PESHAWAR: The workingwomen in Pakistan are passing through a tough routine because of their official and domestic chores that lie double responsibilities on their shoulders.

They also face a static behaviour of their family, especially of their male family members, as they have become a vulnerable unit of the society. But on the other side, the women are facing a conservative social behaviour within a patriotic set-up. It is making their lives a challenging one. There are a lot of examples of the women having inflexible routine in their daily lives.

There is a workingwoman named Shabnam married. She is married and has two kids. She is doing job to financially support the family along with her husband. She said that she is always facing problems in her day-to-day life and remains depressed due to the long working hours both at home and office.

She said during her stay at office she has never been able to give that much attention to her children which they deserve, nor at home the kids are getting too much care of her because of the busy schedule of domestic chores. Besides, she is also not able to concentrate on her personal growth as well.

Shabnam said that her life is not more different from that of a machine, which runs with the minutes of a clock and does not look behind to analyse any consequences. She added that her life would have not been too much tough if her husband would be cooperative and supportive towards her and share some of the domestic responsibilities with her on the one hand while on the other hand if the organisation where she works could be relaxed in timings with mothers at their work places.

The miseries are not limited to the lives of the women doing a long hours duty but it applies at all level of jobs including even teaching. The teaching is considered as compare a relaxed one job but the female teacher’s lives are not much more different than that of the female working in NGOs or in other public and private sectors within same social set up.

A female teacher, 35, teaching in a high school having four children said that she has been teaching for the last about 17 years in district Swat.

Her husband is doing no job and since her marriage, he has neither done any earning nor provided her with any support to bring up their children and in domestic work, despite the fact that he is spending much more time at home.

She said that after coming back from school she is fulfilling all domestic responsibilities and that the continuously following the strict routine and non-cooperative attitude of her husband has made her weak and patient of depression and anxiety.

The teacher is a beautiful lady but the rough attitude of her husband has made her life colourless and has gifted her depressions in rewards of her life long efforts.

For brining balance in the lives of working women development of positive and a gender balanced environment is must. In our society male is considered superior and are exempted from the responsibilities of children brining up and domestic chores, and if women works then in most of the cases their income is considered the assets of male as well.

Keeping in view this attitude the civil society group, public sector and government itself have to design and introduce the project for brining a positive change at this level and make them realize that women are working for their support for making their family strong so they should also have to take some of the domestic responsibilities from their shoulders and make them realize that how much they are valuable to them. Until and unless a positive attitude is developed towards working women, their real empowerment will remain a dream.

There have launched several programs for the empowerment of the women and brining gender balance.

It is a positive step that there is group that is not only thinking but also struggling for the rights of this vulnerable class of the society. But the problem arises when the strategies is followed for change without sincere assessment of the needs of our own women within our own set up.

The most important aspect of society that plays important role in development of the attitudes is the role of parents, so the parents, especially mother has to bring up her children with a positive a gender balanced attitude which could remove all the social imbalances existing in the society.

Source: The Nation

Date:8/3/2011