Celebrating International Women’s Day without female faces?

March 2015

We are celebrating International Women’s Day today, to acknowledge progress towards gender equality and identify the challenges lying ahead. We are proud to say that our early childhood development programme in Pakistan has led to significant positive impacts on gender equality in the communities where we are working (read more here). However, sadly we cannot show you the women teachers who have contributed to nor benefitted from these impacts because to do so would potentially jeopardise their safety.

As well as being sadly ironic, given that we are celebrating women’s rights, this setback is symptomatic of gender inequalities. Men and boys – and sometimes girls – can occupy public space whilst adult women are required to hide themselves within the private sphere. This is even the case where they have a public and active role – as in this case – and are a demonstrable and positive impact on the development of their communities.

This epitomises a key challenge in the fight against gender inequalities: socio-cultural norms, which too often are still deeply rooted in outdated patriarchal ideas about women’s proper place. We understand that in the communities involved in this project live in rural settings, where such attitudes and disparities are more deeply entrenched. (But let’s not kid ourselves that it’s just rural settings in Pakistan that are affected by such norms. These norms are a problem globally.)

The areas where the project schools are located are characterised by evident and common gender imbalances, as far as opportunities and provisions vis-a-vis basic rights such as education are concerned. Boys get preferential treatment in relation to school enrolment, have more opportunities to continue their education beyond middle school and subsequently are much more likely to take up leading roles in economic, social, ethnic and religious spheres.

Although there is a national consensus in Pakistan for promoting girls’ participation in all spheres including education, it rarely trickles down to communities and settings such as these where the project is currently underway. In some instances, we see government or donor-supported programmes introduce initiatives to encourage girls’ participation but these fizzle out too quickly and do not necessarily result in the long-term and sustainable changes in attitudes, practices or social norms that would be necessary to leverage significant positive changes for women and girls.

So, although our project is leading to an improvement in gender equality with the children involved, changing mindsets in the wider community is a slower process. Sadly deep-rooted biases don’t change overnight. They are the reason we are unable to show the photographs of the women in this community who are really driving these transformative changes for children. These women remain ‘invisible’ irrespective of how much they contribute.

To help us challenge gender stereotypes and reach more girls and boys in Pakistan with our award winning work, please donate here.

Ambreena Ahmed, Project Manager at the Teachers Resource Centre (our partner in Pakistan), contributed to this post.