real is her ability to exercise this right after she assumes the role of an "earner"?

Marriage is a social contract that does not change the dynamics of responsibilities owing to ones gender, it however offers the contracting partner to wear another hat besides what gender may dictate. Ethics of a specific religion may give a social system a particular look yet the basics of a family system are rather unaffected.

IntelliPhant

Indeed women have been working in the fields with their family members from the early days of recorded history; their participation was and still is dictated by the principle of necessity. In family based farming this culture does not expose a woman to outside world, however with the concentration and acquisition of farm lands in the hands of a few has made female farm workers much more vulnerable to physical abuse.

A perpetual war industry has forced American women to participate in the areas that were not pursued on the existing scale, traditionally women, and that too in a very small numbers, have participated in armed forces however they were kept away from battle fields. In a report published by Pentagon, it has been admitted that 63% of women soldiers are sexually assaulted at least once during their career in the army, these numbers are startling because it is almost impossible to file a complaint against asexual assault. I don’t remember exact numbers as to how many low grade industrial workers in Europe or in so called first world are psychically humiliated during their jobs however I can say number is quite high.

Capitalism which has somewhat disappeared behind the heavy curtain of corporate culture is in essence a “neo slave culture”, from industrial revolution of France to Americas, the main thrust that drove the engine of economic development was human resource capital, after exhausting the human flesh markets of their own countries these so called entrepreneurs are on a constant look out for cheap labor in third world countries, labor be in the shape of men or women, men out of sheer necessity and women with a dream of freedom, if poverty doesn’t dictate it otherwise. I will suggest you to read some critical literature about industrial revolution of developed countries.
I don’t use the word “sugar coated slogan” out of contempt against working women but against the intent that raise this slogan for one purpose and use it for other.

I was contesting a popular belief that if an educated woman has a luxury to stay home instead of working, then she is wasting her education. Proponents of this believe discredit a woman for her role as family maker. I don’t deny the usefulness of women in a specific field; I rather don’t distinguish between skills of a working men or women, when out of home a woman is as good as a man. This , however, is not what I intend to discuss.

ravage

The participation of men for work was, and still is, dictated by the principle of necessity. Dont see the point here.

All of which merely means that the attitudes of men towards working women need to change. The first step to which needs to be a change in the view that women should not enter the workplace.

You offer a lot of text but very, very little information.

We cannot talk if you never offer any basis for any claim you make. I asked for specific basis for a very specific claim that you made: the women's emancipation movement was a sugar coated pill by capitalists. Name names, who were these capitalists, how did they influence the early emancipation movement women.

And I am addressing this very belief. An educated woman who has specialized education in a particular field (other than home economics) IS wasting, or lets say, not utilizing, her education if she stays at home instead of working.

No not really. There is a difference between saying you're wasting your education and saying you're not contributing to society.