EMPOWERMENT
Changing the cliche
All professions and industries have their own particular clichés and stereotypes. We have the lying politician, the slimy lawyer, the temperamental artist, and the saintly nurse. Of course, this is despite the fact that there are some “presumably” honest politicians, decent lawyers, well-adjusted artists, and horrid nurses.
The development sector is not immune to adopting such well-worn tropes. One common cliché is of the “beychari,” or destitute, woman. We have become accustomed to seeing pictures of despondent faced women in dire straits. It is used because it pricks our conscience. The development organization wants to make us care about, or put our hands in our pockets, for their particular cause. The problem is that over time, these images, as they become burnished into our collective memories, do a disservice to the underprivileged women they purport to be helping. We become accustomed to viewing poor Pakistani women as permanent victims. This is a falsehood.
A recently held event by the USAID’s Gender Equity Program was a revelation. Rather than projecting poor Pakistani women as victims, it celebrated their strength, dignity, and determination to overcome the obstacles of their background.
Take Azra Bibi’s story, for example. Azra, 26, is from a large family of eight sisters. Her father is a taxi driver, and with so many children, he struggled to look after his family. Despite these financial difficulties, Azra was determined to get an education. Her mother supported her in this goal. “She worked very hard to instil this thought in us that we need to get educated and not remain uneducated like her,” Azra proudly says. Despite the parental backing, Azra wasn’t immune to sparing her mother’s feelings. “We never insisted on having a new uniform every year or new books. We learnt to compromise in order to study. We used to buy second hand book and wear the same uniform for 2 to 3 years, so that our mother never has to think that she couldn’t afford to educate us.”
After getting a master’s degree, Azra began teaching in a private school. However, being fed up with her low pay as a teacher, she decided to leave. Motivated by the desire to stop the suffering of children, she became a health worker, going door-to-door providing vaccinations and being part of the government survey team. This she did, despite facing a backlash from her family. “Teaching is looked upon as a respectable profession, so it is very difficult for me to do this work. My brother, cousins, father, even society as a whole doesn’t approve of this profession,” says Azra.
But this wasn’t the only difficulty she faced. Having become a health worker, Azra wasn’t being paid. For six months, Azra and 200 of her colleagues went without salaries. The girl later joined a gender equity program. The program informed women of their rights and about labour laws. Following this training, Azra persuaded 200 of her colleagues to go on strike for their salaries. “I had no hope that we would get paid, but when all 200 of us united, we became a powerful team and our voice was heard,” she says. The strike worked, and after meeting with the District Health Officer, the salaries were paid.
Today, Azra remains optimistic about women’s futures in Pakistan. She thinks women’s rights are improving, and cites the fact that jobs previously done by men are now being done by women, including her own. Women are now seen as being capable of doing jobs outside the home. However, she is critical of the lack of implementation of the law by officials. “All I want is that the laws written in books should not be confined to just that, they should also be implemented,” she says.
Since the success of the strike, Azra continues to share her knowledge with other women on how to fight for their rights.
Azra is not alone in displaying such strength. Another woman at the program, who defies the “women in peril” cliché, is Nageena. After suffering at the hands of an abusive husband, Nageena, a mother of three, plucked up the courage to divorce her husband. Following a particularly violent beating, which left her with a broken arm, Nageena, still suffering from considerable pain, went straight to court and spoke with a lawyer and demanded a divorce.
The program was also able to support Nageena by providing her training in skills that could help her earn an income. “Mashallah, I have become so smart and brainy that I can do anything and go a long way,” she says, with great self-assurance.
Nageena’s newly acquired income gave her independence. She was able to rent her own apartment following the divorce. “When I received my first salary, my financial problems were solved. I can now pay my own rent and can have better food to eat.” Her economic status has also given her the power to fight her husband for the custody of her children. She has filed an appeal in court for custody and wants to take them from him. She said, “I visit my children and give them money. Previously, I went to see them and I didn’t have any cash, but now I am able give them money and much more. I take things for them and they get very happy. Now my daughters say that their mother is capable of doing everything,” she says.
There are countless other “women of strength” in our communities like Nageena and Azra. The USAID event was a timely reminder that we need to view economically disenfranchised women not as sufferers, but as heroines: women who are overcoming significant obstacles to make improvements to their lives and the lives of their families and communities. It’s time to change the cliché and give the poor working women of Pakistan the dignity they most clearly deserve.
The writer is a freelancer
