The Women of Pakistan

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I recently saw the video about women pilots in Pakistan army. It was good story with excellent points. Society is changing and the women are becoming equal with men. In fact, I can say that is partially true because numerous stories describe dark side of the moon in women’s life.

The article “Afghan Boys Are Prized, So Girls Live the Part” published in the New York Times this week gives me the idea to write how women are perceived in the different society today. In fact, I can’t understand the idea of shame if one family has girl instead of boy as a child. However, there is the example of Afghanistan were social pressure influence on families and makes burden for them if is “she” instead of “he”.

It is not only semantic difference. It is real life in which families literally make up their girls to boys by cutting their hair or dress them in man’s cloths. The decision when “the bacha posh” or “dressed up as a boy” girls can go again to their womanhood is on their parents and according to the article it is in the time when child enters puberty.

In Pakistan the women are facing the troubles of honor killings. Even though the honor killing is a capital offence in Pakistan yet official statistic show 1261 honor killings in 2006.  In his Diary for London Review of Books, Tariq Ali wrote that a “sample survey showed 82 per cent of women in rural Punjab feared violence resulting from their husbands displeasure over minor matters and 52 per cent are being beaten by their husbands”.

Another severe example is the case when women are buried alive. Five women were buried alive in the village near the Quetta, the Baluch capital. Three of them didn’t want to respect the wish of their families and they want to make their choice. However, the male relatives shot three of the women and buried them even though they weren’t dead.

Aleksandra