The road is dusty and wide, sprinkled with rickshaws and cyclists and occasionally broken up by potholes. Posters of a baby-faced Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari flanked by his mother Benazir and grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto sprinkle the low walls on either side.

The graffiti fades away to be replaced with high boundary walls and low-hanging trees obscuring the tanned colonial style buildings that make up Karachi’s Sind Club.

As I enter the main building, I see Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s portrait adorn the wall. This is a pretty oasis of serenity and privilege amidst the teeming chaos of Karachi, with its smooth patios, swimming pool, gym and exclusive parties.

It is also a symbol of aspirations and along with many of our laws, a stark reminder of colonisation, the existing patriarchal structures and their collective impact on the most elite representatives of Karachi’s 23.5 million.

I have a plan. As a woman I cannot be a member. I can, however, qualify for the privileges of this exclusive society by marrying a member. So I will conduct an exhaustive search of the lists and check if anyone is available. This husband has to die in order for me, the grieving widow, to have sole use of his privileges. Poison is too incriminating, so I am working on phase two. I won’t be able to vote as a permanent member in my own right, no matter what I try.

It is all quite silly really, an old gentleman’s club clinging to its ancient rules that prevent women from becoming members when so many women, as spouses or daughters, make use of its facilities and even more women have disposable income they are willing to spend here. So what? You may say, who needs the approval of a bunch of relics?

Fighting for a Sind Club membership is no real achievement for feminism. I’d be selling out, joining the oppressor’s club that housed every feminist’s nightmare: the colonial masters to the feudal lords. I should just give up on my plan as a matter of principle.

The problem, however, runs much deeper. Sind Club is just one example of the sad tendency amongst Pakistan’s elite, to entrench women who have the resources to do more, into a sense of complacency, contentedly (with occasional kicking and screaming) riding along in patriarchy’s boat.

Before you react in indignation, let me clarify. I believe that men must support women in the fight for equality. I also know there are countless women across the economic religious and ethnic spectrum in Pakistan who are movers and shakers, fighting hard against the odds.

Women, wealthy or poor, face domestic violence. An independent working woman who chooses to remain unmarried will face society’s constant judgment, whether she is a lawyer in the city or a farmer in the village. Various forms of oppressions are specific to each woman’s experience, circumstances, and the men around them. Working women, mothers and single women fought hard alongside men to create institutions where girls like me were able to grow and thrive.

But women of means and privilege who oftentimes have the freedom to choose are not encouraged to strive as much as their male peers.

Women outnumber men in Pakistan’s medical schools but according to a 2013 study, only a small percentage went on to pursue careers. Many women drop out during their studies, resulting in a severe shortage of doctors.

This alarming trend is largely due to the pressures faced by women to go on to marry, lack of safety in the workplace, etc. It is also the tacit acceptance that men will step up to take care of them and ultimately become the primary breadwinners. The coercion each woman faces is of varying degrees but the staggering numbers suggest that even women with the drive to continue their careers are eventually discouraged and acquiesce to social pressures.

My parents encouraged me to follow my heart, study literature, on the condition that I would focus on building a career. Sounds wonderful, right? My brother, on the other hand, was told to get a proper engineering degree that was strictly marketable. He was under considerable pressure to build a more lucrative career because, eventually, he is going to be a breadwinner. I may continue working if I want but the notion that I may give it up, or play second fiddle to a future partner is perfectly conceivable in this world. My brother does not have that option.

It is this complacency that highlights the sad truth in a community that has the resources to make all genders strive equally, for the same positions, with the same level of hard work but the expectations for each gender simply don’t match up. Even when a woman rises to prominence, taking on the alpha role, she succumbs to the imperfections of the system.

In 1988, Benazir Bhutto fought a successful election campaign, spurred by the love of supporters still mourning the brutal suppression and hanging of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This young, Ivy-league educated scion also happened to be a woman but to many she was hope, combined with her father’s charisma.

No one is a "perfect" feminist. Feminism as a label started in the west, ironically, is still finding a footing here in structures developed by colonial overlords mixed in with growing intolerance and inflexibility. Many women who are related to Sind Club members oppose the rules. But "traditions" must be upheld. It is and will be a man’s world for some time, whether you are the cocooned daughter of a Sind Club member, as Benazir Bhutto was, or the Prime Minister of Pakistan, another position she was fortunate to hold. She had to make it in a man’s world.

The Sind Club dining room is filled with families. Men in suits sit with women in elegant shalwar kameez. The dress code here is strict; no jeans, men must wear pants. Yet, even here, the definition of business casual for a woman is flexible. Until Benazir popularised the scarf and shoulder pads for the kameez, with the exception of female army officers, doctors or court lawyers, working women didn’t have a standard outfit to wear to the office. Those of us who eschew the Benazir headscarf make do with a variety of shirt sizes and straight cloth pants.

My professional friends comment on the lack of rules for women’s outfits in the workplace. What if one kameez is too casual? What fabric print is suitable for a job interview? Does a dupatta have to be worn? Are long earrings unprofessional? The standards vary and highlight just how far women with means and marketable skills have to go in a system that is not geared for them.

I remained in a casual shalwar kameez but the men in my party had carefully picked out their trousers before dinner in the formal dining hall. I was not scrutinised as much upon entry. Perhaps because I, like the women dining here, am just an accompaniment, a footnote in a long history of men who take themselves very seriously. It is time for those women with means at their disposal to do the same.