- Title
- The politics of gender roles and ethnic nationalism in Pakistan
- Creator
- Asif, Iram
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2019
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- There are many national factors and historical trends that contribute to the awareness and emergence of Women's rights in Pakistan; colonialism, decolonization and nationalism, cold war, democratization, and the Global War on Terror. Feminism in Pakistan has undergone several changes in the course of time. The relationship between feminism and the Pakistani state has been evolutionary and has seen many instances of resentment, dispute and struggle. Eventually, the affiliation survived and the struggle changed into partnership, collaboration and genuine concern. The objective of feminism that was initially focused on the educational rights of women has shifted to a more pragmatic one, now aiming to focus on bringing about legal reforms in order to empower and strengthen the social, political and economic status of women. Conversely, the struggle between feminism, the state and various ethnic groups to empower women has been difficult. Because of the dynamic of a secular and hostile India opposing a Muslim-identified Pakistan, the mythologies that were born with the emergence of the Pakistani state functioned to orient religion against democracy, secularism and women's rights. This insecurity is one of the major reasons for women's rights being undermined in the name of religion. Apart from religion, culture and tradition have also been used to oppose women's rights. The objective of the thesis revolves around piloting a detailed analysis of the gender roles, based on feminism in Pakistan, by examining the various domains of ethnicity and nationalism in the state. These are formulated on the basis of gendered constructs along with Pakistan being an ethno-national state. The patriarchal state has deep effects on women in almost all aspects of life, and this research examines the gender politics associated with this. This research also focuses on exploring the diverse roles of women in the political sphere and looks for linkages between significant women’s initiatives, from history as well as recently, assuming that Pakistan has a particularly strong nationalism. Another interest is intensification in the dialogues based on the oppression of the Muslim women since the time of the US led war on terror, dialogues which have been framed in the binary of Islam versus modernity/west. As a result, these discourses have put Muslim women in a vulnerable position. All this led to the difficult positioning of women in society, religion as well as politics, needing ways that can enable woman to claim their individualities as not only daughters but citizens. This study has tried to explore the flexibility of the gendered identity and status of citizenship, which is the cause of much of the friction between Islamic laws and constitutional laws. The social control and social construction of women’s roles in Pakistan is complicated by this imposition of religion and sharia law along with secular politics. The basis of feminist discourse in Pakistani society is formed by the complex nature of the status of women in family, society and national identity. Therefore, in order to enable the women to improve their status of the nation there is a strong need to explore the status and positioning of women in all the contradictory discourses in regards to religion, community, household, and nation. This thesis explores this underlying gap between the role of religion and its representatives, and their connection towards, and impact on, gender roles. The study will also argue that in Pakistan, women’s activism focuses more specifically on their political participation than on empowerment, and how they encounter violence rather than preventing it. The study also talks about the failed attempts towards the practices governed by culture and informal negotiations. The debate based on identity, nationalism and religious orthodox militancy argue that the whole concept of the identity circulates around the woman and those belonging to minorities and ethnic groups. It is imperative to understand that this process is not prepared for people belonging to the same location and it is neither simple nor uniform, rather it is hierarchical and othering. The biggest challenge faced by this concept is, that it cannot be easily carried forward within the framework of its institutions, politics, epistemology as well as practices.
- Subject
- politics; gender roles; women rights; international relations
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1398044
- Identifier
- uon:34383
- Rights
- Copyright 2019 Iram Asif
- Language
- eng
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